Justice

Amos 5:1-17

When I was an undergraduate, one of the largest courses at the college was a course taught by Michael J. Sandel, a professor and political philosopher, whose lectures consistently packed Sanders Theater with wide-eyed young adults who were entertained by his challenge to us to define Justice. I have had occasion to think of that course in recent days because Sandel, a lot grayer and balder than he was in those days, has just published a book and is hosting a PBS series on the subject matter of this course that he has now taught for more than 30 years. But as I think of Justice (the name by which this moral reasoning course was known) I am disturbed to realize how marginalized thoughts of real justice are. They are pushed aside, just as the people whose lives most cry out for justice are themselves so often far from the center of our thoughts or deliberations.

The text in Amos startles me as I ponder this because of the degree to which its condemnations seem contemporary. I know the locations Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba are far removed from us. But the condition of hardened hearts unwilling to receive the correction of true prophets who speak the truth about greed, mismanagement, theft, and poverty - all of that is as true in the 21st century urban world we inhabit as it was in the 8th century before Christ, when the prophet's words first were written. Worse still, in our times we experience the same kind of spiritual numbness and hypocrisy that allowed God's people to feel justified even as they exploited their kin (you know, God's other children). The message of the text is that the Lord will pass through, and how terrible will the day of the Lord be for those who fail to heed the righteous claims of those who cry out for justice.

For too long, the church has vacillated between a commitment to personal salvation and a commitment to social justice. To treat these foci as if they are incompatible and competing is to miss the point that Amos screams. To seek God we must also seek justice for those made in God's image. And on this 5th day of our Advent journey, the demand to make justice central is not merely an exercise in political philosophy for the entertainment of adolescents, it is God's call.

Attention Getter

Amos 4:6-13

There is a kind of chronic neurosis that long-time Christians often display: we look for the reason in everything. What I mean by that is that we look for the "cause" behind every difficult or inexplicable thing that happens to us or to people close to us. The danger of that attitude is best exemplified biblically by the incorrect but firmly held convictions of Job's friends that Job must have done something to merit the disaster his life had become. It's good to read Job so that we know that there may not be answers to why calamity comes upon us, but we need to read Amos 4 to remember that sometimes we need to ask the question.

The prophet Amos, whose oracles regarding the injustice and evil in the community have inspired prophets centuries and continents removed from his context, speaks for a God who sometimes tries to get human beings' attention. Hunger, drought, blight, pestilence, scarcity, war, devastation - all kinds of calamity in succession emerged to make the people stop and ask the question: Am I/are we living right? The God whom Amos quotes sounds almost perplexed, certainly frustrated at the hardness of the hearts and the dullness of the ears of people who should be able to recognize the signs of God's displeasure. "But you would not turn," God says almost incredulously.

As I read the text from Amos, my first inclination is to recoil from the image of a God who would withhold rain and send war. My own sense of justice is troubled by the certainty that in any national tragedy many innocents suffer, and I am disinclined to see God as the source. At the same time, something about this text speaks urgently to the individual and the community that has parted company with right and righteousness. We are not always innocent. And when we are wrong, what, if anything, can shock us enough to arrest our attention so that we can hear God say, "Repent"? When God snatches us like a brand out of the fire of our own or others' making, it's not always harmful to ask whether there's something God is trying to tell us.

Is God trying to tell you something? Is today's challenge God's way of getting your attention? Or not.

Happiness Is

Psalm 119:1-24

Who doesn't want to be happy? I know if you ask the children in your family what they want for Christmas, you'll get a list for Santa that would break the parents' bank. And if we're honest, most of us adults when asked what we want can go on and on with everything including having a material/financial needs met, having our relationships restructured, having our employment more adequately remunerated. Bottom line: we'd give the kids a run for their money in making our lists. But wait, what about happiness? Oh... yeah... that. I think we think that if we get the rundown of our lists, then happiness surely will follow. I mean what's missing from our bank accounts, our ideal homes, and our work life is the sum total of what keeps us from being happy. Right?

The Psalmist wouldn't agree. By his accounting, happiness is actually knowing what is right (the Lord's precepts) and doing it. The people who know the Lord's law and who walk in God's ways, those are the happy people. They are the ones who are wiser than the years. They are the ones who are protected even under assault. They are the ones who have clear paths. They are the ones who live with consistency.

