“The Urgency Of The Coming End” November 9, 2008 Pentecost 26 Lectionary 32

(First read the text for this sermon: Amos 5:18-24)

Have you noticed that the closer we get to the end of the church year, the more difficult the passages get? Advent, the beginning of a new church year, is only three weeks away. During these last Sundays of the year, the appointed Bible readings become full of the urgency of the coming end. It’s scary stuff! The intent is to make clear how much we need God’s intervention, to save us.

When Advent comes, the tone will shift. Watch for that! The end will not have come. (Presumably!) The theme will still be our yearning for fulfillment. But the Sunday morning readings will be full of hope for fulfillment, of waiting and watching for God, of expectant joy.

That will be when Advent comes. This morning? The urgency of the coming end is presented, and their ain’t much joy that I can see!

I want to center on the Amos text, because it’s the one that gives me the most trouble. It’s an incredibly difficult reading.

In fact, that’s true for the entire book of the prophet Amos. Amos is the earliest of the prophetic books. It dates to around 760-750 B.C.E. Amos is the beginning of the tradition of prophetic warnings in the Hebrew Scriptures: that God’s people will be wiped out as a nation. They are not pleasing God, and so God is going to destroy the nation. (This tradition of prophecy continues through the books of Hosea, Micah, Zephaniah, most of Isaiah, and the early parts of Jeremiah and Ezekiel.)

The prophet Amos hears God speaking diatribes towards the people during a period in which they are affluent. That affluence in itself is not a problem! God’s anger comes through Amos because these people with plenty of material resources are not taking care of those who are poor. What makes God furious, in this morning’s passage, is that, even so, the people are still worshiping, as if they are righteous! Indeed, they are actually praying for God to intervene in judgment – “the day of the Lord” – as if this will be a good thing for them!

But Amos delivers a shocking warning:

Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord!
Why do you want the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, not light;
as 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.
Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light,
and gloom with no brightness in it?

What terrifying images! Amos is speaking what he is hearing God to say: that God’s people are only giving lip service to God in their worship. But, in their lives, they are not acting in favor of righteousness – which means justice for the poor. In fact, Amos declares God to say this about their worship:

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.

Well. Nearly 2,800 years later, here you and I are, gathered in worship. What is it that we are praying for, each time we gather?

“In peace, let us pray to the Lord,” we pray in the Kyrie. We pray for “the peace from above, and for our salvation,” “for the peace of the whole world.” We pray for peace, each time asking, “Lord, have mercy.” “Help, save, comfort and defend us, gracious God,” we pray.

What is the intent of these words? To make us feel warm and fuzzy inside? As our liturgy continues, we are formed to know that what you and I are doing, at this time and in this place, is not for its own sake! Instead, worship grounds us in the Spirit’s power for our servanthood. The point of our worship is to nourish us once again with God’s grace and mercy, with God’s good news of salvation through Jesus the Christ – so that, set free, we can pursue righteousness and justice in the world, in the places where God has put us for ministry.

Our worship is intended to open us to the needs of the world! For instance, listen to the instructions of what to pray for, in the Prayers of Intercession, in Evangelical Lutheran Worship, on page 105. (Those are the prayers we conclude, “Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.)

Prayers reflect the wideness of God’s mercy for the whole world—
for the church universal, its ministry, and the mission of the gospel;
for the well-being of creation;
for peace and justice in the world, the nations and those in authority, the community;
for the poor, oppressed, sick, bereaved, lonely;
for all who suffer in body, mind, or spirit;
for the congregation, and for special concerns.
Additional prayers may come from the assembly.

(You contribute those additional prayers each Sunday morning, with words spoken out loud or in silence, when I’ve finished the prayers I’ve written.)

Is it enough just to pray “for the poor, oppressed, sick, bereaved, lonely?” That’s all that God’s people were doing in Amos’ community! They were praying. They were worshiping “properly.” They were observing the liturgical calendar! But Amos showers the people with words of God’s anger because the people were not acting to pursue righteousness and justice in the world. They were not enacting their worship prayers.

Consider the prayers in our worship that you and I are we called to enact. This morning, right after we present our offerings, we will ask the Spirit to “turn our hearts toward those who hunger in any way,…” In the post-communion prayer, we will pray, “By your Spirit strengthen us to serve all in need and to give ourselves away as bread for the hungry, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” The obvious dismissal to choose for the end of our worship this morning, keyed to the theme of the day will be: “Go in peace. Remember the poor.” To which you respond, “Thanks be to God.” Thanks be to God for giving us the work of advocating for righteousness and justice in the world God has created!

This is awfully radical stuff that you and I profess, each Sunday morning, in our worship! As Annie Dillard writes in one of her wonderful essays, when we take to heart the words that we say and sing and hear each Sunday morning, the ushers would be better to hand out crash helmets instead of bulletins – because of the way the Word of God upends us!

The people of God in Amos’ time were not disturbed in their complacency, by the words they were saying and singing and hearing each sabbath, during their worship. And so, the prophet Amos hears God saying:

I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. …
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.

Let me ask you: how do you think the people of Israel reacted to Amos’ incendiary preaching?

In fact, we have a clear, contemporary example. Hundreds of thousands of people looked at the clips on You Tube. We saw TV commercials featuring the clips, this past Monday, in anti-Barack Obama ads. It is the despised Rev. Jeremiah Wright who is today’s version of Amos! In those video clips, he delivers the very same message as Amos. Don’t you bet that Amos’ affluent listeners reacted to him in exactly the same way as many affluent 21st century Americans vilified the Rev. Wright? But consider another thing. To those who are poor, words such as these, warning of God’s reversal, are good news!

These words from Amos are incendiary. We read them at this time of the liturgical year when we are reminded of the urgency of the coming end. In addition, the parable this morning, from Matthew (25:1-13), familiar to many of us, reminds us of this urgency in a vivid way.

So. For you and me, in our material comfort, is all of this frightening?

It is indeed scary stuff, this urgency of the coming end …
… unless you and I already know that we cannot save ourselves.

It’s scary stuff, this urgency of the coming end …
... unless you and I already know that our salvation is entirely by God’s grace.

It’s scary stuff, this urgency of the coming end …
… unless you are rooted in your baptisms, and so you live by these words in the liturgy of Confession and Forgiveness: “God who is rich in mercy, loved us even when we were dead in sin, and made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved.”

Saved for what? So you and I can feel all warm and fuzzy inside?
No. We are saved to: “Go in peace. Remember the poor.” To do the work of the Kingdom. To pursue our vocations, the ministry God has given to us.

In the urgency of the coming end, we do the work God gives us to do. The work is described by Amos:

But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

In the name of the God of grace and compassion and justice; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia