This is the third in our series on worship. These first sermons in the series have focused our core values as we have thought about how it is that our coming together to worship the living God, to express our gratitude and love, to remember all that God has done for us, to lament and to rejoice helps us to know God and to build relationships. Today, as you have already heard, we are considering what it is to worship God and to do justice.

I believe that we give ourselves to God because God deserves our faithfulness; after all, God has been faithful to us; here we have been kept by God all this time, held by God when pain and sorrow overwhelm us, comforted by God when our lives are falling apart, God is with us in times of celebration.

God deserves our worship because God has the power to change us from the inside out so that our lives reflect the good news that God is worthy of our desire to know God; that if we know God we will form and build relationships that are mutually loving, respectful, caring, and trustworthy. And if we can build good, ethical, relationships, we will do justice.

We do not have to look too closely to see that there is still too much racism, too much sexism, too much homophobia among us. Too many people are locked out of opportunity because of age, or income, or education, or where they live, or how they worship, or how they speak. We may look at them and want to help and we should. And as we do, we need to ask ourselves, are we doing charity or are we doing justice? What is the

difference? Charity asks, how can we provide some relief to those suffering from injustice. Might we help stock the local community pantry with food, and diapers for the nursery? Should we not, if we are able, tutor a struggling student, open our homes and our hearts to people without discrimination? I pray that the answer is yes, because those are all good things, and all are worthy of our doing them. But they are more charity than justice. Charity is short term, one on one assistance.

Justice is long term, systemic, and impacts a wide number of people. Justice takes a big picture look at what is wrong, and goes about the work of setting it right, and we are all the better for it. Justice looks at the deep rooted why questions. Why do some people believe that pigmentation, gender, orientation, not only makes them better than others, but empowers them to enact laws that say so? Why do we struggle to achieve parity in education, safe, decent, and affordable housing, and health care thus raising the quality of life for the largest number of people? What can we do?

How do we say to every institution, including the church, that the justice of God requires that we act justly, righteously, ethically because we are God’s people, God’s human representatives of God’s justice?

Look at what Nehemiah did. He got angry at the injustice he saw. He thought about what he could do and he acted. Every justice movement throughout history – movements for peace, movements for quality education, movements for the right to cast a fairly counted vote in a free and fair election, to movements toward enacting laws that do not infringe on human dignity to movements for a living wage, began when someone got angry. They did not just fly off the handle, but they really thought, they planned, they strategized, how can we act together, because justice is a community enterprise, it takes all of us standing together for just change to take place.

Nehemiah called a meeting. He brought the exploiters together with the people, so that they would be held accountable for the injustices they were doing. He reminded them that what they were doing was wrong, it was against God’s laws of justice, fair treatment, and it was unrighteous. We feel the sting of injustice any time it happens to us, but when it comes from your own household, your own neighbor, your own government, your friends, your cultural companions, your church, the sting is sharper, the mark lasts a long time, and the would is slow to heal.

Frederick Douglass said, "power concedes nothing without a demand, it never has and it never will". Nehemiah, acting on behalf of the people, made some demands. He explained to them that the people who had been exploited, raped, and stripped of dignity and freedom have been bought back. Shame on you for demanding their slavery again. Should you not walk with God, according to God’s call for justice? We are a laughingstock to our enemies! We look like fools to them. Stop taking interest and give back what you have collected. Restore their fields to them, give them back their property and their families, and their freedom.

Some folks might have walked out, but we know that God can move people to do right, especially when people are prepared and watching. The ones called before the people said, "we will restore it all. We will give back the interest, the fields, the people." The BREAD organization follows this model in their work. In fact, they have begun calling their mass meetings Nehemiah Assemblies, and Nehemiah 5 is an example for organizing in their "Rethinking Justice" workshop.

That is how the BREAD organization has gotten things done. They research and make their concerns known to people who can effect change, and they hold them accountable.

Nehemiah held people accountable for what they said they would do. It is one thing to agree to something, but there is more power and more accountability when an agreement is treated as sacred. The priests were called to witness and record the promises made that day. If you have ever been an advocate for something, you know it becomes real when the documents are signed and notarized, when the bill is signed and the Mayor’s signature, or the Governor’s, or the President’s is on the page and their official seal is affixed to it. You know it is real when you sign your name.

Justice is promised, sealed by a covenant and the promise of God’s judgment. Nehemiah shakes out the folds of his robes as a sign that God will shake out from the community whoever makes this promise and then violates it.

The people said Amen! And they celebrated the victory of justice over injustice. And the promises made were kept.

What a glorious world we would have, one restored to God’s blessed plan for it, if we could name the injustices we see; gather people to hold the unjust accountable, go to a meeting relying on God’s grace when we are being held accountable. Do all that we can to make right what is wrong. Say a loud Amen! May it be so, God, and celebrate with joy and thanksgiving that justice has come. May the justice seeking God we worship make it so indeed. Amen.