I love the prophets. There is a special place in my heart for those who call organizations, or systems or the powerful on their crap. These people are important for us to hear and to listen to. They help keep us accountable to one another and to the principals that we say we stand for. Amos is one of these,.
And I really needed that this week.
Rolf Jacobson, an Old Testament professor at Luther Seminary reminds us in his commentary on this reading:
… the eighth-century prophets Amos, Isaiah, and Micah were in one accord about the Lord’s demand for justice:
Let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (Amos 5:24)
Cease to do evil,
Learn to do good,
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the widow. (Isaiah 1:16d-17)
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)[1]
In his introduction to Amos, Eugene Peterson says this in his introduction to Amos:
More people are exploited and abused in the cause of religion than in any other way. Sex. money, and power all take a backseat to religion as a source of evil. Religion is the most dangerous energy source known to humankind. The moment a person (or government or religion or organization) is convinced that God is either ordering or sanctioning a cause or project, anything goes.
The Biblical prophets continue to be the most powerful and effective voices ever heard on this earth for keeping religion honest, humble, and compassionate. Prophets sniff out injustice, especially in justice that is dressed up in religious garb. They sniff it out a mile away.
None of us can be trusted in this business. If we pray and worship God and associate with others who likewise pray and worship God, we absolutely must keep company with these biblical prophets. We are required to submit all our words and acts to their passionate scrutiny to prevent the perversion of our religion into something self-serving. A spiritual life that doesn’t give a larger place to the prophet-articulated justice will end up making us worse instead of better, separating us from God’s ways instead of drawing us to them.[2]
I needed this reminder this week, as I waded through the readings and wondered what on earth I could say to you. Some of you know that I was at General Synod last week, it’s why I was in the congregation last Sunday, rather than standing at the front. It is possible that Al said some of much of what I want to say tonight – I’m not sure, because even though I was here I was too lost in my own profound disappointment and grief and honestly wondering if I still belonged, to hear much of what was said.
So, I spent last week sitting at tables, in conversations, voting, talking, and then trying to figure out where to from here.
And I opened up the readings for this week and was greeted by Amos. Thank God for prophets.
Thank God for voices that call us to accountability and remind us of God’s vision when we get too bogged down with our own.
Thank God for the reminder that our justice is bound up in each other, is caught up in systems and begins in the nature of God: of who God is and how God loves us and who we are as image bearers of our creator.
Amos this week calls us to accountability for our market systems, the ways that our markets are set up to take advantage of each other, it calls out those who want sabbath to end sooner so that they can get back out and continue to profit, rather than take Sabbath on as a practice of justice and an opportunity to rest, to come back to centre.
But, I don’t want to think about markets this week – though I think that would be a good conversation for us to have. I do want to think about our particular system. This particular organization of which we are a part the Anglican Church of Canada, and how we organize ourselves and what we are to make of the outcomes of General Synod. And if I allow myself to forget for a moment that Amos is talking about markets specifically, I feel like he could also be talking to us in this church.
Because there are ways in which justice was served last week. We as the Anglican Church of Canada made some important movements towards reconciliation with indigenous peoples. The Primate apologized for spiritual harm caused by our church in the residential schools and our particular form of evangelism which has historically assumed that our way was and is the only way, refusing to see the validity in the spiritual practices of others.
We agreed to replace a prayer in our prayerbook that once prayed for the conversion of the Jews and now names the violence that was inflicted on the Jewish people as a result of our arrogance. A prayer for reconciliation. Another step in the right direction.
And we affirmed ‘A Common Word between Us’ [3] which has us joining Lutheran partners and others in conversation with the Muslim community to help to build relationship and understanding between our faiths.
I celebrate all of these movements.
These felt like a basket of ripe fruit – beautiful and inviting.
And while we affirmed the Word to the Church[4] document which affirms five things including that we have different understandings of the existing marriage canon and that there are diverse teachings within our church as a whole. And then the actual vote to change the canon was defeated narrowly by the house of Bishops.
