"Open the Floodgates of Justice and Goodness" by
Colleen O’Sullivan
Seek good and not evil, that you may live; Then truly
will the Lord, the God of hosts, be with you as you claim! I hate, I spurn your feasts, says the Lord, I
take no pleasure in your solemnities; Your cereal offerings I will not accept, nor
consider your stall-fed peace offerings.
But if you would offer me burnt offerings, then let justice surge like
water, and goodness like an unfailing stream.
(Amos 5:14, 21-22, 24)
When Jesus came to the territory of the Gadarenes, two
demoniacs who were coming from the tombs met him. They were so savage that no one could travel
by that road. Some distance away a herd
of many swine was feeding. The demons
pleaded with him, "If you drive us out, send us into the herd of
swine." And he said to them,
"Go then!" (Matthew 8:28, 3-32a)
Piety
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted,
saves those whose spirit is crushed.
(Psalm 34:19)
Lord, help us to open our hearts to those who are
suffering this very day - the sick, the dying, the grieving and those for whom
justice and equality are still only dreams.
Study
Back in the 1930s, the ruins of the ancient village
of Bethel were unearthed about 12 miles north of Jerusalem. Study of the site has led scholars to believe
that at the time Amos left Tekoa in Judah for Bethel, it was quite a prosperous
place. This economic “boom” led some of
the citizens of this village to use their prosperity for showy sacrifices and
worship.
Amos was a country boy, really just a simple
shepherd and cultivator of sycamore-fig trees.
He was a man of faith who heard God calling him to travel to the “big
city.” Amos was an outsider. He wasn’t even from the Northern Kingdom
where Bethel was located. He had no
special credentials, no diploma in prophesying.
He wasn’t a member of any prophets’ guild. No one had ever heard of him. Amos claimed that this, in and of itself, made
him authentic. God, he says, sought him
out, took him from his country life and gave him a message to proclaim to the last
few descendants of Joseph in Bethel.
The message probably wasn’t a very palatable one. Times were good; people in Bethel were
prospering. They were able to afford
lavish sacrifices. It was so easy just
to throw some money at their devotional practices and leave it at that. And then along came this upstart from nowhere
telling them that God wasn’t impressed with them or what their money could buy. God didn’t care how melodious their singing
or how costly their offerings or how elaborate their religious rituals. What
God really desired is what God always wants – people’s hearts. Worship and offerings are nothing in God’s
eyes unless they issue forth in justice surging like water and goodness
flowing like an unfailing stream. Whenever
this Hebrew word translated here as “justice” appears in the Old Testament, it’s
associated with treating people equitably, in particular widows, immigrants,
orphans, and the poor, who frequently don’t get a fair shake.
The same thing is true today. God certainly wants us to pray and worship, even
if we feel we can only do this from our homes at the moment with the help of the
Internet. But God desires that justice will
issue forth for the poor and oppressed out of our faith and worship. We have had the suffering of those treated unjustly
painfully brought home to us in the last few weeks. For many, goodness flowing like an unfailing
stream is still only a distant dream. God is calling each of us to work to make that
dream a reality for every man, woman, and child in this country.
In today’s Gospel reading, we find Jesus going where
others were mortally afraid to travel, so fearful were the stories about those
two demon-possessed men. Jesus reaches
out to those regarded as untouchable by others.
Biblical justice is often about helping those the rest of the world
seems to have discarded and forgotten. Jesus
casts out the demons so these men can finally rest, sending the demons into a
herd of pigs, which jump off a cliff.
This was a Gentile area. The pigs were the livelihood of the inhabitants,
who now just want Jesus to leave and never return again. The whole story of the pigs is secondary to
this point: Jesus will go to any length to
help a person in need because we are all his brothers and sisters. That’s what God wanted to see in Amos’ day
and what God hopes to see in us today.
Action
Amos wasn’t famous or even sort of well-known until
he showed up in Bethel. He must have
been a very prayerful person to hear and respond to God’s voice telling him to
leave his home, go to another kingdom, and proclaim God’s word to utter strangers. He was faithful to what God asked him to
do. Can we follow Amos’ example and
leave the confines of our own little worlds to enter into the reality of
someone else’s? God wants us to be disturbed
by the inequities we will find. We
should not rest easy until we have begun to work to end injustice in our
society.
Image: Prophet Amos, old Russian Orthodox icon, early
18th century, Iconostasis of Kizhi Monastery, Russia, Public
Domain, Wikimedia Commons
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