December 2009

The Great Disconnect

I have been thinking about the connection between worship and justice latley... between Christmas gatherings and all the other busy life events. I came across this article written by Brad Griffin on the Fuller Youth Institute site.

Amos wasn’t exactly what we would consider an inspiring motivational speaker. He was a 7th-century gloom-and-doom prophet. He gave promises of hope, but the big picture for Amos’ audience was bleak: impending exile for the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

A sheep-breeder and fig tree tender from Tekoa in Judah, God called the unsuspecting Amos to go north and speak a hard message to Israel’s leaders. This was during the period of Israel’s greatest prosperity, thanks to both agricultural and trade success. The people’s excessive wealth created a class division like never before, in which the wealthy were extremely wealthy, at the expense of the extremely poor (a reality that hauntingly echoes our own today).

Amos openly denounced this dichotomy. Oppression cannot coexist with fervent worship of God. By external standards, the Israelites were doing everything right in worship—their worship was elaborate and well-done. But the wealthy believed that all they needed to do was multiply their sacrifices; the more they sinned, the more sacrifices they brought. In contrast, those who were poor could not afford the sacrifices. They literally could not afford to sin. Amos teaches that rather than an abundance of sacrifices, God wants an abundance of justice. Thus Amos declares, “Let justice roll down like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.” The message is clear: there must be justice alongside sacrifice—worship must flow out of and flow back into right living. (full article here)