What did you think when you learned this week about the pre-dawn arrests of illegal immigrants at sixty different Wal-Mart stores in twenty-one states? I have to admit I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Faces of people I know came to mind, faces of immigrants who are here legally but hanging on economically by the skin of their teeth struggling to pay rent, buy groceries, and make ends meet. When I thought of the 250 janitorial workers who immediately lost their jobs and will likely face deportation, my mind went to their family members both in the U.S. and in their home countries who would be affected, easily 800-1000 people dependent on those wage-earners. The workers came to the U.S. from homes and families in Mongolia, Brazil, the Czech Republic and many other eastern European countries as well a large group from Mexico. One of them, Victor Zavala and his wife Eunice both worked the night shift at one of the stores and are parents to three school-age children. They earned about $6.25 per hour working seven days each week with only Christmas and New Years Eve off – no social security, no taxes paid, and certainly no health insurance coverage. Who was taking advantage of their vulnerable position? Who else was benefiting from this arrangement with people who speak little or no English and are at the mercy of anyone who will hire them? Well… certainly the custodial contracting companies that recruited the workers, as well as the Wal-Mart corporation that received their services at a lower than market rate. Also people like you and I are benefiting, people who shop in the stores and enjoy cheaper prices due to the store’s lower overhead costs. We do benefit though we never see Victor or Eunice or the others who come in at 11:00pm and leave at 7:00, when most of us are just waking up ourselves. It has been said that not just U.S. citizens but also legal immigrants shun low-end jobs such as these. I wonder who is cleaning the stores this weekend and how much Wal-Mart will pay to replace the workers legally.

I have to admit it makes me angry when I think of the trauma and fear the custodial workers experienced this week, fear of what the future will bring for them. Certainly, we must have immigration laws and procedures but at the same time legal or illegal, the poor are drawn like water running downhill to our economy that needs their services. I have trouble sorting it all out and trying to figure out where to put the blame or how to fix the problem. That makes me even angrier. There is an injustice being done in the bigger picture – a world economy that forces people to leave their homes and families to eek out a living elsewhere far from everything that is familiar. And yet when they find the jobs where they are needed, they are arrested, jailed, or returned to their home countries. I struggle with what is right.

Our scripture lesson from the Prophet Amos reads in part, "Hear this, you that trample on the needy and bring to ruin the poor of the land, who buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals…" Biblical justice is more than a court system, it is an entire social system and its not really one of equality. Its also not "God helps those who help themselves." That was Benjamin Franklin, not God. Instead, Biblical justice is caring for those on the margins of society, helping the least of these, helping those who can’t help themselves. When the Hebrew slaves cried out to God in Egypt, God said to Moses, "I have seen their misery and heard their cry. I have come down to rescue them from the Egyptians." It was the first of the theme of God’s justice that repeats and repeats itself throughout scripture: the exodus from slavery, the exile and return from Babylon, and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. These stories of salvation are the core of our faith for a nation of people and for all humanity. Then Scripture fills in the in-betweens with the ways that we are directed to live out salvation, saving justice, on a one-on-one basis so we can experience God’s transforming presence in our lives, our community, and our world. We hear it in Exodus (22:22). "Don’t abuse the poor, the foreigner, the widow or the orphan for you were once foreigners in Egypt. If you ill treat them in any way, I will pour out my anger on you." The Prophet Isaiah (1:17) picks up the theme, "Search for justice, discipline the violent, be just to the orphan, plead for the widow." God speaking through the Prophet Jeremiah of a favored king said, "He used to examine the cases of the poor and needy then all went well. Is not that what it means to know God?" Then of course there are the many stories of Jesus’ ministry including the one read this morning. "But when did we see you hungry, thirsty, lonely or naked, sick or in prison…?" Do you remember how that passage ended? These were the words. "’Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." The justice endorsed in the Bible is not the figure of a woman carefully holding balanced scales. Instead it is a preferential option for the poor, the downtrodden, the oppressed, the disadvantaged. God’s scales are to be tipped in their favor.

