Thirst. That is what African American men and women in the U.S. were feeling in the 1950s and 1960s because of the discrimination and racism they were experiencing.

African Americans were able to drink water, but only from separate public fountains designated for their use. Different fountains, different water. African Americans had access to water whenever they needed it. They were free. But they were prevented from having access to the same water, the good water, that White people were drinking.

That was just one of many forms of discrimination and segregation that African Americans were suffering even after slavery was abolished. African Americans remained thirsty for both water and justice, which led them to the civil rights movement that sought social justice and equal rights under U.S. law.

Thirst, that is what 53 people felt right before they died on a tractor-trailer in San Antonio, Texas, on June 27, 2022. These “migrants,” as the press called them, these 53 men and women, adults and teenagers, died of heat exhaustion.

They were trying to come to the U.S. because of the dire situation in their home countries. No one would travel packed in with 50 other people at the back of a tractor-trailer, leaving everything and everyone behind, if they had had what they needed for a good life in their home countries. These people would not have risked their lives if they had had a good life, if they had not been thirsty. They came to the U.S. because they were thirsty for a good life, and thirsty, they died.

Contrary to what many people in Latin America believe, many in the U.S. today are also thirsty. Many years have passed since the civil rights movement, but not long ago, in 2014, a whole African American community went thirsty again. The tap water in Flint, Mich., became undrinkable due to corruption by state officials. Although the water in Flint is now safe to drink, residents are still relying on lead pipes for their water supply. Therefore, even to this day, the people in Flint are still suffering the consequences of drinking water with high levels of lead.

Flint residents are thirsty for both clean water and justice. As in Flint, many people in the U.S. are thirsty. Many Americans are living in tents in big and small cities across the U.S., including many White people who do not receive the benefits from the delusions of White supremacy. They are living without access to clean, safe, good water. Therefore, without access to justice.

Martin Luther King Jr. was thirsty. He was so thirsty that he often quoted Amos 5:24, “but let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” For thirsty people, for people who yearn for justice, this verse sounds refreshing. Justice rolling down like waters, like an ever-flowing stream. But for the ones that are filled, filled because the unjust social structures have played in their favor, Amos’s verse sounds like a flash flood that comes to wipe out everything in its path, everything that they have, which is why they used violence to preserve the system that keeps them full.

The book of Amos denounces over and over the social structures that are oppressive and unjust: “You sell people for silver; you trample on the heads of the poor; you deny justice to the oppressed.” Amos proclaims that God is coming to dismantle those unjust systems: “I will destroy your strongholds — your altars, your mansions, and your houses — houses you will not live in — vineyards from which you will never drink the wine.”

Sadly, many Christians in the U.S. are full, so they have been part of those systems of oppression in order to stay full. Many churches in the U.S. today emphasize the right relationship with God and consider that right or just relationships with fellow human beings are secondary or do not even matter at all. These churches emphasize moral and spiritual righteousness, as if righteousness and justice were two distinct concepts. “But let justice roll down like waters,” says the Lord in the book of Amos, and repeats the same idea but in other words, “and righteousness [roll down] like an ever-flowing stream.” This kind of poetic parallelism, in which the same idea is repeated in the next phrase with different words, is very common in the Old Testament. Justice and righteousness in the Bible are one and the same thing.

For those Christians and churches that insist that righteousness is possible without paying attention to justice, the waters — the ever-flowing stream — could be very destructive. The Lord says so in the context of that verse that Martin Luther King Jr. often quoted: “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 21:24). These condemning words are the reason why, in Jesus’s perspective, those in a better position before God are the thirsty ones, not the ones who are filled.

Matthew 5:6 says: “How blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice! For they will be filled.” And even better for this verse could be: “Congratulations to those who hunger and thirst for justice! They will have a feast.” Jesus is not blessing the people who hunger and thirst for justice, as if being hungry and thirsty is good. Jesus is saying that the ones who yearn for justice are the ones doing it right, the ones on the right side of history.

King’s famous quote says, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Contrary to what some people think, King is not proclaiming here a historical determinism, as if justice will come by itself in the end. This false hope does not hold in light of recent events in the U.S., which should have already destroyed any sense of progress people in this country may have had in the past.

Today, injustice is coming from people and places that should uphold justice, from those who have the authority and power to make things right. Reverend King did not proclaim a false hope but a spiritual truth. A kind of hope that only makes sense within the context of faith in Jesus because, apart from Him, there is no guarantee that things will get better. King’s notion of a moral arc of the universe bending towards justice is connected to his faith in the promise of God’s reign. In that regard, if our hope for justice is based on human progress, we will be forever thirsty.

Are we thirsty? Because if we are, we will be filled, we will be satisfied. But if we are not thirsty, if the world is giving us what we need in abundance, if the system is giving us more than what it gives to others, if we are filled while others go hungry and thirsty, maybe Jesus’s beatitudes are not for us. Maybe God’s words for us are the ones that are right after the beatitudes in the Gospel of Luke: “Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry.” (Luke 6:24-25a) If we are not thirsty and in communion with thirsty people, it is time to repent. Now, before it is too late, because justice will come like a river, like a powerful stream of water, says the Lord.

Many Christians today insist that the gospel has nothing to do with social justice, as if Jesus’s command to love God and one’s neighbor could be followed without public advocacy or social action. But as Cornel West famously reminds us, “Justice is what love looks like in public.”

Are we thirsty? Reading the newspaper or watching the news on TV should be enough to make us thirsty. It seems that injustice reigns. However, as Christians, we trust that God’s reign is still present in our midst. “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again” says Jesus in the Gospel of John, “but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14).

It is from Jesus that justice comes. He is the source of justice. It is because of Jesus’s power that his disciples, the church, receive the power to be a community of justice and to keep spreading God’s justice in the world: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink,” says Jesus in John again, “whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them” (John 7:37-38).

From within us, from our communities of faith, is where God’s justice comes and not from the powers that be, but from this little flock where God’s reign is present. It is not possible to witness God’s reign if the same injustices of the world are present in our midst. Living water must flow from within the Christian community to bring justice to everyone everywhere.

As it is impossible to live without good water, it is impossible to live without justice. Justice is like good water. Good water for everyone. As King wrote in his letter from the Birmingham Jail, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Everyone, whether in the U.S. or Latin America, whether in Flint or Minneapolis, needs justice to live a fulfilling life. Are we thirsty for good water, like African Americans in the 1950s and 1960s? Are we thirsty for good water, like the migrants packed in a tractor-trailer in Texas’s heat? Like people in Flint? Like people in Latin America and in Minneapolis today? Are Anabaptists thirsty enough to manifest God’s justice to everyone everywhere?

Are we thirsty?

Luis Tapia Rubio is an adjunct professor at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary and attends Portland Mennonite Church in Oregon. He holds a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Chile and a Master of Divinity in theological studies from AMBS, and is a Ph.D. candidate in theology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands.