One More Sermon

Here it is. The last time I'm preaching here. It ended up being 10 sermons in total, so nothing to scoff at.

This one is a bit fiery. It just ended up coming out that way. Amos will do that to people.

The lectionary is (see Amos):

http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Pentecost/CProp10_RCL.html

The lectionary provides two possible readings from the Hebrew Bible today, Amos--which we heard--or Deuteronomy. The text from Deuteronomy offers beautiful words of encouragement for a people tasked with being God’s chosen. It gently reminds Israel that they will be successful in all their undertakings so long as they “turn to the LORD [their] God with all [their] heart and all [their] soul”. This is not an unmanageable task or an unreasonable request; God assures us that “the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.” We can all love God, in fact, it is completely natural; the words are waiting on our tongue, we need to merely open our lips.

This poetic and uplifting passage ties perfectly into the first part of our Gospel reading, where we are reminded of the message at the core of our faith: love of God and love of neighbor. It was with this in mind that I found myself drawn to Amos because it’s proposed inclusion made little sense to me. Why this alternate reading? What does Amos have to do with love?

I have come the conclusion that Amos speaks better to the latter half of our Gospel passage, to the succinct but ever-powerful tale of the Good Samaritan. It is a story of love of neighbor; a reminder that “neighbor” cannot be defined in a sharply limited way. It is a call to imitate this famed Samaritan, who went beyond himself and the conventions of the time for the sake of a fellow human in need. But it is also a story of God’s justice. A rousing call to be God’s hands in the world, to actively heal and help. When we truly love our neighbor--in deed as well as word--we are pursuing and bringing about God’s kingdom. This, God’s justice, is where Amos has a few things to say.

Amos is one of the most consistently angry prophets. The nine short chapters of his book are filled with dire predictions and scathing condemnations; Amos is speaking with the full authority of God’s righteous fury. There is no room for bartering or reversal; God’s mind is made up and the Kingdom of Israel is soon to face its doom. Amos is also not your typical prophet; as our reading today describes he is a “herdsman” and as such, he is particularly well suited to deliver God’s complaint. More than anything, God is angry at the inequality that has grown rampant in Israel. It is not “idolators” nor “fornicators” who are facing this day of judgment; it is the wealthy and powerful who have provoked God to the limit. 

It is entirely fair and valid to question the severity of God’s response--it is worth noting that the judgment Amos invokes will result in the complete annihilation of the northern Kingdom of Israel; regardless of who survives the onslaught, history will never hear from those ten Hebrew tribes again. But what cannot be refuted is that God’s justice--here and now on earth--matters immensely and must be taken seriously.

This same justice is what is Jesus is invoking with his parable of the Samaritan traveler. We generally focus on the compassion of the Samaritan but this story is also a condemnation of the two men who pass by. The Samaritan undoubtedly did a good deed and deserves to be commended for his kindness, but he had less to lose. As a member of a suspect class of people--as all Samaritans were--he is merely demonstrating compassion which remains fairly comfortably within caste boundaries. The Levite and the priest, however, are right to be concerned with the sort of ritual defilement which a stop could entail. As two men who are fully invested in the temple system--one as priest and another as a member of the priestly tribe--the impurity that would result from a brush with a dead body wasn’t worth investigating. The man set upon by thieves looked dead and that was enough information to keep these pious men at a distance. 

What is so radical about this story, about this interpretation of God’s justice, is that it doesn’t matter. Caring for your neighbor is more important than maintaining your purity. If you are pious in all the right ways but ignore the most obvious need in front of you, you have horribly missed the mark. The Levite and priest would undoubtedly point to passages like the one cited earlier from Deuteronomy, declaring their piety to be a matter of loving God and their obsession with purity to be in keeping with that ideal. They have put God before all others and by meticulously maintaining the law of Moses, they have proved their devotion “with all [their] heart, and with all [their] soul, and with all [their] strength, and with all [their] mind”. But this parable shows us that picking and choosing is not possible. If you are so concerned with loving God at the expense of your neighbor--at the expense of a man bleeding and slowly dying before your eyes--what is your love truly worth?

Amos, in all his righteous fury, would agree. 

“ 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. ”

I wanted to share that whole passage because of how it resolves itself--I recognize that I am jumping a bit outside the normal confines of the lectionary but these words from Amos felt too significant to simply ignore. Because, for most Americans, that last verse holds special meaning beyond scripture alone. It is one of the great moments of Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech and is commemorated as such in the very center of our nation’s capital. Removed from its context and hallowed as “great history” this verse has lost so much of its original biting intent but read as is one cannot help but come to the conclusion that God’ justice will not be tamed. It is rarely easy or convenient but if we are to take these words seriously, we must be willing to commit ourselves to the path of transformation outlined in Amos, declared in Jesus, and reiterated by King.

Because Martin Luther King knew a fair bit about people of privilege evading or downplaying the insistent call of justice. King knew all about “well-intentioned” white folks urging a more cautious approach. His  iconic ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’ was penned in response to eight white clergymen who were urging protesters to leave the streets and rely on the courts instead--to be patient and slow things down a bit. 

I am hard pressed to see any difference between these men of God and the same pious Levite who passed by on the road. I am willing to bet that they were good men, nice people--kind fathers, generous neighbors, upstanding citizens in the eyes of all. I’m sure they had the respect and admiration of most of those in their community and as such felt called to respond to the demonstrations that were roiling their city at the time. But where they failed--where they were blind to Christ’s call--was in seeing their duty beyond their community, beyond their comfortably insular life. God’s compassion does not end at borders drawn by men. The Levite and priest fell short in their pursuit of God’s justice when they left a man for dead on a road--we fall short when we leave countries to fall apart and watch as their citizens pile into boats destined for the sea floor.

I will not pretend to have any solutions for some of the most persistent and painful problems of our time but I cannot believe that inaction is an adequate response. It’s OK to be a little bit angry, to embrace your righteous fury. Because God’s justice is not easy, and being spurred on by our emotions is not an unreasonable response. But what is not acceptable in my mind is passivity. Being nice and good isn’t enough. We must risk something. We must put ourselves on the line. We can’t agonize over the cost lest we become like the Levite or priest, more concerned with maintaining our position than with the needs of the human family. We must to let go of our purity and embrace the radical compassion of Christ--to pick up the outcast, the vulnerable, the dirty and bloody in our midst. We need to act; God’s justice depends on it.