Oh, that my Redeemer lives! He does!

     It is with a bit of trepidation that I enter the pulpit this morning and preach on the Gospel according to Job.  Visitors are wondering if I have lost my mind.  I may have.  I do take seriously, though, Jesus’ claim that all the Scriptures are about Him.  So, in a real sense, even the Old Testament books point to His redeeming work and purpose—the Good News, to use the language of the New Testament.  My trepidation is two-fold.  First, I spent some significant time this week in Birmingham considering and reflecting on homiletics.  More importantly to each of you gathered, I spent a significant portion of my time reflecting on my homiletics, or preaching if you prefer.  Preachers like Vaughn Roberts of St. Ebbs in Great Britain and Dr. Robert Smith of Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, and others in between, reminded us of some basics and shared more of their own reflections about what works and does not work in this age.  With three days of intense study, y’all know you are in trouble!  I’m fired up!  With our patronal season and Christmas right around the corner, I am in a good spot spiritually, but y’all might not be there with me.  So, there’s some concern.

     It’s good that most of us gathering are laughing.  I understand that some of you really value my preaching.  Some of you share your thoughts and reflections; others of you share what you think are distractions as constructive criticisms.  8 o’clock Adventers, in particular, are great about offering constructive criticisms.  “I wish you’d said more on this and less on that.”  “Could you explain ______ better?”  The Liturgy of the Word is supposed to be important.  It is during that part of our gathering that God begins to prepare you, to teach you, for the work He has in store for you in the future.

     The other cause of my trepidation, though, is the clear sense I had to preach yet again on Job.  This will be the third time this year that I have preached on Job.  Those new to Advent may not know this, but in a prior life, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away to use the language of the upcoming Disney channel launch, I did a MA in religion at the University of Dallas.  My MA thesis in religion was on the book of Job.  I spent way too much time studying the book, dissecting the book, looking at the bark on each of the trees in the forest we call Job.  Sometimes, my sermons on Job can be exciting to me but bore folks in the pew to death.  That is not the trepidation today, though.  Not at all.  I have that calm confidence from knowing this message I have is from God.  I am so calm and so confident that I am certain more than one Adventer needs to hear this sermon.  But that means we will revisit the discussions from earlier in the year, when quite a number of Adventers asked me to consider a Bible Study on Job.  I was too busy then.  With Tina gone now, though, there’s no chance . . . unless y’all pack the Tuesday evening Bible Study and convince them to move on to Job after we finish with Luke.  But seriously, there is nothing more frustrating and worrying as a pastor than hearing that your flock has a bit of a hunger, but there are limits to what can be done.  And so I know, if I preach this sermon faithfully, and if it is from God and for a number of Adventers, I will be disappointing them again if I discern I just do not have the time to teach Job.  So yes, there is some trepidation about this.

     Now, that all being said, I am always available for questions.  If you are one of those kinda wishing I would do that class, read the book on your own.  Read a chapter a day.  Read a story a day.  I’m always willing to answer questions as they arise.  It is a rich book, an important book, and I wish we spent more than three or four weeks in it during our three-year lectionary cycle.

     Our assigned passage today takes place in the middle of the book.  To remind you about the story of Job, the story begins with Satan, whose name means accuser in Hebrew, in the heavenly council, challenging God.  Satan, we learn, has been going to and fro’ over the earth.  God asks if Satan has considered Job, His faithful servant, Job.  Satan downplays Job’s faith and righteousness.  Job only worships You because You bless him.  Eventually, God allows Satan to have his way with Job.

     Satan has Job’s family killed, Job’s flocks—we should think wealth—pillaged and stolen, and Job’s health taken away.  To make matters worse, of course, all these catastrophes cause Job to lose standing, to be shamed really, in the eyes of those whom he loved and respected and who, in turn, love and respect him, at least until now.  His wife will give him that wonderful advice to curse God and die.  We understand her pain, right?  She has just lost her children and grandchildren?  She has lost the family farm and all the wealth.  God has done nothing to help her or her husband or her family as the invading army and bad weather accosted them.  Job has done everything asked of him by God and what does he, or she, have to show for it?  Similarly, Job’s friends know he has sinned terribly against God.  They KNOW that God only punishes those who sin.  If we experience terrible things in life, it’s because God is cursing us.  Conversely, they believe the corollary to be true as well: If we are blessed, God is clearly pleased with us.  In reality, their comfort, their sympathy is an accusation.  “Job, buddy, this is all your fault.  You need to confess your sins to God.”  When Job protests his innocence, the friends are, at first, shocked, and later, angry with him.  In fact, our passage today is part of that initial protest made by Job that he has done nothing wrong.  He has made the appropriate sacrifices.  In fact, he has made sacrifices on behalf of his children in case they forgot a sin.

