Southwest Community Church
November 9

      • 1 Corinthians 13:13NRSVUE

      • Lamentations 3:22–23NRSVUE

  • One Thing Remains (Your Love Never Fails)
  • Lord I Need You

  • Sermon Intro

    Review

    Patriarchs - Abraham, Isaac & Jacob
    Jacob - Wrestling & Limping
    Moses - A Reluctant Messenger
    Elijah - A Voice in the Silence - The Lord was not in the fire
    Amos - Justice Like a River
    A shift in the kind of literature… Bible is comprised of many books, many authors, many time periods, etc.
    And so what we’re reading matters.
    So far in this series, we’ve been reading narratives… from Genesis, Exodus and 1 Kings. So, even though we moved from the Patriarchs to the Prophets Moses & Elijah, we were still reaading texts that were narrative. We were reading stories told about the prophets. The narrative accounts of what happened when Moses & Elijah were prophets in Israel.
    Now we shift from narrative to prophetic literature. And it’s DIFFERENT!
    We move from story to hearing from a prophet - who hears God and speaks for God to the people. And the prophet tells us how God views what’s happening at that time
    Prophecy - when you hear that word, you might think about predictions of the future.
    But prophecy in scripture is not like a fortune cookie or a horoscope.
    The prophet will speak about what God thinks of a current situation. And then sometimes the prophet will talk about the future, but it’s not prediction so much as forecasting or showing the people where the trajectory they’re on is leading.
    The minor prophets in particular, sometimes referred to as “the Twelve” are full of writing about justice and repentance. Two key themes throughout these works of prophetic literature.
    And throughout, worship is often tied to justice - as it will be in our text today.
    Think of Micah 6:8 which we usually use at the start of our services:
    Micah 6:8 NRSVue
    8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?
    Or Isaiah 1:17
    Isaiah 1:16–17 NRSVue
    16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove your evil deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil; 17 learn to do good; seek justice; rescue the oppressed; defend the orphan; plead for the widow.
    So, with Amos, he is going to speak some harsh words in his book - but those are words of warning. Those are messages to draw attention to where the road they are on is going to end up.
    But it’s really important to remember that in prophetic literature the words of judgment are for the sake of repentance. The alarm bells pointing out injustice are so that there can be a call to justice. If you don’t know how dangerous the direction you are heading is, you might not stop and think about turning around.
    So justice and repentance are connected. And throughout the prophets, there is also a connection between worship and justice. There is a circular image that comes up again and again, our worship, our Godward actions are to be lived out in our horizontal actions - our individual, but also our collective and our systemic actions toward other humans. They go together and they are meant to. We cannot worship God and then treat others badly. (Well, we CAN, but God is not happy about that and repeatedly says so through the prophets.
    There will be the mention of festivals and solemn assemblies… which were things that God had previously asked the people to do. But in our text, God will speak negatively about their worship in these ways - not because they aren’t the things God commanded, but because they are neglecting the other things God asked - the doing justice, loving mercy, walking humbly parts.
    Amos - a prophet in the 8th centure BCE
    The book of Amos confronts its readers with the harsh reality of a world where human injustice reigns. Victims and victimizers walk across the stage and sometimes switch roles. Human beings become commodities, and physical objects become gods. To stem the tide of cruelty, the book’s poetry evokes new worlds and provokes change. (Mark Hamilton)

    Reading

    Amos 5:14–15 NRSVue
    14 Seek good and not evil, that you may live, and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, just as you have said. 15 Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
    Amos 5:21–24 NRSVue
    21 I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. 22 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. 23 Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. 24 But let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
    This is the Word of the Lord.
    Thanks be to God.

    Sermon

    Amos gives three things to his original audience that I think are also applicable to us: a reality, a challenge and an image

    A reality.

