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"The Promotion of Social Righteousness"
March 29, '09
Amos 5:16-27
16Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord: In all the squares there shall be wailing; and in all the streets they shall say, “Alas! alas!” They shall call the farmers to mourning, and those skilled in lamentation, to wailing; 17in all the vineyards there shall be wailing, for I will pass through the midst of you, says the Lord. 18Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light; 19as 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. 20Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?
21I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. 22Even 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. 23Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. 24But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream. 25Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? 26You shall take up Sakkuth your king, and Kaiwan your star-god, your images, which you made for yourselves; 27therefore I will take you into exile beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.
Yesterday morning, the men of the Wasilla Presbyterian Church joined the men of our congregation for breakfast here at our church. Two weeks ago, the men of their congregation hosted an evening potluck – a game night – “game” as in the kind that is hunted and eaten. They had a featured speaker – a pastor from Fairbanks – who told a riveting story of being attacked by a bear. I did not attend. My fear of the wildlife of Alaska would be an embarrassment to any self-respecting Alaskan male – my nights of tent camping in Alaska can be counted on the fingers on one hand – each of those nights sleeplessly turning the slightest sounds of the night into imagined beasts of the most frightful kind. Every story of a bear encounter has only added more fuel to the fires of my imagination. Amazing the number of people I know who have had such encounters – who have not hesitated to tell their horror stories to others who have understood (and to me, adding details upon which my overactive imagination could feed). To have a featured speaker spend an evening telling of an up-close and personal encounter with an Alaskan bear would certainly have put me into months of therapy. But, I have my own harrowing tales to tell. And, my guess is that there are some gathered here for whom too many of such stories could trigger memories also worthy of months of therapy. Encounters. Too close for comfort. Traumatic. A beckoning of our collective memories back to the Age of the Typewriter. Even to an age before White-Out. The great technological advancement we all heralded, but which our professors rejected was Erasable Bond paper. But now to really make some of you shudder at long suppressed memories… One word: Stencils. Okay, now for the clincher – I may be crossing the line here – my guess it is an image of dread for some of us here – typing a Newsletter or an Annual Report onto a stencil. (If any of you need to step outside for a breath of fresh air, we will certainly understand.) But indulge me in just one story from the Age of the Typewriter… I had a summer between my seminary internship and my senior year. Leisa had a summer internship at another church. The secretary of that church always took the summers off, so I was hired to be the church secretary for the summer – a summer back in the Age of the Typewriter. I gave a copy of the newsletter to the pastor to look over. Only one comment. It was kind of a spelling error, but enough of an error that that page needed to be redone. In the upper right hand corner of the address page – inside the little box which is supposed to give the Post Office non-profit number, I had spelled non-profit with the ecclesiastical spelling. P-r-o-p-h-e-t. “Non-Prophet Organization.” The pastor, in his gentle way, only said that he hoped that his congregation was a prophetic institution.
How about a triumph? A dozen years ago I audited a history class at Mat-Su College from my favorite professor Talis. Note that I said I audited the class. Even auditors were expected to write the term papers. But what a joy. Can’t even remember what I wrote the term paper about, but what I do remember vividly was that it was my life’s first term paper written on a computer. Footnotes perfectly spaced at the bottom. No White-Out. After completing the term paper I slowly looked it over and over again – turning each page in amazement – it was beautiful – a testament to an advanced civilization.
Enough of the airing of my personal traumas and triumphs. The word of the day: Prophetic. A “Prophetic Organization.” At its deepest level, it is our calling. To be a prophetic organization – to be a prophetic people. Along with the many ironies of our age, as the Church has moved into the modern era, the concept of the prophetic has eroded into what we once would have thought of as superstitious sooth-saying – not far removed from those who have read palms or predicted the future based upon the way various objects fell out of curious looking magical containers. An explosion of modern-day prophets whose callings are not far removed from the shamans of generations past.
In the deep past of our faith – even further back than the time of the Christ – there were prophets. An element of warnings of future events were part of the role of the prophets of the Old Testament – but the concept of the prophet was understood differently. A prophet was one who was to be a human voice for God. The messenger. Even the word we translate into English as “angel” essentially meant “messenger.” The human voice for God. The days when God spoke to our faith ancestors. But, even then, it was not all that good. There were schools for prophets. Apprenticeships. Study. Training. Careers. Perhaps we could even call them Old Testament Prophet Seminaries. The calling could be hereditary, and could be good if those with the wealth and power thought the words prophesied were good and wise words. But in biblical hindsight, regularly those God chose to speak through were not necessarily the ones from the right schools – not necessarily those with the diplomas and credentials. Uncomfortable as it may be for professional Christians such as myself – God too often did not work through the proper channels – God did not always communicate with humanity decently and in order. A bit unnerving for those of us who do have the proper diplomas and ecclesiastical credentials.
But is there hope for those of us deeply entrenched in established religious professions – even those of us for whom the calling seems suspiciously hereditary? The hope is within the Reformed Tradition in which we are steeped. Whether or not it means much to the people of our faith family, this year is the five hundredth anniversary of John Calvin’s birth The same summer I worked as a substitute church secretary, a newspaper salesman came knocking on our apartment door. Gregarious and very talkative, fulfilling the stereotype of the door-to-door salesman. Interestingly, when he found out that we were Presbyterian, he began a point by point refutation of Calvinism. In a negative way, he knew more about Calvinism then I probably ever will. (I did order a newspaper subscription for the summer we were to be in the apartment, by the way.) But now with the luxury of time and experience in my favor, I understand that conversation about Calvinism more clearly. Christians of the salesman’s persuasion would have to be threatened by Calvin. They would have to be. It is because within so-called Calvinism is the antidote to the poison of the epidemic of modern prophets – those who are seduced and deluded into the belief that they are God’s spokespersons – those who are convinced that any who think differently than they are working in opposition to God – essentially working in league with Satan. Frightening are the number of people who are convinced that their every thought is a thought from God and who are convinced that their every word is a word from God. Deep within Calvinism is the belief that no one person has a monopoly on the Holy Spirit. Deep within Calvinism is the belief that it is prudent to trust the word of God to more than just one person. It is because of this belief that those denominations who have been influenced by Calvin have put such a high emphasis on education. Let us all discern the will of God together. If there is a prophetic tradition in the Presbyterian branch of the Christian Church, it is in the tested and agreed-upon traditions which we have inherited from our faith ancestors – essentially from the words written in the Bible.
Back to my summer as a church secretary. My mistyped “non-prophet” organization. The pastor was quite right when he said that he hoped that the church was indeed a prophetic organization. But the prophetic nature of our organization is in the embracing of the prophetic voices of those passed on to us through the words of the Bible.
So, Amos. We heard his words read a bit ago. Perhaps one of the first prophets to write his prophecies. Likely not appreciated in his time, but later generations in reflection, the holiness of his words were recognized. And treasured. And kept. And passed on to us.
The theme of his prophetic words was a theme repeated over and over again in the history of the Hebrew people. Even back to Abram and Sarai who were originally from a place called Ur, located at the tip of the Persian Gulf. They lived at the transition time between the Sumerian Civilization and the Akkadian Civilization. They understood their emigration from Ur to be a calling from God. It is hard to know, but it can be speculated that they were part of a refugee exodus. Eventually settling in what would be the Promised Land – a land which turned out to be a real fixer-upper – a great famine forced several extended migrations to Egypt. Within three generations, their descendants all migrated to Egypt. Refugees again? After a few centuries, their descendants were in slavery. Their cries to God were heard and Moses was called to lead the oppressed peoples back to the Promised Land. Unique laws protecting the powerless were given by God to guide the people. But whenever power concentrated in a few began to be abused at the expense of the poor and powerless, the word of God would again be spoken. In this context, with and through Amos. A couple centuries after kings David and Solomon, the kingdom had long been divided between the north and the south. The southern kingdom called Judah. The northern kingdom called Israel. The Northern Kingdom did not adhere to the validity of the royal lineage of king David. So, kingship turned over at a rapid rate through coups and assassinations. In time, an army general named Omri took over the Northern Kingdom after the death of the king. He lasted quite some years and built the Northern Kingdom into one which had some strength. He made alliances with the Canaanites and the Philistines. He built his new capital on land he personally bought from the Canaanites. Called his new city Samaria. Just a bit west of the ancient Hebrew sacred city of Shiloh – the place where the sacred Ark of the Covenant was housed for generations until king David moved it to Jerusalem. King Omri developed his own temples in his capital city of Samaria, blending the Hebrew religion with those of the Philistines and the Canaanites. Omri arranged a political marriage for his son Ahab with a Philistine princess named Jezebel. Omri’s time was during a lull in the influence of the neighboring superpowers, so his Northern Kingdom had opportunity to flourish. It is into this context that the prophet Amos arrived on the scene. Fabulous wealth and power among the few. Many poor who served the few. The religious practices a blending of the Hebrew religion and the religions of the Canaanites and Philistines. Recall that Omri’s daughter-in-law Jezebel forced the confrontation with the prophet Elijah and the prophets of the Canaanite god Baal.
