Those woke prophets - let justice roll down!

By Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36612630

Amos 5:14-15,18-24 

The Amos reading starts halfway through chapter 5, if we had read the first part you would have seen this is one of three places in scripture where Matariki is mentioned - in our Bibles it is called Pleiades. It seems appropriate to be reading that so close to our own celebration of Matariki. 

Having just handed in my own essay this week - I was tickled pink to read the beginning of one commentator on Amos. 

“One can imagine a creative-writing instructor praising fiery Amos for the “punch” in this passage, with effusive comments in red pen at the top of the paper (“Excellent hyperbole!” “Evocative images!”), brackets around standout phrases, and “Great similes!” written in the margins alongside: justice like waters, righteousness like a stream, darkness like fleeing from a lion and running smack into a bear.

Amos generates some provocative poetry, but as companions go, he leaves something to be desired. Prophets are like that. They speak the truth that nobody wants to hear. They point to the ugliness that everyone is tiptoeing around. A prophet goes by other names too: a drag, a wet blanket, a spoilsport—a killjoy.” These days some people might call Amos “too woke”. One sermon on the prophets once finished, “And that is why this text ruins my day.” 

Last week I mentioned the Day of the Lord in Malachi at the end of our Old Testament. It was an idea often thought of with hope in the nation of Israel. It would be a return to the good old days when everything was right with the world. They looked back with rose-tinted glasses to the time when David was king. There is a recurring phrase in the book of 2nd Kings. It is used when describing many of Israel’s & Judah’s kings “he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord”. These kings would oppress their own people, and then finally we hear of invaders taking over the country and the people being taken into exile. In times like this people would long for the day of the Lord when things would be put right. It was like living in the Advent season of waiting for years at a time.

The people have convinced  themselves that the Day of the Lord will be a joy-filled celebratory day, a day for which they have only to wait, passively. Worship, it would seem, has become a way to pass the time, to honour God for the goodness bestowed upon the people, and to celebrate their status as the chosen. 

But you see it was not just the kings who did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, the people participated as well. The prophet Amos speaks here on behalf of a God furious with this attitude, an attitude under which the sick suffer unaided and the poor starve unheeded. Justice is not present in this place. In the coming Day of the Lord, that void will be filled by a God for whom justice and mercy are always priority.

We love our worship here - we love the music, the formality, the ritual, the familiar words, the regular weekly participation in the Eucharist. 

So what do we do with Amos’ words?

“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.”

What does God think of our worship? After all God is the object of our worship. 

Amos is not telling us that God despises worship per se. Amos is telling us that worshiping, respecting, and honouring God are not just about performing ritual. Ritual without action in the world is meaningless. Ritual without meaning behind it—or perhaps without the heart behind it—is pointless. The church cannot claim its calling by worship alone. God commands that we practice justice and that we help usher in the kingdom of God with our own hands in prayer and in deed. 

Jesus instituted the Eucharist - the words of our Great Thanksgiving prayer remind us of that every week. One of the ways we understand the Eucharist is as an enactment of the anticipated heavenly banquet. 

Jesus used the idea of the heavenly banquet, the wedding feast in several parables.

Father Richard Rohr said:

In the New Testament, and particularly for Jesus, the most common image for what God is offering us is a banquet. It’s not a trophy, not a prize, not a reward reserved for later, but a participative and joyous party now. A banquet has everything to do with invitation and acceptance; it is never a command performance. 

So our Eucharist is to enact God’s grace, generous hospitality and inclusion. In the New Testament times it was called the agape meal, the love feast. But it’s not supposed to stop at the love feast we have here in church - it is supposed to spill out into the community around us. Radical inclusion, mercy and forgiveness, justice which favours the poor and the oppressed. 

That’s what our dismissal is about

Go now to love and serve the Lord. Go in peace.

Amen. We go in the name of Christ.

If we stop with the music, the formality, the ritual, the familiar words, the regular weekly participation in the Eucharist, then we have missed the point. It matters deeply to God what we do when we leave here. How do we treat others? especially those whom society rejects and despises. How do we work to create a society which is truly just in the way God means just? A society which cares for the poor, the marginalised and the oppressed. A society where equity is one of our values. 

Public theology is theology in the public square for the public good. It is illustrated by God’s message in Jeremiah 29 to those who were living in exile in Babylon. God said But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.  How do we get involved in seeking the welfare of our city?  in promoting justice? in caring for the poor? in including people that our government would seek to exclude? There is a bill before parliament to define genders in such a way  that would legislate transpeople out of existence. The move-on orders want the homeless to be somewhere else, out of sight and out of mind so we can forget they exist. That is not God’s way. And it is not enough for us to attend church on Wednesdays and Sundays and participate in the music and ritual, however beautiful they may be. The dismissal is a way of saying ok now its time to leave an get our hands dirty. 

God requires our participation in the world so that justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. 

Last Thursday I attended a special morning prayer beginning a day of celebrating the 200th anniversary of the arrival of Henry Williams in Tauranga. Henry got his hands dirty. He risked his life trying to broker peace between warring tribes. When he and other missionaries saw the the incoming settlers were exploiting the indigenous people of this land, the tangata whenua, they proposed a treaty between the tangata whenua and the crown, in order to protect the rights of Māori. Henry was involved in translating the treaty into Te Reo Māori. And when he saw the crown breaking the treaty Henry spoke up to the authorities and challenged them. Henry didn’t come just to preach and convert. His worship overflowed into all his life as he worked for justice and peace. Henry got his hands dirty, he got stuck in. 

Overall, this text from Amos is a reminder that as much as God loves us, God also expects much of us, and God will speak strong truth when it needs to be said. Prophets like Amos remind us of God as the ruler over heaven and earth, the one who loves us unconditionally but also reminds us through admonishment that we have work to do, that we are indeed God’s hands and feet in the world.