Lets look at how that actually plays out. Have you ever been a little embarrassed to say that you are a Christian? We Presbyterians aren’t really into witnessing or testimonials. We wouldn’t want our outside friends, especially business associates, to think of us as wimpy, you know, "Turn the other cheek" and all that forgiveness stuff. Smile sweetly even when you are mad, don’t say anything mean, forgive the other guy no matter what he did and truly love each other. Those are the most important guidelines to be a person of faith, right? Well, no, not according to the Pentateuch, the Prophets, or the Gospels. There is more to it than that. God gets angry and God calls us to get angry when people are not being cared for, are slipping through the cracks. God’s anger is rooted in compassion for people whose lives are at the margins, who are the victims of abusive power. The good news is that you don’t need to stifle your compassionate anger because it can be a catalyst for change. Anger can be good! Paul Farmer is an incredible doctor from the United States who has spent most of his adult life caring for people in Haiti, fighting all kinds of oppressive powers with his wit and intelligence and his anger. His story is told in the new best seller, Mountains Beyond Mountains.1 In it Farmer paraphrases our Matthew scripture for today by saying, "‘When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. When I was sick, when I was in prison, you visited me.’ Then he says, ‘Inasmuch as you did it NOT, you are screwed!’" His language is colorful, not really pulpit talk, but his point is right on. In as much as we are not actively compassionate to the one lying by the side of the road, whether she be Greek or Jew or Samaritan, male or female, black or white, Christian or Muslim, Israeli or Palestinian, Mexican or Guatemalan, legal or illegal, homosexual or heterosexual, Democrat or Republican, Alzheimers or AIDS victim, employed or unemployed – in as much as we don’t see people as human beings, elevate them in our own personal priority and respond, our society and our world will never be transformed into the world God calls us to be.

Now the wonderful thing is, I feel like I’m preaching to the choir. Many of you already have your radar out in your careers or in your volunteer work or just in your day-to-day life responding to justice issues in our local area or in the world. Yesterday, eight adults and youth went to San Francisco to work on a community Habitat for Humanity project for and with families needing a home.

This week I spoke with two congregation members about justice situations in their own lives where they had felt anger and compelled to respond. The first happened forty years ago but it seems like yesterday and is still remembered as life changing for the woman who told the story. Even as a young child, she remembers often identifying with people who experienced injustice. At age fifteen, a high school freshman in the Bronx High School of Science, she informed her parents that she was going in a van with friends to the March on Washington and to hear Martin Luther King, Jr. They tried to change her mind but she insisted, compromising only by promising to sleep at the home of a relative who lived in Washington, D.C. At the Washington monument, she heard King deliver his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Today she says, "I need to keep the hope and spread the hope that for every Saddam Hussein there is a Mother Teresa or a Martin Luther King, Jr."

The second person had been studying the situation in Afghanistan for several years with a growing anger for the ways girls and women were being treated by the Taliban. In June she traveled there with a group looking for opportunities to return and teach science to young children, especially to girls. With some possible options, she ended her trip but wrestled with the idea of returning to teach. Was it fair to her family? How could she get her supplies there and how would she cover the expenses? Still uncertain but feeling a very strong pull to go back, she took a walk alone on the Mill Valley bike path on the Fourth of July. She found she was in continuous conversation with herself (and maybe with God) from Mill Valley to Sausalito and back again. When she got home, she was certain. She must return to teach poor children in Kabul about yeast and magnets and steam and more, much more. Once there in August, she began her "hands-on" science lessons by telling each class, "Knowing how things work will give you power – the power of knowledge and the power to change things." Fifty or sixty children crowded around her each day. Not only the children but also the adults were fascinated with this strange woman from the United States who would travel across the world just for them.

God is not calling us all to Haiti or Afghanistan or even to Washington, D.C. but often there are local situations that make us angry. Several congregants wrote letters and attended meetings to fight the changes in the bus system, changes that affected low-income people in Marin. What makes you angry today? What issue is calling you to compassionate justice? Jesus’ ministry was more actions than rules, move involvement with others than a list of beliefs. Being a Christian can be exhausting! We don’t always succeed in balancing the scales toward those in need or righting the wrongs that are embedded in our culture and world. It is hard work and can make us feel spiritually depleted. As Jesus took the boat across the lake, away from the crowd to pray, we also need to maintain a balance. We need to be fed by scripture and prayer and by a community that understands and is supportive. We hope you find that support within this church community. The Spiritual Life Commission that inspired this sermon series invites you to join us at 11:15 to share the issues of justice in our world and ways we can be of support to each other as we live our faith today.