Welcome to the time in between. In the retail world, we are in between Halloween and Christmas. In school, some are about to begin finals. As a nation, we are gearing up for Thanksgiving, and while hiring is up and so is spending, we still have supply chain issues and (according to Pew research) wages in comparison to the cost of living are about the same as they were in 1973.
Of course, we are always in between things as we hurtle through space on this big rock we call earth, and the good news is that we are always moving toward things that are better than they were – or perhaps will be. That may not seem like the invitation that Amos had in mind when he called out the King of Israel for institutionalized mistreatment of the poor, but it is the hope we have in Jesus, who called out to those that would listen and offered them living water that never runs out.
Before we look into the connection between these two public proclamations, we need to connect the dots with where we’ve been and where we are headed. Over the last few weeks, we have been following the Narrative Lectionary – which is designed to give us a little deeper dive into the scriptures over a four-year period – and with that, we have been following a story arc that spans the Old Testament.
We began with God’s call to Moses and the confirmation that God is the ground of all being – the One who is, was and shall be. From there we focused on the providence of God with manna in the wilderness and the gift of the law, and last Sunday we focused on the active presence of God that goes beyond our expectations and confirms and anoints us for ministry together.
Today we’ll be talking about what comes next: the invitation and the accountability of being God’s people in the world who are doing ministry together.
Let’s start with that firey little Prophet from the South that we all know and love: Amos! Preachers love Amos because we get to talk about justice! Then we get to talk about righteousness, too! Oh, preachers can and do get themselves in a world of trouble over Amos, because you can’t talk about justice and righteousness without touching that third rail of preaching – politics!
Let’s just stick with Amos’s context for now. He was from the Southern Kingdom of Judah but somehow he ended up in the Northern Kingdom of Israel speaking truth to power. Things were going ok in Israel at the time, but we know from the rest of the book of Amos, as well as other prophets and archeological data, that there was a growing caste system that favored the wealthy and kept the poor from rising up. Sociologists call that generational poverty, and it is as alive today as it was then.
Amos saw how the poor were being treated and he essentially said, “Stop being jerks! Treat people decently. Act like you care about the covenant God made with your ancestors and you might get out of this alive. Otherwise, I’m not so sure.”
That was the part in 5:14-15 that we don’t always hear, and it’s about as close to an olive branch as we get from Amos. That part was the prophet speaking from his own heart. The next part (5:21-24) is the part that you are probably more familiar with, and it is spoken from God directly.“Your worship is horrible. Your sacrifices are useless. I want justice and righteousness to flow like rivers that feed and give life!”
Alright, there is a lot to unpack here. First is the call out against worship. It reminds me of a satirical video of a preacher in an average white protestant sanctuary. He reads the scripture, but he seems like he’s having trouble holding his composure. Then he grabs the pulpit and says, “You guys, stop being bad!” Then he goes on to call out a few members and their particular sins and confessions. The really sad thing is that, when I went to look that video up after seeing it in the past, I’ve found other videos of pastors actually doing that!
I could never do that, mostly because it is spiritually abusive, but also because there is so much good that is done by the members of this church! I know that sometimes it feels like it’s never enough, and all of us at times feel like we’re the only ones doing things, but just looking through our last online newsletter was a little overwhelming!
With all that we are doing or have done with disaster recovery, meals on wheels, campus ministry with the Wesley, peanut butter collection with the UCO, our partnership in Cuba, and all the other things we do in response to community needs as they arise, I would say that this congregation knows bit an about doing the work of justice and righteousness!
Still, we need to hear passages like this every now and again. We need to ask ourselves what our worship affirms and how it impacts our public life and common witness as God’s people. We need to be sure that we know what this “justice and righteousness” stuff is all about so that it doesn’t just become our works of charity apart from God’s work of restoration.
In the Hebrew Bible, the words we translate as Justice and Righteousness are Mishpat and Tzedakah. I’ve said before that Biblical justice is more concerned with fairness than retribution, but the word “Mishpat” definitely includes accountability. As I studied this passage again I wanted to see why it was so important that justice and righteousness are paired here, and I found an explanation by the world-renowned thinker, Rabbi Johnathan Sacks, who joined the great cloud of witnesses last year. He once wrote:
“Mishpat [retributive justice] alone cannot create a good society. To it must be added tzedakah, distributive justice. One can imagine a society that fastidiously observes the rule of law, and yet contains so much inequality that wealth is concentrated into the hands of the few, and many are left without the most basic requirements of a dignified existence. There may be high unemployment and widespread poverty. Some may live in palaces while others go homeless. That is not the kind of order that the Torah contemplates. There must be justice not only in how the law is applied but also in how the means of existence – wealth as G-d’s blessing – are distributed. That is tzedakah.”