For many years, the Lord and I have been having an ongoing conversation in which I feed God my list of the things that will complete my life and fulfill my joy - legitimate longings and desires to have and be what I fantasize will make me happy. I am relentless in asking. And God's answer does not change: Trust me. Seek my face. Find joy and gratitude in the life you have. Watch it unfold. Be happy now. I guess Advent is time again to work on this.

No Easy Answers

Psalm 10

There really is significant biblical precedent for questioning God. I know you would never guess it based on the conventional wisdom passed on through Sunday school lessons and sermons, but "Why" is very much a part of the faithful person's prayer lexicon.

Hear the Psalmist in the face of trouble asking God why God is on the sidelines instead of changing the course of the game. But don't rush to the end of the Psalm too quickly. Don't you do the disappearing act of hiding behind an affirmation of faith without fully exploring the painful space of "no easy answers." For a moment, let's just tell the truth. Doesn't it feel sometimes as if just at the moment when having an omnipotent God would be most helpful, God goes into hiding? I mean, you pray for a parking space and it appears almost like magic, but when you really need some help - poof, no God nowhere. All you see are the signs of your misery; all you hear are the taunts of the people who thought your faith was futile or silly anyway. What is there to say to God in that moment but "Why?"

This Advent journey does not promise easy answers to the whys and the whens of our lives. It doesn't even guarantee that by Christmas we'll be sure we know where the Christ child lays. What it does is to invite us to take our own questions seriously and to bring them in the raw honesty to the place of worship.

Help Me Make it Through the Night

Isaiah 2:1-5

With all the emphasis that we place on individual piety, salvation, and holiness, we sometimes forget that this spiritual journey was never designed to be a solitary walk. When we are remade in Christ, we become parts of a whole body, members of a family, ambassadors and citizens of a kingdom. Our successes are not ours alone, and we are not the only ones who live with the consequences of our failures.

The future that Isaiah envisioned which provides our Advent reading for Day 2 occurs during a period of decline for Israel and Judah, symbolized in darkness. Yet the prophet imagined not only the restoration of the local and nationalistic fortunes of Israel and Judah, nor even just the reunion of these estranged family members. No, he imagines a restoration of universal significance, centralized in the image of light that comes from the mountain of the Lord. This new kingdom has a just sovereign who will make things right, making it safe for nations to retrofit their weapons and turn them into tools, and put war strategists permanently out of business.

But it's this last sentence that strikes a chord with me today as I spend time thinking about Christian community. "Let us walk in the light of the Lord." It's the message I think we're supposed to take from Advent. If we really catch the vision of the future that God promises, we can walk now in the light of it and encourage each other to do the same. Even if we're in the dark, if we can see the light ahead and continuously point it out to one another, we can make it through the night.

Love Letters

1 Thessalonians 3:9-13

I miss letters. Although I am fond of phone conversations, emails, and texting, I miss getting mail that is not bills. I miss seeing familiar handwriting on the envelope, the anticipation of hearing the news and reading the sentiments of those I love. I miss update letters - especially those that are individually written and not a form sent to everyone - telling me what I've missed since the last time we spoke. I miss make up letters, first steps to reconciliation. I miss love letters, missives that detail in writing and thus concretize emotions deeply felt. I miss letters. What I miss most about letter writing is the ability to run across the letter after months or years of not having read it and remembering again the emotions that the first reading elicited.

It is instructive, I think, to remember that the biblical books we describe with the technical word epistles are actually letters. They were in most instances written by an author and intended to be read aloud in a community to communicate the author's perspective, theology, and even emotions. Taken this way, the section from 1 Thessalonians that we read in this first Sunday of Advent is actually a love letter and a make-up letter. First, it comes from Paul, whose relationship with the saints at Thessalonica was tenuous, or at least so he feared. He tested the waters through his emissary Timothy and discovered that all was well. Hang in there, he wrote. I can't wait to see you.

Indirectly, though I am reading this and other Advent lessons as letters from a more intimate and much more deeply awaited source, that is, Jesus himself. Through Paul and sometimes through preachers, Jesus sends his message of love by emissaries, not because he doesn't already know where we stand but because he wants to reopen communication. He too is saying, "I can't wait to see you." And I hear him saying, "I am coming to see you." At once, I am elated and petrified.

