Waters and Streams

Jason Freyer

Lectionary • Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago

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We can do all the right things, and behave in all the right ways, but if we are not advocates for justice and righteousness, we are not in line with God's hope for the world.

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Transcript

Text

There are a few texts that can, and do, keep me up at night.

This one is one of them, particularly from my perch as a leader of worship:

The New Revised Standard Version The Day of the Lord a Dark Day

18 Alas for you who desire the day of the LORD!

Why do you want the day of the LORD?

It is darkness, not light;

19 as if someone fled from a lion,

and was met by a bear;

or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall,

and was bitten by a snake.

20 Is not the day of the LORD darkness, not light,

and gloom with no brightness in it?

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 waters,

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Background

The book of Amos was compiled during the reigns of Jeroboam II of Israel and Uzziah of Judah.

These are the two little countries that formed after the bigger country of Israel had split.

And they’ve been in a constant state of war for a little while, that has just started to calm down under the reign of these two kings.

“In this period, Israel attained a height of territorial expansion and national prosperity never again reached. At the same time, this prosperity led to gross inequities between urban elites and the poor.”

The country as a whole is getting richer, while the gap between the richest and the poorest is getting bigger and bigger.

Try to imagine a country like that...

Amos is a prophet, which is a biblical office that is rather misunderstood.

They are not future tellers, per-se.

Prophets frequently speak to the kings and queens of Israel, about both their faith and the way they lead their civil society.

Prophets are inherently and radically political.

They’re also kind of shock artist, gorilla poets.

If anyone here is a fan of Ezekiel 4:9 bread, you may want to read the rest of the verse before you make a purchase.

So if any of this catches you off guard, that’s exactly the point. That’s what Amos is aiming for.

The Day of the Lord

It’s not what you think...

Remember, Israel here is at the height of their power.

Truly, in just a few years it’s all downhill from here for this tiny nation.

But at the moment they are financially well off.

They are sovereign, able to worship however they feel led.

This sometimes comes back to bite them, but more on that later.

They have convinced themselves that their success is because God is on their side.

But…they’ve managed to achieve all this success by working against God’s instruction and plan.

A country that consists entirely of liberated slaves has built their temple to the God who liberated them…using slave labor.

So they have kind of convinced themselves that the Day of the Lord, when all will be as God intends it to be, will be a good bit like what they’re experiencing right now.

And Amos here starts to say…hold on a second.

It’s not paradise until it’s paradise for everybody.

And if you think you’ve got it right when this much is wrong, it’s going to have this three-stooges like calamity.

You think you’ve run away from the lion of war, but you’ve fallen upon the bear of injustice, only to escape that and rest your hand on the wall of financial stability to get bitten by the snake of inequality.

It’s an argument that Amos has been making this whole book, but he has something specific to talk about in this chapter.

Worship

In the Jewish religion at this time, worship was a little bit different than what we have here today.

Their year was marked by this endless stream of festivals and rituals.

My rabbi friend told me that you can’t throw a rock at a calendar and not hit a festival.

And these festivals came with big showy sacrifices.

There were prescriptions for sins and sacrifices. If you messed up A badly, you make B sacrifice.

To be sure there was a cleansing piece to the sacrifice, but there was this other sense of where you stood with God.

If you had made the right sacrifices, if you had covered your bases correctly, you knew that you and God were ok together.

There were sights and sounds and smells that went with this. If you’re sacrificing cows over an open flame, you’ve got some char-grilled goodness going on there!

But what started to get lost over time is that while the sacrificial system was a ritual and a series of actions, to have no heart in them at all was to miss the point.

If you have all the right actions, but aren’t working on them from a good heart place, then you really haven’t done anything.

So God has some harsh things to say through Amos.

I’m not listening to your prayers.

The original Hebrew literally says “Your sacrifices are a stench to me.”

This doesn’t smell good to me, it smells foul.

I don’t care what you’re singing, it’s like you are all out of tune.

You could be singing the best worship songs, the most anthemic representations of your faith, and God says he’s not interested.

What God Wants

Justice

Lots of people have lots of different definitions of justice these days.

Here are two off the top of my head that I think will do the trick:

“Justice means reparation for the defrauded, fairness for the less fortunate, and dignity and compassion for the needy.”

Or...

As the father of twins, when you have a piece of cake left and two boys to feed, you let one boy cut the cake, but the other gets to pick the first piece.

Suddenly 5 year olds are capable of advanced trigonometry to make sure that the pieces are exactly equal.

Justice is agreeing that a situation is right without knowing what side of the situation you would be on.

What Amos is saying is that you can sacrifice, you can worship, you can sing, you can pray, and you can live as Godly a life as possible, but if there isn’t justice in your town, city, nation, then you have a problem.

Righteousness

Again, lots of definitions here.

From another commentary: Righteousness should entail attitudes of mercy and generosity, and honest dealings that imitate the character of God as revealed in Scripture.

Put another way- How Christ like are you being right now?

Back in my day there used to be these WWJD bracelets, What Would Jesus Do?

Are we doing what Jesus would do when we come in here to worship?

Are we doing what Jesus would do when we leave this building?

Are we acting as Jesus would act toward those with whom we disagree?

Are we as compassionate with our friends, family, neighbors, and even enemies as Jesus is with the tax collectors, pharisees, sinners, and religious leaders of his day?

And let’s be really, really clear here: none of us actually measures up when we get right down to it.

I’m pretty sure I’ll have some un-Christlike thoughts during the Steeler game later, no matter how hard I try.

But we do have to try.

Amos is saying that it doesn’t matter how much we sacrifice to God, how much we worship God, how many God songs we sing, or what kind of show we put on, if we aren’t interested in being Christ-like, if we aren’t interested in the kind of heart change that this is going to require, we might as well pack it all in.

