My informal education in justice began on a playground in first grade. While hard at play I witnessed an unsuspecting child being hit in the back, and when she turned around, all she saw was me. Her immediate assumption was that I had struck her, at least that’s the story she would tell the on-duty recess teacher. Unfortunately the recess teacher didn’t believe my account of what actually happened. The kid hiding behind the big tree was the real culprit. I was spanked with a wooden paddle and lost my recess for something I wouldn’t think of doing.

Everything in me knew I had been greatly wronged, yet I felt powerless to do anything about it. I was crushed.

Amos 1:2 introduces the powerful roar of the Lord, “The Lord’s voice will roar from Zion and thunder from Jerusalem.” This is a roar in defense of image bearers crushed by systems of injustice.

The prophet Amos exposes the inhumanity of injustice:

• “They beat down my people in Gilead as grain is threshed with iron sledges” (Amos 1:3b).
• “They broke their treaty of brotherhood with Israel, selling whole villages as slaves to Edom” (Amos 1:9).
• “They sell honorable people for silver and poor people for a pair of sandals. They trample helpless people in the dust and shove the oppressed out of the way” (Amos 2:6-7).

At its core, the cruelties of injustice are an affront to a holy and just God and a denial of the inherent value and dignity He’s given to each person made in his image.

But more than just making a big roar about inequity, justice is the work that God is doing right now in the earth.

“This is what the LORD says:
“Don’t let the wise boast in their wisdom,
or the powerful boast in their power,
or the rich boast in their riches.
But those who wish to boast
should boast in this alone:
that they truly know me and understand that I am the LORD
who demonstrates unfailing love
and who brings justice and righteousness to the earth
(Jeremiah 9:23-24).”

We demonstrate that we truly know Him when we participate in practicing works of love: actively working justice—righting wrongs wherever we can and upholding the rights of the disadvantaged wherever we are.

May we truly know Him as we live lives of justice and may He be our whole boast!

*For deeper reflection, listen to Amos 1 today!

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