     There is, following our assigned passage today, a back and forth between the friends and Job.  God blesses those whom He loves and curses those whom He hates.  Since Job is clearly cursed, God hates him for his unrepentant sin—that will be the argument of the friends who are trying to help him.

     Job’s continued protestations of his innocence eventually cause what we might charitably call righteous anger on the part of his friends.  They truly think they know God and His ways.  Worse, they think God needs defending against the accusations made by Job.  Poor Elihu, the youngster of the group.  He makes the most passionate, the most sincere, the most angry defense of God and His ways.  And Elihu is so misguided that his argument prompts God to appear in the whirlwind among this human gathering.  How would you like to be making your best, most passionate defense of God and be so wrong that, as a result, God appears and thunders “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”  Would that more of us thought that might happen if we misrepresent Him and his ways!

     What follows is a question and answer with Job that drives some commentators nuts.  God reminds Job, and the friends, and us, that we cannot apprehend Him unless He condescends to reveal parts of Himself to us.  God fashions the stars, the earth, and all that is contained in the sky, on the earth and seas, and under the earth.  He plays with leviathan like a fisherman plays with a guppy and leads behemoth around life a puppy dog.  God is orders of magnitude beyond us, and we can only discern what He reveals to us.  Put simply, we only know what we know about God because He wants us to know it.

     Job, of course, realizes the truth of God’s statement and says he spoke of things he did not understand, of things beyond him and too glorious.  That personal encounter with the Lord has reminded Job of all that every bit as much as God’s questions.  In what absolutely tickles me when I read it, God tells the friends that, unless Job makes a sacrifice on their behalf, His wrath will consume them and their families.  They are each to bring Job seven bulls and seven rams and ask Job to intercede on their behalf.  I chuckle at this because I wish, sometimes, God still did this.  I loathe poor counseling during times of mourning or lamentation.  Every time I hear someone say “God needed another angel” or “they are in a better place“ or “they deserved that natural catastrophe because people there sin against God” I wish and pray that God would do the whirlwind thing again.  Can you imagine how much pastoral care would improve?  But, then I come to my senses and realize the whirlwind would likely be following me around in the world, and so I give thanks that Jesus bore the consequences of my sins on that Cross two thousand years ago.

     Really, that’s what this book is about.  Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ.  That’s why I said it was a Good News book of the Bible.  As Episcopalians we cannot read this passage from Job 19 and not hear our Burial liturgy.  God knows we do so many funerals nowadays that this is etched in our collective memory.  It serves as the source of the middle paragraph of the beginning of the service, when the priest stands at the back of the church, asks the congregation to stand, and begins with the words . . . “I am Resurrection and I am Life.”  I see the nods.  It’s only been a couple weeks since Joan’s funeral, so we should all be familiar with the beginning of the liturgy.

     Job’s longing desire is the same of all of us who follow God, who claim Him as Lord of our lives.  He and we want to be vindicated, honored, recognized for our choice to follow God.  We recognize that we live in this world where death happens as a result of sin, but we believe, we truly believe, that Jesus has destroyed death.  Those in the world outside these walls either wonder or mock us for believing that we can believe we will live forever and yet still die, that we can sing an alleluia at a grave, all the while proclaiming a God, a Lord, who has the power to prevent all bad things from happening.  In many ways, that is the fundamental cognitive dissonance we have in their eyes.  You claim God has power over all things, even death.  Then why does He not do something about the bad things, and death especially? 

     I see the nods.  You’ve heard the questions, the agonizing “why’s?”  Hell, let’s be perfectly honest, we’ve all asked them.  Like Job, we have all wondered why the bad things have happened to us or why God did not intervene.  If He has power and loves us, should He not?  Ah, but see, now you know the voice of the accuser, of Satan.  What happens?  If God does not act, what does Satan whisper?  Is God real?  Does He really care about you?  Is He really worth worshipping?  I can take your pain away.  I can help you numb it.