From that perspective, you could say that there is justice (the rule of law and retribution) and there is justice (the practice of fairness and equal distribution).
I’m not here to propose how that is done, but I am here to say that it is Biblical to ask the question of whether or not issues like the presence of poverty or the divisions we bless are a reflection of what we believe.
I’m also not here to beat you up over what you believe as an individual, but I am here to say that we are better at answering these questions when we answer them together. Just last week the Cuba Partners network delivered a load of food supplies that were spread throughout Matanzas Presbytery, including our friends in Sabanilla! That’s justice and righteousness working together, friends!
Over the last month, we’ve partnered with others to send bikes to those without transportation of any kind to Lake Charles. The New Iberia Church has been sending canned goods to areas in Lake Charles that have become food deserts. Through Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, the Presbytery of South Louisiana’s Racial Reconciliation Committee has been able to direct funds and other support to communities with people of color that have been the last to receive aid, and by God’s grace, we’ve been able to support the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi Chitimacha Choctaw in Terrebone Parrish as well.
This is justice work, friends! While there is only so much that we can do, we have to remember that God takes a little and makes a lot. We have to remember that what we do is not because we are the saviors but because we have been saved! We have to remember that even though there are things we cannot do, sometimes it is enough to call out the injustice of it and get out of the way so that justice can indeed flow down like raging, cleansing waters and righteousness can flow like the stream that brings life to all that it touches.
By now I hope it is clear that this is the same offer that Jesus made to those that would listen to the Festival of Booths. At the end of this festival celebrating the providence and care of God’s people in the wilderness, Jesus called out like Amos to say, “It’s cool that you made these booths, but what really matters is that you live this way.” Jesus not only invited them, but he calls to you and me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that God loves it that we are back in the sanctuary, but only in that, it directs us to the priority of living worship-filled lives that demonstrate love and call out inequality and the systems in which it thrives. The good news is that it’s not up to us to fix it by ourselves, but it is up to us to see it, to call it out, and to turn to God together to figure out how and where to be a part of what God is doing.
Of course, we are always in between things as we hurtle through space on this big rock we call earth, and the good news is that we are always moving toward things that are better than they were – or perhaps will be. That may not seem like the invitation that Amos had in mind when he called out the King of Israel for institutionalized mistreatment of the poor, but it is the hope we have in Jesus, who called out to those that would listen and offered them living water that never runs out.
Before we look into the connection between these two public proclamations, we need to connect the dots with where we’ve been and where we are headed. Over the last few weeks, we have been following the Narrative Lectionary – which is designed to give us a little deeper dive into the scriptures over a four-year period – and with that, we have been following a story arc that spans the Old Testament.
We began with God’s call to Moses and the confirmation that God is the ground of all being – the One who is, was and shall be. From there we focused on the providence of God with manna in the wilderness and the gift of the law, and last Sunday we focused on the active presence of God that goes beyond our expectations and confirms and anoints us for ministry together.
Today we’ll be talking about what comes next: the invitation and the accountability of being God’s people in the world who are doing ministry together.
Let’s start with that firey little Prophet from the South that we all know and love: Amos! Preachers love Amos because we get to talk about justice! Then we get to talk about righteousness, too! Oh, preachers can and do get themselves in a world of trouble over Amos, because you can’t talk about justice and righteousness without touching that third rail of preaching – politics!
Let’s just stick with Amos’s context for now. He was from the Southern Kingdom of Judah but somehow he ended up in the Northern Kingdom of Israel speaking truth to power. Things were going ok in Israel at the time, but we know from the rest of the book of Amos, as well as other prophets and archeological data, that there was a growing caste system that favored the wealthy and kept the poor from rising up. Sociologists call that generational poverty, and it is as alive today as it was then.
Amos saw how the poor were being treated and he essentially said, “Stop being jerks! Treat people decently. Act like you care about the covenant God made with your ancestors and you might get out of this alive. Otherwise, I’m not so sure.”
That was the part in 5:14-15 that we don’t always hear, and it’s about as close to an olive branch as we get from Amos. That part was the prophet speaking from his own heart. The next part (5:21-24) is the part that you are probably more familiar with, and it is spoken from God directly.“Your worship is horrible. Your sacrifices are useless. I want justice and righteousness to flow like rivers that feed and give life!”
