Amos was an Old Testament Prophet, and a fearsome one at that! God’s people were enjoying a time of prosperity and peace and Amos feared this bread complacency and a taking for granted of the life they enjoyed whilst others did not.
The key issue for Amos therefore was justice, and all else was of no interest to God if justice was not at the heart of everything God’s people did.
In our worship today, a small group of creative writers tried to image what God might say to us through a prophet like Amos if one were to be around today? What would they make of our worship? Our priorities? Our concerns? and Our lives?
Below is a selection of the responses penned by our group, some more light hearted than others, but all from the fearsome pen of the prophet!
“I enjoy your laughter and your kind atmosphere, in which you acknowledge the suffering local and wide.
Your acceptance and boldness of new ideas to merge with entries old traditions.
Your empathy and perspectives: can you be bolder your stands against injustice?
March together? Write letters to Mrs, and fight actively against the systems of oppression like Jesus did.
Be bold!”
Polly
“I want people to remember why they are at church, what the sabbath service is setting out to achieve, and why these values of mine should be continued and spread out throughout the week.
Don’t get bogged down by what you think you ought to be saying (capitalism), but by what is justified and right for others.
Keep hold of the light I want to spread and don’t turn off the light by being sidetracked.”
Nicky
“How do you worship me?
You can sing and pray and discuss, but you must also look and listen.
The world’s great injustices are all around. I am weeping with my children in the place where you were born; where I was born.
Affairs of State are blinding you to the children, to the motherland sons, and daughters who are burning alive today.
Where is the love?
Where is the hope?
Where is the witness?
Where there is death and destruction – I am destroyed.
Where there is pain – I bleed.
All the noise drowns out the truth that desecrates my homeland,
which is your homeland.
This will be the death of me.”
Julia
“Listen up you people of Chorlton!
You talk the talk but do you walk the walk?
Yes, your hearts are in the right place, but do your actions make this plain?
Comfortable in your own little worlds, complacent that you are doing my will.
Get off your backsides!
Go out into the world.
Speak out my justice to all people.
Shout out that peace is for all!
Christine
“We try to reach a God, that transcends our human ways,
above our song, our discussions, our limited words on human tongues.
Yet we try to reach God through our human tongues, our limited words, our discussions, our song,
that cannot transcend our human ways.”
?
“I don’t like it when individuals think their way of worship is correct!
I don’t like it when you think Christians think and act as if they are the keepers of how to worship me!
Blooming’ well get real!
Get focussed on what is important in the world –
forget your pole (even bleating) for peace when it has no cost to you.
Get the notion of JUSTICE coursing through your corporate blood stream.”
Steve
“Listen to the moaners, every word they utter,
for then you may understand what ails them.
Listen to the children, in their words and their actions,
for then you may understand what fails them.
Listen, then reflect on what those you ‘other’ have to say,
for I speak through them as much as you!
Listen, reflect, then act together, all members with equal honour;
but the greatest honour is for the least,
for the last will be first in God’s great feast.”
Mike