Prophet

Pentecost 22A, 11/9/14

Amos 5:18-24

Holy Wisdom, guide our actions in life. Keep us attentive to your presence among us and help us be ready for the day of your coming. Amen.

Once upon a time, God created Adam and Eve and placed them in Paradise. All was going well, until they decided to go against God’s commands and do something that would separate them from God.    They sinned.

And they got kicked out of the Garden of Eden.

Then the population of the world grew and spread, and all seemed to be going well for a while. But then the people started doing evil things – they sinned.

And God destroyed them all, except for Noah and his family and a boatload of animals.

Several generations passed, and the Israelites eventually ended up enslaved in Egypt. God sent Moses to free the people from slavery, and he did – but once the people got their freedom, they complained about the food that God was miraculously providing for them in the desert.

         So God made them wander there, and eat that food, for 40 years.

Finally the Israelites got to the Promised Land, and in time they formed a country united under a single ruler, but after the reign of only three kings, the people sinned. They argued about how best to follow God. The kingdom split.

Eventually, the people will be conquered by neighboring kingdoms and taken away from the Promised Land and into exile.

But first: enter Amos.

Amos was a prophet sent by God to warn the people about their sin, to help prevent the calamity that God knew was coming.

Amos was just one of many prophets sent to the people of Israel over the years. Most of the books of the Old Testament that are named after a person    are named after one of these prophets. It seems that whenever the people were in danger of slipping so far into their sin that God would need to correct them, a prophet or two would show up.

When we hear the words prophet or prophecy, we tend to think of speculations about what the future will hold.

But Hebrew prophets weren’t fortune-tellers – they didn’t predict the future.

Hebrew prophets spoke out against the injustice and unfaithfulness that they witnessed in their current world situation.

God gave them a message to share, they were bold enough to share it – they were compelled to do so, regardless of how that message was received.

Prophets were known to get in to trouble with religious leaders, political leaders, and the general population… kind of like Jesus, actually, except that most of the Hebrew prophets weren’t put to death for their teachings.

So the Hebrew prophet Amos wasn’t predicting the future.

But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at the history of the Hebrew people and realize that they’re about due for another catastrophe.

As had happened a number of times in the past, the chosen people strayed from following the law that God had given them. They lost faith in God’s guidance. They were setting themselves up for another disaster, just like the ones that had come to put the people in their place every time throughout known history that the people had strayed from God’s law.

And Amos could see it. So – at God’s urging – Amos chose to warn the people.

Here is the gist of Amos’ message:

Your actions outside of worship matter more than your acts of worship.

If your daily actions aren’t making the world a better place, you should be afraid of what God has planned for you.

So coming to Sunday worship, praying before every meal, serving on church council, attending to the needs of your own faith community – none of these is relevant, according to Amos.

         Instead, what God wants faithful people to do is create justice in society.

Faithful people are supposed to make sure that everyone in the world is fed, regardless of the cost to themselves. Faithful people are supposed to make sure that all God’s children have access to clean water and to other health care needs.

Faithful people should make sure that everyone is treated fairly, regardless of race or nationality, and that suspected criminals get their day in court.

The list could go on and on.

Here’s another way to summarize Amos’ message today:

Would an outside observer be able to tell that you are a follower of God by the way you live your daily life?

If not, a change is in order.

If every action that you take in life is not directed by God, and if you aren’t constantly working for the kingdom of God to show up in the world, then you are not doing a good job of following God.

OK, let me clarify a bit here.

We’re not talking about salvation.

There is nothing that you can do to earn that – God has already taken care of your salvation for you.

That’s what we call grace – whether you’re deserving of it or not, God welcomes you into the community of the chosen, the saved, the people who have been faithful throughout the generations.

What we’re talking about is what we do with our lives before God welcomes us into that community of faithful people for all eternity.

One of my seminary professors says this about the readings for this week:

[God’s] judgment… affirms those people whose lives express the virtues Jesus embodies: faithfulness, perseverance, readiness, obedience, and compassion.

Matthew Skinner, oddesynetworks.org/on-scripture-the-bible

Here’s an analogy that a friend of mine shared about the importance of Christian living. I hope it can help you understand the meaning of the readings today.

         Everyone in Christian community is part of a football team.

Some of us are starters and some are benchwarmers, but each of us has been chosen by God to serve on the team.

OK. So we’re all teammates. But we have to figure out a play, we have to strategize about the upcoming game.

So we huddle. We figure out what we think is the best thing to do.

         And then we go out and do it.
We start making plays. We start scoring points. We start using our God-given talents for the good of the team.

Coming to worship is like participating in the huddle of that football team.

We can learn some good information and have some fun here.

But faithful people are not supposed to stay inside the church walls. God wants us to go out and be involved with what’s going on in the world.

No one says, at the end of the football game “Man! That was the most amazing huddle I’ve ever seen!”

It’s the plays that count.

When we’re actually acting in faith, that is when we are following God. We heed the prophets’ warnings by going out onto that field and playing a really stellar game.

So let’s listen to the message of the prophet today. While we are waiting for the day of the Lord, when we’ll begin spending eternity with generations of faithful people, until the day of the Lord comes, let’s live a life full of faithful actions.

Amen.