     Heck, I am the professional Christian among us and I ask the same questions and I hear the same whispers.  Day after day, week after week, month after month, I have stood faithfully before each of you proclaiming God’s love and redeeming power to you.  In one sense, it’s an easy job.  I cannot go wrong proclaiming His promises to you.  But then life and death and pain and suffering get in the way.  Do you have any idea how agonizingly frustrating it is to know that God could wipe away the suffering, the pain, the tears of those entrusted to your care and yet Him not?  Do you know what it is like to pray over the dying entrusted to your care and see one raised to health and another allowed to die?  Can you imagine the experience of praying faithfully for someone entrusted to your care to be healed, knowing God could with a mere thought erase their hurt, only to see Him withhold that grace time and time again?

     In one sense, the answer to our pain and hurt is the same answer given to Job.  We cannot know the purposes of God unless He chooses to reveal them to us.  You cannot know the purpose of your suffering, the complete and fullest picture of the purposes of your suffering, unless God makes it known.  That’s a large part of why I pray that He give us eyes to see and ears to hear how our suffering glorifies Him.  Take a couple deaths in my tenure here.  David Kline’s funeral was literally standing room only and included atheists and people of other faiths.  David’s witness, and Mary’s after his death, caused people to re-examine what they believed or what they were told about God apart from their faith and witness.  Joan Vollmer’s has been one about dwelling, which is precisely what she most wanted.  She wanted me to get through to her friends and family that dwelling with God was, well, orders of magnitude above and beyond what we could ask or imagine.  It’s not a hotel room in a mansion.  It’s not just an eternal church service.  God took a bridge game illustration, as crazy as it sounded, and ran with it in the hearts and minds of those who heard it.

     Hanging over the wonder and witness of His faithful servants at Advent and over the promises this priest declares is that problem we call death.  Every single person who has reached out to me because of those funerals has eventually gotten back to the “but” of death.  I could worship his God, Father, but why did his God let Him die?  I so want to believe, Father, but why let Joan die?  Why not heal her and let me see the miracle?  Why not save David from the accident and let me hear of the miracle?  Oh, that my Redeemer lives!

     Though Job lived however many years before Jesus of Nazareth, and though he had no real understanding of a Redeemer who would die on a cross for him, Job had complete and utter confidence, faith, in God.  God knew that.  That’s why, in the heavenly council, He pointed out Job to Satan.  Job trusted that one day, long after his body was destroyed, he would see God face to face, as a friend, as an advocate, and his eyes would behold Him.  God is every bit as much just and holy and righteous as He is love.  We forget those attributes, and so the world never hears them, or seldom hears them.  We need to hear them more so that we can share that glorious news around us.  Jesus’ death and Resurrection teaches us that God has the power to redeem all things in our life; now, we just wait on the fulfilment of His promise, assured of His power to keep them, and of His will to do them.  Put in simple English, God will vindicate and redeem all our suffering.  Period.  The end.  That means, all of us who are baptized into the death of His Son will be raised into His Resurrection with Him.  But the Gospel is like a gem.  There are many sides, sparkling facets, to that grand promise.

     Take, for instance, God’s dealings with Satan.  Was Job’s suffering only for our benefit, or was there a lesson for Satan?  Can you imagine that God so loved Satan that He tried to get through to him?  Why would He not?  He was the glorious angel called Light.  In the end, of course, Satan made his choice to reject the love and worship of God, and God allowed that choice to stand.  But what happened as a result?  He was expelled from the heavenly councils.  When you and I eventually stand before the throne in judgment, who stands there to accuse us?  Nobody!  Job’s prayer has been answered.  When we appear before the Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen, we will see our Advocate, Jesus Christ the Righteous, and no one, no one will be there to accuse us!

     You see, Jesus has already conquered the Accuser on the Cross.  What is one of the chief weapons of the Accuser?  Put it like this: when you were a child and mom caught your hand in the cookie jar and slapped it, what did you feel?  A slap?  Sure.  Yep, that would be a shocking rather than hurting pain.  But let’s talk emotions.  What did you feel getting caught?  That’s right, ashamed.  Some of us grew up in a culture that valued honor more than our culture does today.  How many of us were more worried about mom or dad finding out than we were about the punishment, if caught?  Shame was a powerful tool.  Mom’s and dad’s parented some of us to fear them more than getting a tongue-lashing or paddling at school, to fear their consequences more than a police officer’s ticket for speeding or a crash, and heaven help you if you were caught a bit too amorous in your making out!

     We laugh, but it’s a rueful laugh.  Shame was and is a real feeling.  We hate to let loved ones down.  What will they think of me now?  How much more so, do you think, does Satan use that when we think of our Father in heaven?  I mean, those of you who have argued with me these last five years that your sins are the exception to God’s redeeming power, what is Satan’s real hold over you?  Shame!  You fear you disappointed God and, as a result, His promises are not extended to you.  How many times have I told you that you are not alone?  Last week, we read the story of Zacchaeus, who heard the whispers.  Before that, we read the story of the tax collector and Pharisee.  Anybody remember the story of the Prodigal Son?  We are all ashamed when we dwell on our sins; we all are certain we have let God down.  But the glorious news is that He knew we would!  And still He went to that Cross for us, and still He willed Himself to hang there and die there!  You know why, because He took that shame to the Cross with Him and nailed it there, too!

     We don’t talk a lot about the Crucifixion and Passion the way we really should.  It’s hard.  I only have so much time of your attention, and the Easter season brings a number of visitors.  But Jesus came into the world in a shame culture.  The spitting, the beard pulling, the crown of thorns, the soldiers’ mocking—all of that was a shaming of Jesus.  Who do You think You are to claim to be the Son of God?  And the Crucifixion . . . y’all know He was nailed to that Cross naked as the day He entered the world, right?  These paintings and sculptures that show Him with a tunic covering His genitals are fanciful.  He was nailed naked to that Cross to show just how impotent He and his friends and culture were to do anything about it.

     Part of it we understand in a deep level.  When Adam and Eve sinned, what was the first thing they did to hide from God.  Right, covered themselves with leaves.  What was the first thing God did for them after telling them they were banned from His presence in the Garden?  Gave them skins to cover their nakedness.  There’s a reason we cover up, ladies and gentlemen, it’s to hide our shame.  Add to that understanding the Roman worship of sex, whom they called Venus, and you can well understand why they nailed their victims naked to crosses, exposing them, humiliating them, laughing at and scorning them.  You are so weak, you should be ashamed of yourself!

     Jesus took even that shame upon Himself, though He’d done nothing wrong to deserve it.  He understood that shame needed to die every bit as much sin and all the other things He took upon the Cross for our sake.  As a result, Satan holds no power over us.  Oh, Satan is still about the world going to and fro’ and sowing doubt and animosity where he can.  He tries and tries to convince us that our Father does not really love us, that our Father is ashamed of us, that we are unlovable.  I’m certain he is engaged in spiritual warfare we cannot see.  But his weapon we call shame died on the Cross on Calvary.  And as a result, we have no reason to feel shame when we approach our Father in heaven.  Like Job who came before us, and all the saints about whom we read, we need only approach God in joyful thanksgiving, grateful that His Son took our deserved place and our deserved punishment, that He might see His righteousness in each of us!  Like Job and all those saints who have come before, we stand before the graves and we stand before the calamities of our lives, confident that He will redeem us, that, in truth, it is His nature than He can do nothing other!  And you and I live in this reality each and every time we gather here!  We are giving joyful thanks for what He has done for us and what He promises He will do for us!  And just to be clear, He is not now nor is He promising to shame us!

     See what I mean?  I was fired up this week.  Without raising your hands though, who needed to hear this reminder?  Who needed this teaching?  Who among us is afraid they needed it because someone in their life has been caught up in shame to the point they cannot hear the story of God’s love for them?  My guess is, given your attention for these last few minutes, nearly all.  We are not alone.  Remember those inscrutable purposes and suffering statements I made near the beginning, how neither Job nor we can really understand God, except for what He reveals to us?  Yes?  Does Job ever learn the purpose behind his sufferings?  Does Job ever learn that Satan uses him as a test case on humanity?  No.  He doesn’t.  Though we may think of Job as a paragon of righteous suffering, never once does God share with Job the manifold purposes of his suffering.  Oh, Job understands better now that the whirlwind has appeared that he was telling the truth, but he has no idea that God could use his suffering to reach us seven thousand miles away and three thousand years later.  Nor does Job have any idea that his suffering was, perhaps, an incarnated sermon for the accuser.  Knowing that, do you not feel your burdens lifted?  The same God who used Job to teach His people about unjust suffering and, yes, messianic suffering, has His hand, His eyes, and His heart upon you and upon me.  And just as it was enough for our brother Job in his trials, so must it be for us.  But one day, one glorious day, Job will be proved utterly and completely correct.  One day, we who call Him Lord will stand upon the earth, in the presence and glory of our Redeemer, and we will see Him with our eyes!  No matter life’s vicissitudes, no matter our deaths, no matter what happens in the intervening time, at the end, we shall see Him on our side, just as He always was and is!

In Christ’s Peace,

Brian†

What if Amos walked among us? What would he call out in our lives?

     On Monday, I was certain I would be preaching on the parable of the Dishonest Steward or Manager, as it is often known.  Truth be told, I was relieved a bit to see it for this week’s readings.  I had just finished detailed preparation for it for the Tuesday night Bible Study, so I was ready!  That I am warning and lamenting, of course, let’s you know I think God had other plans.

     Monday night, I was coming out of the shower at the Y after my fide.  For those of you who are ladies and do not understand male locker room etiquette, we men do not speak much to each other in the locker room.  We go about our business, avoiding eye contact and speech at nearly all costs.  And under no circumstances do we do anything that might cause another guy to lose control of his towel and end up, ahem, exposed.  LOL  You ladies are laughing at us, but ask the guys next to you if I am exaggerating in the slightest.

     So, Monday night, I come out of the shower after my lift and ride and a man with a son asks if we know each other.  He felt like he had seen me before.  Get your minds out of the gutter.  I swear.  Y’all are as bad as the other guys in the locker room.  Everybody panics because he is talking to me.  They were probably all terrified I’d risk shaking his hand and losing control of my towel.  I get it.  So, a back and forth conversation happens that makes everyone else present uncomfortable. 

     Eventually, we figure out that Tina and I have helped him at our food pantry.  Better still, he tells me how much people at his son’s school appreciate us going there.  Imagine my surprise because it was not Croft or Norman Binkley.  Hilary and Nancy and others have added yet another school on some weekends.  He did, of course, grab my hand and shake it forcefully and for a bit.  In truth, I was worried he was going to shake my towel out of my other hand.  But I kept control and my dignity and made no one even more uncomfortable, given the circumstances.

     Eventually, after all the thank you’s and stories about those whom we served and his own family, he left to get his son ready for bed and school the next morning.  After a few moments of blessed silence, a brave soul ventured a question.  He’d noticed how appreciative the gentleman was.  A couple guys piled on and joked that deaf people could have heard his thankfulness.  The first guy asked me to repeat my church and the ministry and had a few probing questions.  Then he commented that it was a shame.  English was not the thankful guy’s first language.  So my first engager thought it was a shame that foreigners could not support themselves.  He opined that they should wait until they can to try and immigrate or, alternatively, live within their means.  That got a lot of assent from what was, perhaps surprisingly to y’all sitting here, a limited, but ethnically diverse group of men.  It was a group of diverse men, just to remind y’all, who had decided to risk their man cards and talk with a priest and each other in a lock room about a subject with which they had no experience and, for those who claimed to be Christian, a woeful lack of discipleship.

     Good, y’all have known me for five years and understand how that conversation  went.  Many folks would rather stay near their home.  Those that are forced to flee by circumstances, though, go through a lot of shock to move here.  There’s the paperwork for legal immigration or the fear that comes with undocumented immigration; there are some government support agencies out there, but many benefits cease after a few months – those healthcare benefits are part of the reason Siloam exists in our community; they give up jobs as doctors, accountants, lawyers, and whatever else to become landscapers, service industry workers, janitors, and day laborers among us; and, oh by the way, they do all this as they are learning another language.

     The Holy Spirit was among us.  As I shared my experiences with those who come to us in need, some resonated with those whose grandparents had immigrated here.  One guys grandpa had been a doctor in his home country.  He could not afford basically to repeat medical school here in the United States, so he worked as a janitor to feed the kids.  One guy’s parents had spent their life savings applying for all the correct visas and immigration cards and getting the family to the United States.  And, as we talked in a locker room a bit more, we all reminded ourselves just how expensive Nashville is.  I, of course, brought up Jesus’ commands to us who claim to be His disciples.  The Christians wrestled a bit with the fact that those commands were in red letters in their Bibles but just how hard the work truly is.  What could have been a very negative and judgmental conversation turned into a discussion of whether we believe Jesus’ commands are just that or suggestions, of whether we truly believe we are merely stewards, of what we are to do about those who game the system and rip of organizations like our church, and even whether we could change unjust systems.

     A couple days later, I found myself in the ICU visiting my cousin and aunt.  If you are new to Advent, Lana is my proof that I am a native hillbilly.  I will tell people that “oh, yeah, my cousin married my uncle” and use the accompanying confusion and silence to whatever necessary purpose I deem necessary.  Lana is my cousin on my mother’s side, but she married my dad’s brother, in part because my sister and I introduced them to get to ride all the rides at a local carnival.  We have been praying for Lana at Advent because she has, what is now, metastasized cancer.  While I was visiting my mother for her birthday, Lana was being transitioned to hospice.  We happened to be there as the decision and transfer was being made.  While that is, of course, a horrible tragedy for my uncle and cousins, I was drawn into another discussion with a nurse.

     We have a number of doctors and nurses and other healthcare related professionals here, so this will be a conversation that reminds them and us of our need for a Savior.  We chatted at first about that fine line that exists between making people comfortable and actually killing them.  Doctors especially take an oath to first do no harm.  But pain management is a tricky business.  The more morphine we give, the greater the side effects.  Too much morphine can cause death; too little leaves the patient in terrible pain.  That line gets blurred because of the addictive nature of morphine drugs.  The more the body gets, the more it needs.  I see the understanding and first hand experience on many of your faces.

     This nurse was concerned about whether they were sideways with God.  There’s been a few times where she worried she caused a death more than ameliorated the pain of a patient.  It was, to be sure, unintentional.  And no one had raised the question legally or ethically, but she had the moral worry.  Were she an Episcopalian, I would say that she was having a crisis of conscience and was wrestling with the Enemy.

     My advice was really pretty simple.  Had she followed guidelines and instructions and best practices, or was she trying to kill them to end their suffering?  The latter question got a horrified no, and the former got an enthusiastic nod.  I told her that God knew her heart.  That last question was way more important than the first few, but I reminded her that the guidelines and instructions were not cover when it came to God.  She needed to be aware and speak into bad systems and bad guidelines and be the herald of God’s mercy that He’d called her to be.

     My cousin, Lana’s youngest, is a nursing student.  We chatted a bit about that, and she got animated about some of the systems.  She shared some scary stuff with me about eugenics, and I shared with her more morphine stuff.  A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, when I was a broker, I recommended that clients buy stock in a company that had synthesized a sea slug venom that seemed to be as effective as morphine with no addictive qualities.  I should add that my clients loved that investment.  It IPO’d at $14.  It went up and down for several months.  Clients who had watched a loved one suffer typically owned the most.  One day at work, word broke that the company was being acquired for $50 a share.  Sounds great, doesn’t it?  Believe me, I was a happy broker.  I made some jack that month!

     The rest of the story was that the acquiring company decided to shut down the Phase III trials.  Turns out that they had a financial interest in the morphine drugs that are on the market and used to keep people comfortable . . .  or addicted.  There’s no way that I could have known in the mid 90’s that I was participating in a system that would kill however many people that it has, that I would be serving as a pastor in a church where people shoot up and, in at least one case, nearly kill themselves, or that I would be so involved in the moral quandaries forced upon healthcare professionals.  Oh, and unless I forget, you can all imagine my wonderful feelings when that same company asked the NIH for $60 million or so in funding to explore the efficacy of this “replacement solution” that they “found” in their archives and that, in countries where certain patents have expired, the drug is already in use.  Yes, those of you with angry expressions heard me right.  That drug is already in use in other countries where drug patents are not as lengthy.  That means the opioid epidemic that we have been experiencing in as far away as our parking lot here at Advent might not have been necessary.

     I could go on and on about the systemic injustices which you and I defend, navigate, or are ground under by as we seek to live our lives.  Depending on our passions, and likely their impact on our lives, we may care more or less about systemic injustices, but the prophet Amos had the wonderful call on his life to point out all the systemic injustices which he saw and to call the people of the northern kingdom, Israel, to do away with such injustices or risk God’s withdrawal of blessings or even His sending of curses.

     To take you back in time, Amos ministered somewhere around the 750’s BC, shortly after the death of Solomon and the division of the kingdom of Israel.  Jeroboam, which has more of an impact on our Episcopal wine sensibilities today, was king of the northern kingdom.  Like any good politician, Jeroboam wanted to make sure folks in the northern kingdom stayed loyal to him.  One of the biggest obstacles to that loyalty was the fact that Jerusalem and the Temple were in the southern kingdom of Judah.