    First of all, Amos provides a reality: worship & justice go together. They are intertwined and not meant to be separated.
    Orthodoxy and orthopraxy if you will - right worship AND right practice.
    Right vertical relationships woven with right horizontal relationships.
    Relating to God AND to other human beings (and all of creation) in right ways.
    OT scholar Charles Aaron Jr. puts it like this: “Good worship follows labor on behalf of the poor, the powerless, the vulnerable. Good worship compels the congregation out into the world to advocate on their behalf.” 
    You might well be asking, what do you mean by justice?
    Three definitions:
    Attributed to Augustine of Hippo:
    “Justice is giving each person their due.”
    Joash Thomas in The Justice of Jesus:
    “Justice is giving to each person the good things that God intended for them.”
    [Philosophy Professor and provocative Black intellectual Dr. Cornel West defines it this way… ]
    Dr. Cornel West:
    “Justice is what love looks like in public.”
    Justice
    Giving each person their due. (Augustine)
    Giving each person the good things God intended for them. (Thomas)
    What love looks like in public. (West)
    As people who want to centre our lives on the living God, we are called to worship AND to pursue justice. We do this on three levels - as individuals, as a community, and systemically.
    personal convictions
    influenced by belonging to a community where we both care about people not like us, and work together for the good of our own community members AND those in our city and world (connect with a CAUSE, Benevolent fund - inside & adjacent)
    which leads us to work for change - to “go upstream” and seek to prevent oppression or injustice - not just for ourselves, but also for others.
    Amos calls out the reality that worship & justice are intertwined. And that they’re meant to be that way.
    Amos also hints at the reality that hope is always on the horizon. God’s mercy and grace is never far off, after all.
    Amos 5:15 NRSVue
    15b it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
    Verse 15’s “perhaps YHWH God of Hosts will show mercy” introduces hope amid uncertainty. Amos’s readers of every era would have preferred “surely” to “perhaps,” but the prophetic text must leave space for God’s free choice and the uniquely divine capacity for proper assessment of the human situation. No righteous action can rig the divine will in our favor, just as no evil action can shut the door to mercy for all time.  -Mark Hamilton
    God has been gracious - to Abraham, Isaac & Jacob. To Jacob’s sons, to Joseph himself, and through Joseph to the whole family. And God has continued to be gracious to the people … under Moses they are led out of Egypt, through the waters on dry land, and through the wilderness until they finally reach the promised land. God is gracious to Elijah and through him to the widow and her son and then to whole people of Israel. Now, towards the end of the divided kingdom, there is a glimmer that God’s graciousness has not run out after all. There is still time to remember the reality that worship and justice are intertwined.
    We are called by a God who is love to live out of that love - both in how we interact with God and with all that God has made. Love is what love looks like in public. God’s justice is what love looks like in public. And the justice we are able to do and to establish is also what love looks like in public. Justice for individuals, for communities and justice that works itself out in the systems we create and oversee.
    The reality. Justice is intertwined with worship of a gracious God.
    But what about the challenge?

    A challenge.

    Amos issues a challenge. As the prophet, he speaks the truth about the 8th century BCE situation. And it’s not good. What is meant to be intertwined has come apart. And while festivals and solemn assemblies continue, while burnt offerings & grain offerings are being done as instructed, there is a neglect of justice and God is not pleased.
    Amos 2:4 NRSVue
    4 Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they have rejected the instruction of the Lord and have not kept his statutes, but they have been led astray by the same lies after which their ancestors walked.
    Amos 2:6–8 NRSVue
    6 Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals— 7 they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and push the afflicted out of the way; father and son go in to the same young woman, so that my holy name is profaned; 8 they lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge; and in the house of their God they drink wine bought with fines they imposed.
    If Amos compares how things are meant to be - the reality that worship & justice are inextricably intertwined - then naming the current reality issues a challenge. They are led astray from doing justice and loving mercy, and so any appearance of walking humbly with God is just that - an appearance.
    We, like the ancient people of God, are prone to separating justice and worship, too.
    In fact, in the western church, there is often a view that justice is an optional add-on, for people “who care about that sort of thing.” But if pressed, we often seem to view the gospel as having little to do with justice. And this is a problem. It’s a problem because it’s not what we read in the pages of scripture. It’s a problem because it takes what the Old and New testaments say and sidestep the call to keep worship and justice intertwined. It’s also a problem for us in the west because of our insistence on thinking of things through an individualistic lens. We forget that we are not ONLY individuals, but also part of communities. The western focus on the individual shows up when we thinking about the gospel - how do I get saved? vs. how is God fulfilling the promise to make all things new, including me? And how am I being invited to partner with God in the renewal of all things?
    I’ve been reading a new book written by Joash Thomas … and I highly recommend his book The Justice of Jesus!
    Following Joash Thomas here -
    Joash suggests that the Justice of Jesus is radically inclusive, holistic, expensive, nonviolent… and worth the trouble!
    His book’s subtitle is telling: Reimagining Your Church’s Life Together to Pursue Liberation and Wholeness. It’s a good book that will challenge its readers to think about how we can prioritize justice as individuals and as communities, both of which contribute to systemic change.

