For those who want a change from the Gospel

Kingdom 2/3 before Advent/Remembrance Sunday – Amos 5:18-24

For a brief moment my eyes lit up when I saw that today’s OT reading was from Amos, but my joy was short-lived as I realised that it was the wrong chapter! I have often preached on Amos 4 on Remembrance Sunday, and especially on v.10 – ‘I killed your young men with the sword … yet you have not returned to me, says the Lord.’ Oh well, I’m sure I’ll get that in somewhere before this post ends.

Instead we have chapter 5, which is far more often used to teach that God doesn’t like charismatic worship, especially if it isn’t matched by social action. So why this particular text today? In this chapter Amos is drawing together three different themes, and exploring the relationship between them. In doing so he is deliberately subverting the expectations of his hearers, something which he does repeatedly throughout his book. He is a master of rhetoric.

The first idea is that of the ‘Day of the Lord’. We might call this day ‘Comeuppance Day’, as Israel believed that God would show up in power, defeat all his enemies and make the nation top dog again. This is a nice thought, which accounts for its persistence into the time of Jesus and the political expectations on the Messiah. But don’t get too excited, says Amos. If you’re looking forward to that day, you need to remember that if God is going to do away with evil nations, you’ll be top of his hit list. That day for which you long so much will be darkness, not light.

But then Amos turns to Israel’s worship. Surely God enjoys what we get up to in the Temple, the people no doubt thought. Surely our faithful religious observances will impress him enough to get us off the hook? No, says Amos, he hates it all, actually. Why so? Not because he doesn’t like worship songs (although with some songs I have a sneaking suspicion that maybe he doesn’t). Let’s take a step back – what are we doing when we worship, especially at the festivals which Amos specifically mentions? Israel’s annual cycle of worship, like the Church Calendar today, is based around events from history at which God acted decisively for the salvation of his people. The Jewish festivals recall the rescue from slavery in Egypt, the giving of the Law, God’s faithful provision of the harvest, and so on, as do ours, although they have become Jesus-flavoured and celebrate an even greater redemption. God had been good to them in so many ways, but their gratefulness did not mean that they had stopped living in the ways from which they needed God to rescue them in the first place. They thanked God, but they weren’t listening. They went round and round the cycles, but mindlessly kept living in the same ways which had got them into trouble before.

So what’s the answer? Listen to your own worship, says Amos. Let it remind you of what God did, and why he needed to do it. Live with justice, so that his anger will be turned away from you. Care for those you are oppressing, don’t simply sing your songs and carry on.

And that, I think, is where Remembrance Day can be so dangerous. We have moved on from the kind of jingoistic ways in which we celebrated when I was very young, fresh from our victory over those nasty foreigners in the Second World War. With Viet Nam, the Gulf, Iraq, Ukraine and now Gaza behind us we do now regard war with a greater sense of horror, fuelled, of course, by all those ‘scenes which some may find distressing’ which are pumped into our lives on a daily basis. Yes, war is awful, and we really are grateful for those who fight so that we don’t have to, and so yes, it is good to wear our poppies for them and give them a respectful nod once a year. But like Israel of old, it is easy to go through the ceremonies without learning the lessons. ‘I killed your young men with the sword … yet you have not returned to me.’ Unless our world does that, and starts living out of love and respect rather than hatred and greed, we will not escape the judgement of God when Jesus returns. Not many of us probably are responsible for foreign policy, and certainly not for that of other nations, but as the old worship songs says, ‘Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.’ And let there be a massive turning to God in prayer and repentance for the seeds of violence which are planted deep in human hearts, and which only the grace of God can prevent from growing.

Coming soon to revjohnleachblog: a brand new series! Watch this space …