     In an act that would surprise few of us, Jeroboam erected a place of worship in the northern part of Israel near Dan and in the southern part near Bethel.  Now, I like to think we are pretty unsurprised by the words and actions of politicians, but this king commissioned two golden calves and had them placed near the entrance to the two places of worship in the northern kingdom.  We read that story last week, and we talked about God’s displeasure with His people, how His wrath burned hot against them, and how, were it not for Moses’ intercession, all those in the Exodus, save Moses, would have been killed in God’s wrath.  As it was, they burned the calf, sprinkled the ashes in the water, drank it, and were made sick.  Better still, 3000 of the presumed leaders were identified and killed by the Levites.  Good.  I see the nods.

     Now, y’all are amateur Christians, but you know this story.  Given your study of the events and God’s response, would you ever think to erect a golden calf and identify it as your God or as your God’s mount?  Good.  I see the laughter.  It would take a particular kind of stupid, wouldn’t it?  The king was a professional student of God.  The chief responsibility of the king was to study the torah and teach it to the people.  If the king did his job, God would bless the people.  Now, we have a king, a descendant in the line of David and Solomon, a king who called Solomon dad and David granddad, who decides it will be a good idea to re-commission and mount the calves.

     Were that was the only sin! 

     Amos lays out a list of societal or institutional sins that should sound similar in our own ears.  They trample the needy!  They bring ruin to the poor!  Business owners rip off the customers by providing less or inferior product AND by overcharging for that less or inferior product!  Amos reminds Israel that God has sworn by the pride of Jacob, and how do they respond?  Do they tremble at the thought that God might judge them?  Are they worried that, one day, they will stand before the Lord and need to make an accounting?  No!

     Amos speaks God’s judgment into a godless, unjust, and sinful land.  He will bring great mourning, like that found at the death of an only son!  We think we understand the pain and lamentation that suggests, but we really do not.  While we mourn the death of a child, our children do not tie us in our own minds into the covenant of God.  The death of an only son meant the very real possibility that a family, the particular owner of a plot of the Land, would cease to exist.  Spiritually speaking, such deaths meant a family was cut off from God’s promises!  The deep mourning described by Amos captures that spiritual sense along with the normal sense of loss associated with death.

     Does that image cause Israel to change its ways?  Do the people hear the judgement from the mouth of God’s own prophet and seek to repent?  To change their ways?  No.

     God even promises something worse.  He will quit speaking.

     You and I, I think, cannot fathom that particular promise.  One of the distinguishing characteristics of Yahweh was that He spoke to His people.  More often than not, as you read your favorite stories in the Old Testament, God spoke three times around particular events, in addition to the normal conversations He had with our spiritual forebears.  Before God would act, He would tell His people that He was going to act.  During the act, He would tell the people He was acting in accordance with His spoken promise.  Then, after the action was completed, God would tell the people to look at what He had just done.  Through all those interactions, the Lord would give theological meaning to the action.  Often, He would rescue them.  Less often, He would judge their, and His, enemies.  I have not counted, but I think He may judge Israel more often than their enemies.

     Amos’ prophesy falls into that last category, and He wants them to know that what is about to happen is His will.  They have not kept the covenant they made with Him.  He is so faithful that He will have the Land disgorge them for their transgression, and the invading army will be His instrument of that judgment.  They will, of course, seek Him and His word after these things come to be, and He will not be found.

     This curse of silence will find its real fulfillment in the words of Micah, and the intervening silence between Micah and John the Baptizer, but we and they get an appetizer here.  What would it meant to a people used to hearing the voice of God for Him to go silent?  That’s what Israel is about to experience.  And make no mistake about it, God wants them to know He is being faithful to the covenant they both made at Sinai after the molten calf nonsense.  They promised to keep the Covenant.  Keeping it meant His blessings.  But violating it with impunity was not possible.  Warning after warning was sent through the prophets, and still the people do not repent.  So God will be faithful.  Israel will be disgorged from their inheritance, and He will cease to speak for a time.

