Sermon prepared for
by
Gregory S. Kaurin, associate pastor
traditional services,
Text: Amos 5:18-24
Sermon:
Out of the Lion’s Den into the Bear
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Amos
was one of the more interesting prophets; whenever he comes up in the church’s
lectionary, I rarely miss my chance to preach from his words. Amos was a Judean sheepherder sent by God to
tell the rich city folks of
That
was during a prosperous time in Isreal—at least
prosperous for the rich—during the forty-year reign of King Jeroboam II. Religious worship was grand, music was
beautiful, the furnishings and instruments, and bells and smells. You could come home from the Temple every
Saturday saying, “Now, that was
worship!”
And
then came Amos, an irritating, little sheepherder from
the Judean hills to spoil the mood. It
would be kind of like some Mexican Roman Catholic agavé farmer coming up here to
tell our government and citizens how our way of life is oppressing the poor,
polluting the world, and to tell us how our worship, as a result, is worthless
and empty, all a bunch of talk, rituals and songs that we use to feel better about
ourselves, and that we use it to hide under the veil of religious piety. And to top it off he comes up to tell us how
to grow our apples. You probably won’t
be surprised to hear that Amos’s career as a prophet was very short-lived. He was quickly sent packing back to his
flocks in
As
short lived as his career was, here he is in the Bible over 2750 years
later. Apparently, he said some things
worth remembering. Amos was one of two
prophets that paved the way for the big names like Isaiah and Jeremiah who started
their preaching about the time that all of Amos’s warnings began to come true.
In
our first lesson this morning he passed on words of God that were really hard
to hear. He warned them that trying to
escape God’s judgment by running to their religion and rituals was like
escaping out of the lion’s den only to run into a bear. You heard—it was even more
harsh as he went on—he told them that God said, “I hate, I despise your
festivals; I take no delight in your assemblies, nor your offerings, nor your
music, keep it all to yourself. Instead,
let justice and righteousness roll down like ever-flowing stream waters.”
Amos
was giving us a strong dose of tough love.
My wife has suggested that Amos was the Dr. Phil of the Bible. What can we learn from Amos?
First,
we can learn from Amos that our worship is not divorced from our lives. The two are intertwined and cannot be
separated.
Second,
we can learn from Amos that our worship does not excuse the way we live our
lives. It’s true that here in worship we
announce God’s complete forgiveness, but to use that as an excuse to live
however the heck we want during the rest of the week is an abuse of God’s love
and grace.
And
third, we can learn from Amos that our worship should send us into the world
with a sense of mission, a desire for justice, and to be a part of it.
So,
first—worship and our lives are intertwined and cannot be separated. Maybe that sounds like common sense, but we
hear people say (I’ve said these words myself) that coming to church and to
worship is a way to escape, to get away.
The
truth is that you are the same person inside and outside of church, and God is
the same God. Church worship is not an
escape from life; it is a reminder that God is always in your life. We can lose track of that; we come here
because we need to hear his name spoken out loud; we need to hear again that we
are his children; we need to be reminded of his promises, love, forgiveness,
and his will for us, his challenges.
So,
keeping Sabbath is more about the people than the day. We hear about the peace and love of God, and
we worship him here, in order to take that peace, that Sabbath and worship into
and through the rest of our life. We are
Sabbath people. Our lives and worship
are intertwined.
Second,
we can’t use worship as an excuse for the way we live our lives. In Amos’s day, the worship was beautiful and
powerful. It was carried out to the nth
degree. There was lively music. Offerings were piled high. Everything flowed smoothly. So, why in the world did God say he hated and
despised it?
The
rest of the book of Amos tells us why.
Many people were being bought and sold into slavery, and others were
kept in poverty in order to let some people live luxuriously in wealth and
power. Women and girls were being
sexually abused. Homeless and foreigners
were ignored and shoved away.
And
yet the same people that were indulging in and allowing this lifestyle were
coming to the Temple, depending on sacrifices and rituals to clean up any guilt
they might have from their way of life, so that they could go back out and live
it some more. They were no longer
worshipping God. They were worshipping
the liturgy and rituals, and they were treating it like it was magic. Say the right words,
make the right sacrifice, and everything would be magically okay.
Let
me put it this way. The reason God gives
us forgiveness is not just to make us feel better about ourselves. And, listen carefully,
forgiveness is not just about your own eternal salvation.
God
forgives us because of a still higher goal and will. He wants a relationship with us, an ongoing
relationship. This isn’t just about you
and your feelings now, or about getting into heaven some day. This is about your relationship with God, and
with his creation, and with his creatures.
That
means life changes. It means that he
wants to be a part of the way we live our lives, the decisions we make, how we
praise or punish our children, how we work with our colleagues, teachers, and
friends, how we study, or play, or use our money. God has given us a new life, a relationship
with him. Why would we go on living as
if he only exists one hour each week and then some day after we die?
Forgiveness
is not an excuse. Instead, it gives us
the courage and freedom to live differently, to live as if God matters.
This
brings us to the last point. Our worship
should send us into the world with a sense of mission, a desire for justice,
and to be a part of it.
In
worship God gives us incredible gifts.
Sometimes we think that God’s gifts are meant just for us. God gives us a gift, but really he means to give
it to everyone else through us.
Imagine
that someone has the gift of a beautiful voice.
Yes, that’s a wonderful thing that the singer can delight in: her own
voice. However, her voice finds its real
purpose, its real value, in the listeners.
God gives through our gifts to everyone else.
The
same thing can be said of the gifts we receive here in worship. We are given forgiveness, and we are sent to
spread it to others. We are given
security, rights, food, shelter, clothes, warmth, relative safety, freedoms
from oppression, and we called by God offer it, to work for it, to vote for it …for
others. I find it so appropriate to look
at this passage and Amos’s call so soon after the elections and now this
Veterans Day weekend.
God
said in our lesson to let justice roll down like a waterfall. If you read the Bible carefully, you begin to
realize that this “justice” isn’t about putting murderers into electric chairs,
or even about robbing the rich to feed the poor.
Biblical
justice is about seeing to it that the hungry get fed, or are given the tools
they need to feed themselves, medicine, orphans adopted, grieving comforted,
babies adopted, resources recycled. God
means to give through us.
God
is going to throw people and opportunities in front of us everyday. You don’t need to search for them. You only have to be open and listening. Ask God to show you what to do. Than ask him to work through you.
That
is enough.
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