Amos 5: 16a, 21-24 ~~
Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of hosts: 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. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
This has been a rough week — an exhausting, frightening, hopeful, disappointing, stepping-out-in-faith sort of a week – that somehow has ended with hope. At least for many of us. I’ve been saying all along, “It will be OK. It will be OK.” It’s going to take a lot of work and prayer to get to that “OK” but we will get there.
I’ve always loved this scripture from the prophet Amos. “I don’t want any of your ‘performing-for-the-audience’-worship. Stop telling me how holy and wonderful you are. I don’t want to hear it.” Instead, “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Having grown up at the right time for it, whenever I read this line I hear it in the deep, rolling voice of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
There really is a lot more to Amos than this one line, and yet it seems so perfect for the time we live in that we have pretty much reduced Amos to this abbreviated message — because this is a message that is still so needed and — apparently — still largely unheard. Dr. King's “I Have a Dream” speech, where he famously quoted from Amos, was almost 60 years ago now, and yet — here we still are—so divided. No closer to being one family of God’s people.
The day after the election this week, I listened to Vice-President Biden (now President-Elect Biden) promising — if the polls turned out right — to be an American president, not just a Democratic president — a president for all Americans. He used a phrase I was unfamiliar with. He said the office of president is “the one office in this nation that represents everyone and that it demands a duty of care for all Americans.” That phrase, a duty of care, really resonated for me, so I looked it up to see where it comes from. Turns out it’s a legal term. I didn’t know that. In tort law, a duty of care is a legal obligation imposed on an individual requiring “adherence to a standard of reasonable care while performing any acts that could foreseeably harm an other.”
Well — loosen up the legal language and that sounds almost scriptural to me — almost Jesus-like, in sentiment if not in syntax. When we interact with others we are required, as Christians, and apparently as American citizens, to stick with a level of reasonable care when interacting in any way that could foreseeably cause another person harm. Act in a way that is, in Amos’ language, both righteous and just. And what is justice but kindness and decency and fairness — to use my own language?
We as a people have a lot of growing and healing to do in order to become the people of God, as we’ve always chosen to see ourselves -- united in one family of love. We’ve allowed ourselves to become complacent and I think – and hope -- these past few years have shaken that complacency. We’re pretty good at seeing all the faults in others, but we need to check ourselves, as readily as we do those “others” so that we see where we have fallen short of God’s command to be one people. We need to not just judge the behavior of others, but of ourselves.
We’ve allowed ourselves to become much too complacent in too many areas – accepting the status quo when, in reality, the status quo has NOT been fair or just for so many. Perhaps we need to spend more time with those Old Testament prophets whose call was always for justice and righteousness – the ones who always demanded righteousness from all God’s people.
Draw us together, God. Teach us the grace and humility to check our own assumptions and change when we need to be the ones changing.
I’ve always loved this scripture from the prophet Amos. “I don’t want any of your ‘performing-for-the-audience’-worship. Stop telling me how holy and wonderful you are. I don’t want to hear it.” Instead, “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Having grown up at the right time for it, whenever I read this line I hear it in the deep, rolling voice of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
There really is a lot more to Amos than this one line, and yet it seems so perfect for the time we live in that we have pretty much reduced Amos to this abbreviated message — because this is a message that is still so needed and — apparently — still largely unheard. Dr. King's “I Have a Dream” speech, where he famously quoted from Amos, was almost 60 years ago now, and yet — here we still are—so divided. No closer to being one family of God’s people.
The day after the election this week, I listened to Vice-President Biden (now President-Elect Biden) promising — if the polls turned out right — to be an American president, not just a Democratic president — a president for all Americans. He used a phrase I was unfamiliar with. He said the office of president is “the one office in this nation that represents everyone and that it demands a duty of care for all Americans.” That phrase, a duty of care, really resonated for me, so I looked it up to see where it comes from. Turns out it’s a legal term. I didn’t know that. In tort law, a duty of care is a legal obligation imposed on an individual requiring “adherence to a standard of reasonable care while performing any acts that could foreseeably harm an other.”
Well — loosen up the legal language and that sounds almost scriptural to me — almost Jesus-like, in sentiment if not in syntax. When we interact with others we are required, as Christians, and apparently as American citizens, to stick with a level of reasonable care when interacting in any way that could foreseeably cause another person harm. Act in a way that is, in Amos’ language, both righteous and just. And what is justice but kindness and decency and fairness — to use my own language?
We as a people have a lot of growing and healing to do in order to become the people of God, as we’ve always chosen to see ourselves -- united in one family of love. We’ve allowed ourselves to become complacent and I think – and hope -- these past few years have shaken that complacency. We’re pretty good at seeing all the faults in others, but we need to check ourselves, as readily as we do those “others” so that we see where we have fallen short of God’s command to be one people. We need to not just judge the behavior of others, but of ourselves.
We’ve allowed ourselves to become much too complacent in too many areas – accepting the status quo when, in reality, the status quo has NOT been fair or just for so many. Perhaps we need to spend more time with those Old Testament prophets whose call was always for justice and righteousness – the ones who always demanded righteousness from all God’s people.
Draw us together, God. Teach us the grace and humility to check our own assumptions and change when we need to be the ones changing.
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