3.10.04

Social Action:

Tonight I speak @ Goucher in Towson @ InterVarsity's weekly meeting on campus. Their focus this semester is dual pronged: racial relations and social justice. So, tonight, I am speaking on Amos 5:21-24:

“I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! "

I love this passage... but it's a convicting one. Here, God is clearly not pleased with the worship of the people that called Him by name. The words are emphatic:

(v21) (1) Religious Feasts: This was meant to be a time of remembrance and celebration of God’s faithfulness. Yet this became a stench before God. Lit. “I will not smell.” He hated their feasts.
(2) Assemblies: Their cooperate worship was also displeasing to God -- lit. “I do not inhale with delight.”
(vs22) (3) Burnt Offerings, Grain Offerings, & Fellowship Offerings: “I will not except” is emphatic. Their confession of sins was hollow.
(v23) (4) Music and harps: Their praise was hollow and empty. The people were spiritually out of tune.

In other words... God's displeasure was such that He was not present in their worship. Sounds familiar...

Wonder what the issue was?

TRUE WORSHIP HAPPENS BETWEEN THE MEETINGS: or more specifically, church is God at work between the meetings.

(vs24) Justice Flowing Like A Strong River: Lit. a powerful flow of waters. Not your average or ordinary creek. This is a torrential flow of justice.
Righteousness, Like an ever Flowing Stream: Not inconsistent in flow, but steady.

Interestingly enough, during this time Israel was in a huge time of prosperity, of which no Israelite had ever known. And no longer was the nation a classless society; it had become a nation of the rich and the poor, with very little in between, a true situation of the have's and have not's. Amos, a sheepherder by trade and reluctant prophet of God, boldly spoke against the ways of the people of Yahweh. The worship of Yahweh had become cultural and devoid of God's presence. There was great lip service, but little faith in action. Yahweh's promises were all the people cared about... not His law. His blessing, not His discipline. His outsourcing of "stuff," not his outsourcing of "hesed" -- Love. God's love always comes through relationship, and that was something they did not seek.

I wonder for the American church in these things... Does Justice flow? Does Righteousness? Do we rightly treat our brother? Do we despise him? Use him? Do we know who our neighbor is? And if we DO know our neighbor, what precipitated that relationship? Most likely it's because they have something we want/need.

Though Israel's culture seemed to be flowing with milk and honey during this time, it flowed with stench that reached God and disgusted Him. Yeah, I wonder about the American Church in 2004. I wonder...