Amos 7:7-17

Mindfulness is big right now. If you Google it you’ll see how it can help you “stay simple in a complex world.” It can help you “launch your career.” It can help you “become a better parent.” All that came up in just 10 seconds of searching.

We have a friend who is very interested in exploring mindfulness, and the information she’s shared with us seems very positive, and empowering, and good. We also have a friend who has become a Buddhist monk. He’s not the kind of monk who lives in a monastery, wears religious clothing, and removes himself from the mainstream of society. But, he has studied quite a bit, and he’s practiced within a community, and he’s been tested, and guided, and nurtured by mentors. He’s spent a great deal of time in meditation. We told him about our friend who is so interested in mindfulness, and he responded, “The buddhist tradition that I’m a part of isn’t so big on the mindfulness movement.” We were surprised. We thought it would be right up his alley. He explained, “Well, we’ve found that you can be very self-aware, very mindful, and still be a big jerk.”[1]

What a shame to spend all that time cultivating mindfulness only to find that it hasn’t made you a more decent, pleasant, or kind person!

Do you ever feel like we’re fighting the wrong battles or directing our energies along the wrong path? One of the commentaries I read on Amos quotes Barbara Ehrenreich in her book, “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.” In talking about her time as a waitress she writes, “The worst [patrons], for some reason, are the Visible Christians – like the ten-person table, all jolly and sanctified after Sunday night service, who run me mercilessly and then leave me $1 on a $92 bill.”[2] What do you think they are thinking? What is the content of a faith that allows you to feel good about yourself and at peace with God while at the same time treating another (who is there serving you) without regard or respect, not to mention generosity or love or anything even approaching that? I really do mean for us to think about that question, and not simply frown upon the poor tippers. What is our faith teaching us? What is it telling us about God, about God’s relationship with God’s people, about our relationship with God’s people?

I’m reminded of the anti-global warming scientist who was employed primarily by large oil companies to defend their interests in the face of increasing environmental concerns. When asked by the interviewer, “What if you are wrong? What if you are contributing to the demise of our planet? What if you are fueling our own destruction?” He didn’t say, “Then I will be sincerely shocked and horrified.” Or, “Then the work, and the jobs, and the economies that I’m fighting to preserve aren’t worth a thing.” He didn’t say, “If I’m wrong – and I can’t believe that I am – then I will repent and trust in God’s power to redeem.” Rather, he said, “If my work contributes to our destruction as a people, then I at least have the confidence that through my belief in Jesus Christ I will go to heaven when I die.” What was it that his faith taught him about who God is in this world? And, what kind of church taught it to him so tragically well?

I have a colleague who is very upset about a recent decision of the NYAC of the UMC. He’s upset that the Conference will no longer consider sexual orientation or preference when examining candidates for ordination. At the last meeting a number of gay clergy were ordained and appointed to churches. My colleague has been posting a bit on Facebook. He captioned the first article, “Shut the Lights on Your Way Out.” It attributed the decline of the church to liberal theology that lacks substance and encourages sexual sin because it no longer has any real standards. The next article read, “9 Sins the Church Is Surprisingly OK With as Long as You Love Jesus.” The last was called, “Born This Way,” and he argued that we’re all fallen; we’re all sinful, and there’s nothing wrong with rejecting sexual sin when really we’re called to reject all sin.

But, honestly, I wonder even about that. I don’t think that’s our calling. Certainly, I don’t think that’s our primary calling. In fact, I think that sin management has actually coopted Christian faith. We’ve focused on it and been guided by it either in our choosing to dismiss it as too negative, an unnecessary, outdated kind of self-hatred, or we’ve made it the goal of our faith to eliminate the bad by following the rules, to relieve guilt by rejecting what we know we shouldn’t do. The thing is, you can give up the things you know you shouldn’t do and still be a big jerk. You can be a totally righteous person and still be completely intolerable. What I’m trying to say is that I think we’ve mixed things up. Purity isn’t the goal of faith; it is a byproduct. And the same is true for forgiveness. We don’t repent so that we can be forgiven. We find ourselves loved and embraced by such grace that we discover that we are forgiven. Our repentance is in response to forgiveness; it is our decision to try to be the people God sees in us. In other words, sin management isn’t our goal; God is. When we forget this, our faith, our religion, gets all messed up. In the end, we end up striving for ourselves alone.

Israel, in our Old Testament passage, is messed up. Times are peaceful and prosperous, and the good religious folk are pleased with themselves and their circumstances. They think that all is peachy, but God sees it differently. God shows Amos a plumb line measuring a faulty wall. Writes Willis Jenkins, “The plumb line illustrates a fatal flaw in the community’s structure; it has come out of ‘true’ with itself. The plumb line represents a congruity between the uprightness of God’s law and the harmony of just social relations. It also implies the unavoidability of Israel’s death, for faulty construction must be torn down.”[3] Israel’s religion has allowed the faithful to “trample on the needy and to bring ruin to the poor.” Shortchanging and overcharging the desperate has become a way of business. Faith confirms the legality of these practices, but isn’t allowed a voice to point out the immorality of these practices. The priest, Amaziah, who should have been doing Amos’ job of bringing all of this to light, exiles Amos. But, did you notice his words to Amos as he sends him away? “This is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.” And, that he’s right about. It is certainly not God’s sanctuary; it is certainly not God’s kingdom.

There’s a finality to the condemnation that Amos proclaims in response. God says, “I will never again pass them by; the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jereboam with the sword.” There’s no redemption. There’s no salvation. There’s no remnant. There’s just destruction, divine rejection of religion gone bad, holy rejection of a Godless faith.

Though some are scandalized by the lack of good news in Amos’ prophecy, I wonder if we might feel otherwise. Jenkins asks, “What does it mean to say to a community claiming divine favor, and yet living on the backs of the poor, that God’s redeeming justice is on offer? Can that mean anything else than a summons to a kind of death?”

As I see it, that summons is very good news. To a community suffocated by its own injustice God says, “Come and die.” To a faith that has no room for actual transformation God says, “Come and die.” To a church that can do nothing more than justify its own righteousness God says, “Come and die.” To a religion that exists for the sake of nothing more sacred than managing our sins God says, “Come and die.”

Let it all die. Let it die on the cross with Christ. And with Christ, rise to something new!

[1] I do believe that mindfulness can be a powerfully healthy practice.  Just because it can be done in ways that do not cultivate compassion for others doesn’t mean that it must be done that way.

[2] FOTW, Year C, Volume 3, page 249.

[3] FOTW, Year C, Volume 3, page 220.