Picketers, Five hundred Dollar Dresses, and Justice

Laurie and I had left our hotel with the intent of checking out the well known San Francisco Macy’s store across from Union Square. As we approached the intersection of Mason and Geary, we heard an obnoxious, grating voice shouting through a bullhorn, “We get no justice; you get no peace!” As we turned the corner, we could see a group of picketers in front of one of the many hotels located in the Union Square area. From what I could tell, the hotel management was fighting against the workers’ attempts to organize and unionize. The workers formed a tight circle and marched persistently, repeating their mantra over and over, “We get no justice; you get no peace!” As we made our way to Macy’s, the obnoxious, amplified voice followed us down the street.

As we arrived at the store, we immediately realized that this had to be one of the largest Macy’s in existence. It was B-I-G huge! The first floor was humongous and it was only one of seven! It also seemed that with every ascension, up the escalator to the floor above, the prices seemed to increase. By the time we reached the third floor we were looking at $500 dresses! Meanwhile, like a broken record, that phrase kept running through my mind, “We get no justice; you get no peace!” Whether it was the shock of a $500 price tag, I don’t know, but standing there in the aisle of the Lady’s Department at Macy’s, I realized the strong possibility that those picketers had a message for a much broader audience than just the management of that hotel. To the management, to the patrons of the hotel, and possibly, even to the pedestrians passing by, they were declaring the decision that they had made, “We get no justice; you get no peace!”

I mulled all this over in my mind while walking through Macy’s. I remembered the passage from the prophet Amos that had been read earlier in class as we considered what it meant to be a prophetic activist. The prophet Amos declared to the Israelites, "I can't stand your religious meetings. I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making. I've had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you sang to me? Do you know what I want? I want justice—oceans of it. I want fairness—rivers of it. That's what I want. That's all I want” (Amos 5:21-24, The Message).

I’m guessing the best we can do is to struggle with the hard reality that God demands justice and God requires that we act justly (Micah 6:6-8). How we do it – how it works, I’m not always sure. What I am sure of is that there are those who cross our paths, who, if they get no justice; we get no peace.