Paul again steps in. If you want to be ready for your Beloved's appearance, then get your heart right. No need to fear. This is a love letter.

The Family Table

A sermon preached at St. Paul's Baptist Church, 1000 Wallace St. Philadelphia PA 9 August 2009


The Family Table
John 6



In the hustle and bustle of contemporary life, many of us hurry through
everything, including our meals. We “grab” something and “wolf” it down in the
midst of or while in transit to something else. More and more, this unhealthy
behavior characterizes the eating habits of children as well as those of busy
adults. Yet within the past several years, research has emerged that links
positive outcomes socially, emotionally, and physically with the experience of
regularly dining at the family table. Not only do children eat a more balanced
diet, with more fruit and vegetables, but there is evidence that they are also
less likely to engage in delinquent social behaviors when they sit down with
their parents for bonding time at meals.
 The article continues, "Just the act of eating together is on some level beneficial." (Click here for complete NY Times Article.)

The scenes of this entire chapter take place was by the Sea of Galilee, the site where Jesus had originally called some of his disciples and where he had attracted great crowds because of the miraculous signs that he performed on behalf of the sick.
The time was near the Passover feast, itself the family meal that commemorated God’s rescue of the Israelites from slavery. Spending time with his disciples, Jesus notices the crowds coming from the distance. The ever observant Jesus perceived the condition of the approaching masses and in it a teachable moment for his disciples. “Where shall we buy bread for the crowd that's on its way?” he asked his crew.

What followed was yet another demonstration of human limitation overcome by divine providence. Philip the questioning disciple focused on their limitations. Andrew looked at the situation with a different eye. He had taken account of the boy with a lunch. "I don't know what we can do with it, but there is a boy who has a lunch," Andrew said. By the end of the story, there was enough
 and more than enough to feed all who took a portion until they had all that they
wanted and were satisfied.



What is striking about Jesus’ distribution of the resources is that he gave away
nothing before the people sat down. Before he gave thanks, broke the bread, or
distributed the fish, Jesus commanded that the great crowds come to rest. The
lesson, of course, is one of obedience. The disciples cannot be used if they will not obey. In fact, they are not even disciples at all if they won’t FOLLOW. The crowds cannot be fed unless they accede to the command to sit down. We have but little distance to walk to discover that the satisfaction of the Christian life is elusive if we do not take heed to Christ’s voice.

But there is significance in the content of the command to be seated. In bringing order and quiet to those who would dine through his miraculous provision, Jesus instituted and presided over the family table, prefiguring the table he prepared at the Passover with his own broken body and shed blood.

Not long ago, President Obama invited two men who were having a very public, acrimonious dispute,Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Sergeant James Crowley, over to the White House for a beer. Let’s come together on common ground the president said. Let’s sit down at the table. Let’s look at one another and have conversation. Coming from different backgrounds and experiences, encountering on another first in the contentious context of mistaken identity - now let’s come together in table fellowship. The beer? Just a little something for attitude adjustment, a drink in common to bring us to a compatible level. Now you have to know that Gates and Crowley would likely never have come together for a beer or anything else on their own. But because the President called and invited them to the White House, they responded to the specialness of the President's invitation.

I hear the Savior say “I am the bread of life.” And while I wouldn’t mind an invitation to the White House to sit down to the table either inside the house or on the White House lawn. While I wouldn’t mind having a tomato plucked from the white house vegetable garden. While I would mind dining off the fine china from which presidents and heads of state have eaten, I recognize the greater privilege and the more nourishing meal is the one I share with my brothers and sisters every 2nd Sunday morning at St. Paul’s Baptist Church.

I hear the Savior say, Anyone who comes to me will never be hungry. Anyone who believes in me will never be thirsty. I am the living bread who comes down from heaven. My flesh is real food. My blood is real drink.
Jesus knows even better than we do how different we are: ages, status, gender, nature, tastes, desires : This is my body which is for YOU (pl.) Do this and think about me. This is my blood shed for YOU for the forgiveness of sins. Do this and think about me. Just as the passover was celebrated with a family meal, so also our deliverance is celebrated with a meal. And if a beer between enemies can lead to common ground, how much more can the bread of life shared among sisters and brothers?