God is not saying that there’s anything inherently wrong with sacrifice, worship, or singing!

By all means, worship God!

By all means, make ammends with God!

By all means, sing your guts out (When COVID is gone)

What is wrong is when we have those things without justice and righteousness big enough to be a flood.

Veterans

I don’t know if you are old enough to remember this, but a while ago we used to gather 18,000 some odd people together to watch 12 millionares beat the junk out of each other for sport.

It was called hockey, and I so badly miss it.

What’s neat is that for a Canadian Sport, you can find a fair amount of patriotism at the Penguins game.

We sing the national anthem every game in Pittsburgh, and when Canadian teams roll to town, we get bonus Jeff Jimmerson.

Just about every game, they do what we’re about to do (already did) and ask members of the armed services to stand up and we all applaud our thanks.

They even a few years ago started letting veterans and active duty folks ride the Zamboni!

I have wanted to ride the Zamboni since I was, I don’t know, six!

When it comes to veterans and patriotism, the Penguins put on a good show.

And that’s why this text is so relevant for us today.

Injustice

You actually don’t have to look too far to find injustice among our veterans.

37,085 veterans experienced homelessness in the month of January 2019.

Men and women who fought to protect our homeland have no home of their own? This is just?

More than 500,000 soldiers from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are continuing to suffer from PTSD.

Men and women who fought for us to live at peace can find no peace in their own minds? This is righteous?

1.3 million veterans…MILLION…are on food stamps right now.

20% of all veterans struggle with some sort of substance addiction.

A very dear friend of mine served our country in the Iraq war.

He is one of those who struggles with a very serious case of PTSD.

He is another one of those who has struggled with substance abuse.

He told me once that every time he is asked to stand and be recognized, or hears “Support our troops,” or even when he got the invitation to take his own Zamboni ride…he winces a bit.

His exact words to me were “I’m tired of everyone trying to honor the troops without actually having to do the justice work of supporting the troops.”

Amos would agree.

Greater love

Let’s be super clear: these veterans are true heroes.

Jesus says that there is no greater love than someone who would willingly lay their lives down for their friends.

I struggle to find better words to describe these brave men and women in our armed services.

Particularly at a time where we’ve moved to an entirely volunteer army.

These are men and women who run toward the fire, not away from it.

These are men and women who fight for us, to keep us safe and keep us free.

These are men and women who do so knowing that they might never come home to their families, their friends, or their way of life.

These are men and women who after years of study, know full well that even if they come back, they may not come back the same way they left.

And yet these are men and women who choose to go anyway.

Sing away!

So by all means, let’s sing their praises.

Let’s sing national anthems!

Let’s clap and stand when we shine a spotlight on those who have served.

Let’s give them Zamboni rides!

Let’s honor them!

But...

May we never do those things alone.

May we be radically committed to make sure that each and every man and woman who has served this nation has a place to rest their head at night.

May we never rest until every man and woman who has served this nation has access to the mental health care to deal with the trauma of war.

May we do everything we can, with our prayers and with our cash and with our shopping habits, to make sure that every veteran has good paying jobs and never, EVER has to be on food stamps.

May we be a place that opens our doors to anyone struggling with addiction, may we be the kind of people that work together toward recovery in all its forms.

May we never stop marveling at their sacrifice on our behalf, but may we never, EVER stop sacrificing for them to have the life that they deserve.

Tip of the Iceberg

And saints, if we’re being honest, veterans are just the tip of the iceberg of injustice of our world.

We do live in a relatively affluent country where there is a widening gap between wealthy and poor.

We live in a country where (and though both parties would want to make it one, this is NOT a partisan political position) there is gross racial injustice.

We live in a world where there is more than enough food to feed all 8 billion of us, yet 11% of the global population is undernourished.

We live in a world of gross injustice.

Flow

Yet Amos has an answer for that too.

Amos does not tell us that we need to fill our cup with Justice.

He doesn’t imagine a standing lake of righteousness.

God does not call us to a single moment of justice or a fleeting attempt at righteousness

Amos imagines in both situations a flow.

Let justice roll down like a cascading waterfall, a symbol of perpetual motion.

Let righteousness be an ever-flowing stream, one that doesn’t dry up when we get tired of being Christ-like in the world.

Once you get these waters and streams started, it’s actually kind of hard to stop.

Once we start the flow of justice toward our men and women of service, it’s not hard to have a new set of eyes towards the homeless man down the street.

Once we see righteousness get moving in our midst, it’s hard to stop living a Christ-like attitude toward the least of these in our community.

Once we realize that we have some skin in the game of making the world a little bit better, as Paul put it that this is our act of worship, we want to worship in justice and righteousness all the more.

Once we realize that the riverhead of justice and righteousness is just how much love Jesus Christ has poured in to each and every one of us sitting in this room, how can we do anything but pour that love in to others?

I hope that these waters are being stirred up for you.

One of the things I like best about Laboratory is the way you all approach me after sermons around here.

At other churches, the handshake line usually has folks telling me that they’re proud of me, in a way that suggests they were surprised I could speak in complete sentences.

You all like to think after a sermon, and you tell me what you’re thinking about afterward!

So what has God stirred up in you, and how can we as a church get in on that?

I want not so much to honor our veterans as I want to support them, love them, and shower them with justice and righteousness. How can we as a church do that?

What programs are we missing?

What gifts are here to make that justice and righteousness a reality?

What dream has God put on your heart to make this happen?

May we never become complacent in our singing and in our worship.

May we always have the waters of justice rolling down, and the ever flowing stream of righteousness stirred up in us.

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