Alright, there is a lot to unpack here. First is the call out against worship. It reminds me of a satirical video of a preacher in an average white protestant sanctuary. He reads the scripture, but he seems like he’s having trouble holding his composure. Then he grabs the pulpit and says, “You guys, stop being bad!” Then he goes on to call out a few members and their particular sins and confessions. The really sad thing is that, when I went to look that video up after seeing it in the past, I’ve found other videos of pastors actually doing that!
I could never do that, mostly because it is spiritually abusive, but also because there is so much good that is done by the members of this church! I know that sometimes it feels like it’s never enough, and all of us at times feel like we’re the only ones doing things, but just looking through our last online newsletter was a little overwhelming!
With all that we are doing or have done with disaster recovery, meals on wheels, campus ministry with the Wesley, peanut butter collection with the UCO, our partnership in Cuba, and all the other things we do in response to community needs as they arise, I would say that this congregation knows bit an about doing the work of justice and righteousness!
Still, we need to hear passages like this every now and again. We need to ask ourselves what our worship affirms and how it impacts our public life and common witness as God’s people. We need to be sure that we know what this “justice and righteousness” stuff is all about so that it doesn’t just become our works of charity apart from God’s work of restoration.
In the Hebrew Bible, the words we translate as Justice and Righteousness are Mishpat and Tzedakah. I’ve said before that Biblical justice is more concerned with fairness than retribution, but the word “Mishpat” definitely includes accountability. As I studied this passage again I wanted to see why it was so important that justice and righteousness are paired here, and I found an explanation by the world-renowned thinker, Rabbi Johnathan Sacks, who joined the great cloud of witnesses last year. He once wrote:
“Mishpat [retributive justice] alone cannot create a good society. To it must be added tzedakah, distributive justice. One can imagine a society that fastidiously observes the rule of law, and yet contains so much inequality that wealth is concentrated into the hands of the few, and many are left without the most basic requirements of a dignified existence. There may be high unemployment and widespread poverty. Some may live in palaces while others go homeless. That is not the kind of order that the Torah contemplates. There must be justice not only in how the law is applied but also in how the means of existence – wealth as G-d’s blessing – are distributed. That is tzedakah.”
From that perspective, you could say that there is justice (the rule of law and retribution) and there is justice (the practice of fairness and equal distribution).
I’m not here to propose how that is done, but I am here to say that it is Biblical to ask the question of whether or not issues like the presence of poverty or the divisions we bless are a reflection of what we believe.
I’m also not here to beat you up over what you believe as an individual, but I am here to say that we are better at answering these questions when we answer them together. Just last week the Cuba Partners network delivered a load of food supplies that were spread throughout Matanzas Presbytery, including our friends in Sabanilla! That’s justice and righteousness working together, friends!
Over the last month, we’ve partnered with others to send bikes to those without transportation of any kind to Lake Charles. The New Iberia Church has been sending canned goods to areas in Lake Charles that have become food deserts. Through Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, the Presbytery of South Louisiana’s Racial Reconciliation Committee has been able to direct funds and other support to communities with people of color that have been the last to receive aid, and by God’s grace, we’ve been able to support the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi Chitimacha Choctaw in Terrebone Parrish as well.
This is justice work, friends! While there is only so much that we can do, we have to remember that God takes a little and makes a lot. We have to remember that what we do is not because we are the saviors but because we have been saved! We have to remember that even though there are things we cannot do, sometimes it is enough to call out the injustice of it and get out of the way so that justice can indeed flow down like raging, cleansing waters and righteousness can flow like the stream that brings life to all that it touches.
By now I hope it is clear that this is the same offer that Jesus made to those that would listen to the Festival of Booths. At the end of this festival celebrating the providence and care of God’s people in the wilderness, Jesus called out like Amos to say, “It’s cool that you made these booths, but what really matters is that you live this way.” Jesus not only invited them, but he calls to you and me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that God loves it that we are back in the sanctuary, but only in that, it directs us to the priority of living worship-filled lives that demonstrate love and call out inequality and the systems in which it thrives. The good news is that it’s not up to us to fix it by ourselves, but it is up to us to see it, to call it out, and to turn to God together to figure out how and where to be a part of what God is doing.
May it be so with me. May it be so with you, and to God be the glory, now and always. Amen.
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