And then there was wailing –
So we remain with a narrow definition of marriage for some. And it was heartbreaking and it was terrible to be in that room.
My table sat crying. The tables around me also – some tried to get up and make further motions, trying to salvage something – and an elder from the indigenous community got up to the microphone and implored us to stop, it was late and he said: Our children are crying, we can’t do this anymore tonight.
So we ended our day. Many of us with broken hearts.
I do not believe that the prophetic voices ceased with the prophets of the Old Testament. I believe that we still have prophets among us. I believe that some of them stood and spoke at Synod last week in the form of some of the queer youth who rose to the microphone to tell us why this change was and is so important.
And I don’t believe it just because I agree with them.
But I think about the words from Isaiah:
Cease to do evil,
Learn to do good,
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the widow. (Isaiah 1:16d-17)
I think about what Eugene Peterson wrote about prophets:
If we pray and worship God and associate with others who likewise pray and worship God, we absolutely must keep company with these biblical prophets. We are required to submit all our words and acts to their passionate scrutiny to prevent the perversion of our religion into something self-serving. A spiritual life that doesn’t give a larger place to the prophet-articulated justice will end up making us worse instead of better, separating us from God’s ways instead of drawing us to them.
And so I have been listening since Friday for those voices. Listening for where we are trying to learn to do good.
And if you read a little further on in Amos, he begins to speak about restoration. Where broken places have been restored. When new wine begins to flow. Not in the reading tonight – we aren’t there yet, we have a lot to wade through first, we have work to do yet.
We get to stay sad if that is what we need to do, for a while longer – or as long as it takes.
But here is what I have heard since that night:
If anything this vote shows that our system of decision making is broken. How we got to the final decision on the marriage canon was not good for our church.
What I want you to hear is that a clear majority of all of the people in that room were in favour of changing the marriage canon, including the Bishops.
It was a small number of people who were not in favour and honestly, it is not surprise to us that those people exist. We know that.
That since the closing of general synod a number of Bishops have come out authorizing a fuller understanding of marriage, including our own. As of August 1, we are permitted to officiate at same-sex marriages. Our Cathedral is in the process of getting ourselves organized to do it.
And a number of other Dioceses are having important conversations that I am hopeful will lead them to the same.
The truth is that the Bishops who are not affirming were not going to give permission regardless. This doesn’t change that.
I know that the no was hard to hear – I felt it. Like a punch in the gut – and the truth is, that we are moving forward – responding, I believe, to the movement of the Spirit.
The trick with being an Anglican is that we are a part of a larger whole – we like to hold up that we are a part of a large tent that seeks to have room for everyone – and while that is a beautiful concept – it is also really, really hard when we are talking about the exclusion of people.
So if you hear nothing else tonight, please hear this: That vote changes nothing about us. We as a community and a part of the Anglican church of Canada, continue in our unwavering understanding that we are all made in the image of our maker who cannot be contained by any one narrow definition.
That the majority of the people in the room in general synod affirmed the change in our church to allow for same sex marriage.
That there are still prophets among us calling us out and we are trying hard to listen and to act in such a way that God’s justice is enacted here by and with each one of us so that we are trying hard to prevent the perversion of something self serving and instead live out the creation of Gods kindom here on earth – but it’s a slow process to be sure.
And we need to sit with this until we are ready to act.
And we will be here, in this community, in this church, which continues to hold an affirming place and to listen for the prophets among us.
Amen.
[1] http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=752
[2] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: the Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado, Colorado Springs: Alive Communications) ww.alivecom.com
[3] https://gs2019.anglican.ca/wp-content/uploads/Appendix-5a-A-Common-Word-between-Us-and-You.pdf
[4] https://www.vancouver.anglican.ca/diocesan-ministries/general-synod-2019/pages/a-word-to-the-church
