In our series on the prophets so far, we’ve looked at what “judgment” means. We’ve discussed how to read the prophets by exploring Isaiah’s own call and personal repentance. Today we will be addressing another critical issue and it’s all about one word.
Have you ever used the wrong word? I recently came across a writer who invited readers to send her funny stories of people using the wrong word. Here are a few:
A librarian shared that she had a student come to her and ask for a copy of the “Community Man Pesto.”
A worker at a deli told of a time someone asked for a Chupacabra sandwich instead of Ciabatta.
An optometrist mentioned a time when a patient told her that she needed new glasses because she had a “stigmata.”
And a pharmacist wrote of someone who came in with a cold and asked for “euthanasia” rather than echinacea.
Not to be outdone, having learned a number of foreign languages myself, I once told a friend in Germany: Ich habe eine gift für dich. Unfortunately, the word I was looking for was not Gift but Geschenk; the word “gift” in German means poison.
So getting the word wrong can be funny, painful, or even result in a massive mistake. And this is certainly true for our prophetic word for the day: justice. What is it? What does it mean? And how do we do it? And if you’re paying attention, hopefully you notice something odd. We’re talking about a word that doesn’t appear in our passage.
Why am I talking about “justice” from a passage that doesn’t even mention the word but that actually talks about “worship? The Hebrew word used for worship in vs. 2 is a powerful image. Its origins literally mean to “bow down” or “prostrate one’s self” in order to acknowledge another’s greatness or status and offer allegiance. We often think of such a practice as a focus solely on God coupled with feelings of joy or peace as something done only for God or an act that happens only at church. That’s what the people of Judah thought. They imagined a magical bubble of protection – that by going to worship, performing sacrifices, reverencing the temple – they had accomplished what God truly wanted. That they could simply say, “the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord,” and all would be well. And God wants to reorient us, to say to us, “Great! You want to worship me? Then look over here at the hurting and help them. That’s worship.” This isn’t meant to play adoration against action but if your adoring doesn’t have you looking at the hurting and oppressed, you’re not doing it right. The book of Proverbs states: He who oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, He who is kind to the needy honors God” (14:31). We should adore God because by doing so we learn of God’s love and transformed by it. Jeremiah will state that it is by knowing God that we will do justice for God (Jer. 9:23-24). You aren’t doing it right. And this is a repeated critique of God and the prophets, including Jesus, throughout Scripture. And it’s always one way – critiquing people who want to adore God but aren’t helping others. I know of no instance where people are helping others and God says, “Hey, why aren’t you worshiping me?” Friends, in this next year we must give up a Sunday life for a Jesus life that has worshiping everyday by caring for others. Early Christians prophetically understood that worship of God and justice were two sides of the same coin. They illustrated this reality through the image of a wheel.
In the image, the center of the wheel was God and the spokes were believers. They pointed out that as one moved closer to center which is God, the spokes naturally drew closer together as well. So we reverence God because in doing so God reveals to us his heart for the poor and oppressed, God transforms our lives to make us like God’s self, which in turn has us cooperating with God to help others (Jeremiah 17:5-8). Jeremiah will state the connection between worship and justice speaking of King Josiah:
Just-worship is doing right for the marginal without adjective or caveat.
I often want to supply words to our text, to offer clarifications which never occur. Like many in our society, I want to add words like “deserving” foreigner, or “well-behaved” fatherless, or “thankful widow.” I want to know that the people I help are truly responsible, legal, upstanding, or deserving. I want to echo the sense that justice is people getting what they deserve but because there is no caveat we are left with a powerful redefinition of what justice is.
Justice throughout the prophets is not some figure of blind indifference or abstract equality. Justice clearly proceeds from the fact that God sees and knows and holds a bias in favor of the poor and involved not a balancing of the scales but a promotion of mercy, compassion and grace.
Justice is about people getting their needs met. It is not about objective indifference but an act of love. When people aren’t getting their needs met everyone, including the earth (plants and animals), suffers. It’s interesting, for example, that Jeremiah claims that the wickedness of idolatry and following other gods is not because God is some how self-centered and simply can’t stand others getting the lime-light. No, Judah should not follow other gods because it causes self-harm. Jeremiah was born in the last decade of King Manasseh’s rule. He was the worst king the Hebrews every had, offering a reign of evil that lasted for fifty-five years. He encouraged pagan worship that involved whole communities in sexual orgies. He installed cult prostitutes at shrines throughout the countryside for financial gain. He imported wizards and sorcerers who manipulated people and killed prophets, like Isaiah who was Manasseh’s own grandfather. One day he placed his son on the altar in some black and terrible ritual of witchcraft and burned him as an offering (2 Kings 21:6).
Just-worship is about stopping and starting.
There are two questions that are interrelated as we seek justice. Are we harming others (“do not”)? Are we helping others? Neither question by itself is adequate. We must do both. We must ask both of ourselves. There is a sense in which it can feel overly negative to decry injustice, to speak not always or only with solutions but also with the sheer force of “stop it,” even when we don’t know exactly what to do. I recently discovered an ABC segment called “What Would You Do” which created scenarios using actors in public to test people’s reactions to an incident of injustice – like a man mocking someone with Down Syndrome in a restaurant, or football fans being harassed in a store because they were gay. In every instance – justice began when people had the courage to confront the aggressor and say, “Stop it.” One of the real distinctions of the prophets is that they never felt like a lack of knowing what to do should silence calling out of injustice.
In vs. 3 Jeremiah offers this phrase “reform your ways and your actions” and these are different ways of saying the same thing, of providing emphasis. When he repeats the same phrase in vs. 5 he adds another clarifier to ways and actions, he says, “and deal with each other justly.” That “deal with each other” makes the project not a solo one or even an “us-help-them-one” but suggests a relationship of mutuality, respect and love. You have to know others to know their need. And the fact is, they also can minister to us. Charity is fine in a pinch. You don’t have to necessarily form a direct relationship with the guy on the street corner who needs a dollar that you have to get something to eat. But justice, what God ultimately desires, does demand a relationship. This is what we mean by saying Biblical justice is social justice. It’s born out of relationship and beyond mere notions of charity. But it’s more than simply a relationship with those you help but also a relationship with those you help with.
Just-worship is and isn’t about “you.”
It always takes a certain effort to imagine ourselves as the foreigners to this text. As hearing ourselves as the outsiders that Jeremiah wasn’t actually addressing. We are foreigners who need these words translated. And perhaps the most important translation note is that there is not one instance of second person singular pronoun in our passage. “You” are not in this text. And that means, friends, you are not alone, which is one of the more hopeful things we should remember. You are not alone in the justice that God demands of you. You are not alone in your failure and your repentance when you struggle. And you are not to be alone in the gospel extension of that justice which seeks to bring people far and near, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, men and women, black and white, friend and enemy - everyone to the table to feast in the Kingdom of God when and where we will worship without restraint and without measure. That’s justice.
