Sermon on November 8, 2020: 23rd Sunday after Pentecost
“Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I am not a triumphalist. I confess that I do not believe in an arc of the moral universe, that bends toward justice. I am wary of the myth of human progress, and believe that human beings are on the whole no more virtuous now than we were three thousand years ago. Human culture and technology may change and advance, but human beings remain more or less the same, or so I think. Capable of the same manifestations of virtue and vice, of the same heights of love and inclinations toward hate, possessing the same expressions of desire, fear, and yearning.
The reason I am not a triumphalist is because I believe in what the Bible calls “the Day of the Lord.” It is a day of judgment, a day in which no one is triumphant. On this day, at the far end of time, all will stand before God and give an account of those things we have done and the things we have left undone. Everything that has hidden in the cover of darkness will come to light, and there is nothing that is hidden that will not be revealed. All the terror and injustice that went unanswered will finally be exposed, and all will be put to rights.
The Day of the Lord is a day of justice, but it is not an especially happy day. So says the prophet Amos, who is literally the prophet of doom and gloom. “Why do you want the day of the Lord?” Amos asks. “It is [a day of] darkness, not light … [a day of] gloom, with no brightness in it.” The reason that Amos is so gloomy is because his nation, ancient Israel, claimed a status as the people of God, all the while engaging in systemic oppression. Amos railed against them, how they “trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way.” This was a people who could perform the rituals of divine worship in one moment, and do violence to the poor in the next. For them, Amos had a word: God is not impressed. Neither is God fooled. “I despise your festivals,” says the Lord, through Amos. “I take no delight in your solemn assemblies … though you offer me offerings, I will not accept them.” Amos calls us back to that fundamental prophetic truth, which is that there is no such thing as right worship without right action. That God has no regard for our worship unless we are also seeking justice. And not a token, trickle-down justice, but a justice that comes like a flood. Rolling down like waters, like an everflowing stream.
After a week like the one we have had, maybe we are not quite in the mood for the prophet Amos. If we have emerged from the election feeling excited, Amos will rain on our parade. Or if we have emerged feeling disappointed, then the topic of divine judgment will not be very comforting. The Day of the Lord is, after all, not an especially winning platform. It’s a lot more fun to be a triumphalist, and to root for the human actors I can see than rely on the action of a God whom I cannot. It’s tempting to believe that those actors will be the ones to bring about a justice that rolls down like waters, a righteousness like an everflowing stream.
This is not an argument for centrism. Nor am I suggesting that we must abandon our own agency in cooperating with the justice of God—far from it. What I am saying is that we should not mistake presidential elections for the Day of the Lord, as if they can deliver the justice that will finally flow on down. Our witness as Christians requires far more.
Yesterday, our Diocese held its 237th convention—which this year was virtual, of course, because Covid. I and a few others gathered in the Parish Hall to watch the proceedings, which were live-streamed from the Cathedral. And right at the outset of the convention, we were treated to a video message from Michael Curry, who is the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church. This video is available on the diocesan YouTube page, if you wish to see it. Bishop Curry was reflecting on our work as Christians in this moment, in the political mess that we find ourselves, and he said that,
Yes, we must do justice and right the wrongs of the past. Yes, we must face the realities of what we have done and what has been wrong. Yes, there must be justice! But justice by itself is not enough. Justice must lead to a right ordering of things. It must lead to repairing the breaches, but it must ultimately lead to reconciliation, and the creation of God’s beloved community. If it falls short of that, it is not enough.
It is, in other words, an act of God—a justice, which flows to repairing of wounds, and to reconciliation, and to communion with God and with one another. An everflowing justice that rolls down like a flood. It may be an act of God, but it is also the work of the Church. The agency of God does not exclude, but invites. We are invited to wade in the everflowing stream of God’s justice, whether we’re happy with the state of the water, or not. Anything less than that, and we will not be ready when the Day of the Lord comes. We will be left in the dark, like the foolish bridesmaids in today’s gospel lesson, who didn’t have any oil in their lamps when Christ showed up, and the time came to light them.
To participate in that work of justice, in that repairing of the breach, we must undertake the hard work of listening. We must listen to the voices of the poor when they say they’re being crushed. We must listen to communities of color when they say they cannot breathe. To the neighbors in our midst who feel like they are invisible, and taken for granted. To these and other neighbors the church must listen, and then the church must act. Because the Day of the Lord is coming, and we will want to be ready when it comes. Not because we are feeling triumphant, confident of being on the right side of the moral arc of history, but because we have gotten used to listening, and have been doing the work all along, and are ready to see God’s justice flow.
As Bishop Curry said, if it falls short of that, it is not enough. As Christians, we are to imagine a world where we are reconciled to one another through the spirit of Christ within us. A reconciliation that is grounded in love, and seeks to uphold the dignity of the other. Such a world would begin to look like the kingdom of God. A world in which God will accept our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving because we have first made the sacrifice of love, by loving our neighbors as our selves. Loving our neighbors—all our neighbors—will always be a sacrifice. And it will make us into children of God, and heirs of eternal life.
I have spoken these words to you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.