     Thankfully, and mercifully, you and I live after God’s last great silence.  Thankfully, you and I live after His Word became flesh, dwelt among us, lived as He commanded in the torah, died for our sins, was raised on that glorious third day, and ascended to the Father where He makes intercessions on our behalf.  We have no fear of God’s silence precisely because He has given us all He had to say in Christ Jesus our Lord!  Yet, as I was reminded in the locker room this week, as I scrolled through the “news” channels this week, as I glanced over the headlines that came across my phone and computer, I wonder if we ever really listen to Him any more, and, scarier still, if we understand the consequence of our intransigence and sins.  Have we become less heralds of God’s grace and more heralds of cheap grace?  Do we see the institutional evils in our life and throw our hands up in futility or look the other way hoping that someone else will fix it?  Have we spent so much time focused on this world that we have lost the promise, the hope, and the power of God’s covenant with us through Christ?

     We live in a country where many want to claim is Christian.  More than a few of you have been shocked at my insistence that we are not God’s chosen nation nor that we should want to be.  Few of us want the ministry of Amos, but fewer of those around us would want to hear God’s word on this or that injustice, even among those who claim with their lips that Christ is Lord.  Can you imagine how people would respond if we called out the injustices present in for profit prisons and demanded that our politicians fix them?  Can you imagine how our fellow citizens would respond if we called out the systemic injustices in our own “justice” system and demanded our politicians fix them?  Can you imagine if we called out the systemic injustices in our healthcare system and demanded that our politicians fixed them?  Can you imagine if we called out any of the injustices in any system with which we engaged and demanded our politicians fix them?  And what if we made our case and those politicians who chose to accept injustice were voted out of office?  What if there were real consequences for inaction or immoral action for our leaders?  Would not God be glorified in our actions even more so than in our words?

     Instead, we reward them for their status quo.  I think one of the great tragedies of this time when future Church historians look back on this place and this time, will be the Church’s silence in the face of injustice and our excuse making for our leaders because of their party affiliation.  Somewhere along the way, we have forgotten who we are.  We have placed ourselves in one camp or the other and forgotten who we truly are and what we are truly called and empowered to do.

     There is a famous scene in a movie that had no real intention, I think, to be Gospel revealing.  The movie was called Hellboy and starred Ron Pearlman as a wise-cracking demon.  As Armageddon is being thrust upon him by the antagonist, the human hero grabs Hellboy’s cross and throws it to him.  The cross, as we learned earlier, was a gift from Hellboy’s adoptive father.  As Hellboy catches the cross and grasps it, it burns his hand, getting through the haze of power and mourning and fear and whatever else is ruling his heart that time.  The young agent tells him to remember who he is and that his father gave him a choice.  I see a couple nods but a lot more worried faces.  I know.  Hollywood using demons to glorify God and disciple us.  It’s crazy.

     What’s more crazy, though?  The movie scene I just described or the idea that God’s chosen people, His own sons and daughters, His princes and princess, would accept any injustice, let alone make excuses for it, or even worse, wave their hands in futility, as if they lacked the power to do anything about it?

     Good!  I see squirming.  Now you know how Israel felt when Amos walked the streets.  Now you know how merchants and rulers and priests felt when Amos walked the streets, full of the Holy Spirit, and pronounced God’s judgment on their actions and their hearts.  I daresay it is that same Holy Spirit which is causing us to squirm this day in light of those injustices from which we profit, for which we feel impotent to change, or simply do not care because they do not affect us.  But here’s the kicker and the greater promise of the Gospel: you and I, by virtue of our baptism into the death and Resurrection of Jesus, have been grafted into God’s own family.  We have prayed for eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to understand.  And when we do, we are called to act, not just cluck our tongues, but act.  Yes, the work may seem incredibly hard.  Yes, we may die before the injustice is corrected.  Yes, God’s enemies may even seem to be winning for a time.  But you and I are called, day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, through whatever circumstance of life we find ourselves, to live as His sons and daughters, to live as if Jesus came out of that tomb and ascended to our Father, as if He keeps His word and sends His Spirit to accomplish His will in our lives and the lives of those around us.

     My reminder this week was a locker room full of men following the gratitude and thankfulness of an immigrant and the relief of a nurse who, in a crisis of conscience, needed to be reminded of her inheritance and her Father’s mercy.  Given the holy silence that has descended upon this sanctuary as God has spoken in your hearts this morning, I’m betting each of us here present has been reminded as well His call upon and His promise to each one of us in our lives.

In His Peace,

Brian†