    An image

    After describing and affirming the reality that justice and worship are intertwined and then challenging the people (and us!) to see how we’ve de-prioritized justice and then convinced ourselves that it’s okay, Amos ends with an image.
    It’s a dramatic image of water, beginning as little trickles gradually flowing down and gathering until it’s a mighty river. Little acts of righting wrongs, of doing justice, add up to something much bigger. The justice of God that we see expressed in Jesus is like a mighty river flowing down towards the ocean. That little creek up on the hillside? It doesn’t seem like much. But as we see every year when the Thompson rivers swell, those little creeks and streams all add their part and eventually, we see the water levels rise and the currents grow stronger and swifter even to the point of danger.
    Justice is a river. Let it flow, says Amos. Add your little trickles. But also, stop building damns.
    Mark Hamilton: Verse 24 hopes for, invites, commands—what is the right verb?—the people to “let justice roll down like a river and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
    A path of escape from doom remains open. The community, dependent on its memory of redemption during the exodus, may travel that path. They may mend tears in the fabric of community by regarding each other as worthy recipients of divine mercy, as expressed in human practices of due process of law and the equitable distribution of basic resources. 
    They can still return to the practices of giving to each person the good things God intends. They can still practice love in public.
    And when we see systems that are set up and propped up and even maintained that are unjust, we speak out. Saying “this is not okay” is the first step towards doing something to make it different.
    Mark Hamilton puts it this way: “the criticism of oppressive leaders and systems provides hope for their victims. To see, acknowledge, and regard the suffering of those who lost their small farmsteads to greedy nobles, or toiled to pay off debts so that their creditors might enjoy luxuries, is the first step in remedying their situation. Even when the words do not lead to new programs or policies, they lead to an altered mental reality, and that, in time, leads to an altered external reality. Right attitudes, values, and actions lead to right structures.”

    Prayer

    This morning on my walk, I listened to the “Pray as you go” app… as is my practice. It offers a song and a bible reading and some space to pray and I find it really helpful. The song this morning was a short refrain from the French community of Taizé…
    Alluding to Romans 4, it says
    The kingdom of God is justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit
    Come now and open in us the gates of your kingdom.
    Lament
    Things are not as they should be in the world You made and love.
    The kingdom of God is justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit
    Come now and open in us the gates of your kingdom.
    Repentance
    Things are not as they should be in the us, in me.
    The kingdom of God is justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit
    Come now and open in us the gates of your kingdom.
    Intercession
    We lift before You the areas of need in our own lives, and in the lives of our community, our city, our country and our world.
    The kingdom of God is justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit
    Come now and open in us the gates of your kingdom.

      • Micah 6:8NRSVUE

      • Isaiah 1:16–17NRSVUE

      • Amos 5:14–15NRSVUE

      • Amos 5:21–24NRSVUE

      • Amos 5:15NRSVUE

      • Amos 2:4NRSVUE

      • Amos 2:6–8NRSVUE

  • You Hold It All
Southwest Community Church
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