Amos’ prophetic message was that injustice was rampant which was directly contrary to the will of God. Over and over, God had heard and lead the underdogs – those who were beaten down – those who were oppressed. For several hundred years in the Promised Land, it was clear that there was not to be a king because kings by nature concentrated power and wealth among the few at the expense of all others. God, alone, was to be king. In time the people insisted. They got king Saul. Then David. Then Solomon. It was downhill from there. Civil war. Dividing of the kingdoms. Oppression. Even centuries after the time of the prophet Amos, the same message taught by Jesus the Christ. He came for the outcast. The outsider. The powerless. As with Amos: justice. But what could that mean?
In Israel are deep valleys in the wilderness called wadis. Eroded channels for water to flow from the hills down to the Dead Sea. Often the wadis are dry. Sometimes a little creek in some pretty deep ravines. Some years ago when I was in Israel, there was a sad event. Hikers in a wadi south east of Jerusalem hiking on a beautiful day. Up near Jerusalem an intense thunderstorm hit releasing a deluge of rain. The hikers were in the wadi on a trail on a beautiful day, completely unaware of the thunderstorm just a few miles away. A massive torrent of water rushed down the wadi, drowning most of the hikers. Civilizations over the centuries learned how to capture some of those torrents of water in the wadis – collecting water in cisterns dug deep into the ground and lined with clay. But for the most part, a wadi would not produce a reliable source of water. Treasured were the few wadis which had a consistent source of water. The western shore of the Dead Sea is very dry. Very little vegetation. But as one drives toward the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, one sees a real oasis. It is called Ein Gedi – a wadi lush with vegetation. Water continually flows from a spring somewhere in the mountains. There are waterfalls. It is a national park and preserve now in Israel. Ein Gedi is the rare wadi in Israel with everflowing streams.
The prophet Amos wrote about everflowing streams within the context of God. Sacrifices and religious ritual were not what mattered to Almighty God. What did matter was justice – that justice be as valuable as an everflowing stream.
21I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. 22Even 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. 23Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. 24But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.
A century ago, our faith ancestors penned this phrase which has been part of the mission statement of our denomination ever since: The Promotion of Social Righteousness. How we understand those words today could be very different than how the original hearers of the words understood them. But the basic tenant of the statement is likely the same. And now pictured for us in the fifth stained glass window. “…let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.” Water. A symbol of life pared with justice.
Eight hundred years later, Jesus did what in his tradition, a rabbi should not have done. He entered Samaria. Remember Samaria? Capital city created by king Omri? Samaria, to whom the Prophet Amos spoke these words? Jesus and his disciples went to Samaria. He met a Samaritan woman at a well at a place called Sychar. Sychar is located about six miles east of king Omri’s capital city of Samaria – just the distance between here and the hospital. This is the narrative of that encounter.
7A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
The window is beautiful. A great depiction of water flowing – gushing. An everflowing stream. The involvement of so many in this congregation in ministries of compassion is deeply refreshing. May the window be an affirmation for all that you do in bringing God’s compassion and justice into the world around us. And may the window be a prophetic reminder to us for the times we stray from the calling. Amen.