Amos 8:4-7 • Psalm 113 • 1 Timothy 2:1-7 • Luke 16:1-13
Now instead of delving into the intricacies of an incredibly tricky and contradictory parable about a shrewd manager, I’m going to leave that aside for now and entice you to come to the Lectionary Bible Study…that had a great discussion today about this strange story of Jesus. Hope you can come to that discussion next week. Let us turn to listen to the prophet Amos’ testimony, beginning a few verses before our lectionary snippet we receive today:
Then the Lord said to me, “The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass them by. The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,” says the Lord God; “the dead bodies shall be many, cast out in every place. Be silent!” Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, “When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the Sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the sheckel great, and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat.” The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob; Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who lives in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?” (8:1-8)
For those waiting in the long, dark night of injustice, the new dawn cannot come soon enough. For those at the bottom, tired of receiving handouts, wanting a hand up, that hand cannot come soon enough. For the orphan, the widow and the poor, Amos’ speaking up on their behalf could not come soon enough. Amos, a dresser of sycamore trees, a shepherd, a nobody from a few miles south of Bethlehem, prophesied God’s judgment against the powerful for some time. The poor had a man on their side, finally. The milk and honey of Israel were flowing wildly …but only a few could take part in it. This nobody had heard God’s call to proclaim God’s judgment of social justice for the rich and for the poor.
But nothing was happening. The rich were still getting richer. The poor were still getting poorer. And all the while, a façade of religiosity was pervading everyone’s keeping of the Sabbath, of going through the motions of empty ritual. As soon as the wealthy left the synagogue, the pursuit of profit by any means necessary continued. Was God looking the other way? Was anyone hearing this call to repent that Amos was so forcefully giving? Did they not hear God saying, “I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver… they push the afflicted out of the way…” (2:6) When would God follow through?
The words we hear from the book of Amos today speak of a God not speaking to the masses, but intimately drawing near with an address directly to Amos. And God is fed up. God’s patience has run out. God is done declaring judgment. God now promises that the time has come to bring an end to evil powers, an end to the greed and self-serving that has been taking control of God’s people. God wants to show the people that God has indeed been paying attention, and that in the face of excessive guilt, God’s patience has limits: “The end has come upon my people Israel,” God says, “I will never again pass them by.” (8:1)
God is not just fed up with the individual choices of a few select individuals. God is fed up with the whole economic system that supports the excessive profit of the rich, and of business based on greed and accumulation at the expense of the poor. This is a kind of system all too much like our own. We contribute to economic injustice by more than just our not giving $5 to the poor person at the exit ramp or not spending enough time helping at the local shelter. We are caught up in a whole system that fails to get at the roots of “why” the poor exist, and that fails to address the root causes of poverty. God is fed up with this system, and declares the institutions and powers that hypocritically prop up exploitation will have their power taken away.
God takes exploiting power away not through fear, domination or destruction. God takes coercive power away by giving up God’s own power. God begins our liberation and our self-empowerment by giving us some of God’s own power. As theologian Dorothy Soelle has put it, “There is only one legitimation of power, and that is to share it with others. Power which isn’t shared—which, in other words, isn’t transformed into love—is pure domination and oppression.” God enters into this sharing of power through our baptism which baby Annika will take part in just a few minutes, when God bestows upon us the gift of the power of the Holy Spirit. God ends the paralysis and apathy of those caught in the undertow of greed—and empowers us to once again shape the future that God hopes for us. God’s power is not forceful, but it’s dynamic, it’s alive, it’s interactive, and it is what grants us the power to be free to act—that is what the Greek word dynamis, used to describe Jesus’ power, means. It’s the ability to act, to shape an our lives and our communities not to serve money but to serve relationships between people, and the flourishing of life for all. When we have lost that power at the hands of sin, God promises Amos—and us—that God will get fed up, call a halt, and bring an end.
God reminds us today that powerlessness does not get the final word. Paralyzation finally has no power over us. No matter how much weight we may feel weighing down our lives, and no matter how much we are kept from flourishing, God is not a God who keeps power to God’s self or to a limited few. God’s power is stronger than our schemes, our exposed guilt, than our sinfulness. God’s power is always a self-emptying power that serves the purpose of bringing about not just individual liberation but communal liberation.
This is precisely what God does in Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus got in the way of the our systemic exploitation of the poor, and challenged humanity’s desire to control the world through power and unending riches. And we nailed him to a cross. Throughout the Three Days, God was silent. Finally on the third day God raised Jesus from the dead, eliminating our plan for destruction with God’s plan for new life.
God’s plan for new life is what we come together to be fed by and shaped by here at United Lutheran. And while some may feel that the church no longer has power to influence an unjust world; and some may feel the church no longer has power to offer anything of meaning to our community; and some may feel this church no longer has power left in it, never doubt that when we gather in the name of the dynamic Jesus, God gives the power of the Holy Spirit to change our lives and our communities.
This past summer at a June retreat our church council agreed that it is time for United Lutheran to take ownership of a new chapter in the history of our congregation. It is time to take the power back and shape the future we hope for this church. The method for renewing our vision for ministry that got the council most excited was a model based on having a series of one on one interviews with members of this faith community and the wider community. It’s a model that thrives on the power of the stories of individuals to uncover both the needs and concerns present outside the church walls, and what gifts exist in the congregation to address those needs. The first of what we hope will be several trainings to learn the skill of the one on one interviewing will take place on Sunday, October 17th following 10:30am worship, and anyone is welcome. Through people coming together to share their stories, God always grants us power, because in hearing and sharing our stories, we see that our stories are part of a larger story—God’s story—of transforming our powerlessness into new life. God’s story is not just for a few, but for all, and for us. We get to be a part of that here in this place.
God reminds Amos that an end to our participation in injustice will come. It comes in the giving of power by God to us to act together as a voice for the needs of the common good. This is what justice is about: being stewards of the power given to us, so that it is not given only to some, but is given sufficiently, sustainably, and for all. God will never tire of putting an end to unjust distribution of power. Even as we may wait for that new dawn to come, that is a promise that God in Christ impatiently wants to keep with us. Amen.
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