The Church of Jesus the Prophet

Amos 5:18-24; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 

The prophet in Hebrew literature has a lousy job. The prophets are always in high risk situations, explaining the sins of the culture to the kings and the community leaders. In many cases, the prophets are imprisoned, are treated badly, are disrespected. The potential cost of love is high. 

To be a prophet, you have to speak the uncomfortable truth. You usually love those you preach to, and want desperately for them to behave better, not for your sake, but for the good of the community before God. 

There is an unmistakable theme in our scriptures that God redeems communities and nations, and not individuals. If we believed that, we would be preaching day and night on the street corners pleading for people to love one another. We would be on our knees at the National Anthem protesting disrespect of our brothers and sisters, we would be on our knees at every public invocation, we would be constantly challenging our neighbors to give up their divisions and name calling. 

Amos is a minor prophet, meaning the book in his name is short. He ministered some 200 or more years before the Babylonian Exile. The book is a collection of prophetic messages. It is not a story form, it is not a history book. There is some organization of thematic sayings, but not enough to draw a conclusion about his biography. 

The distinctive message of Amos is that salvation for Israel (the traditional northern part of the land) rested on reversing the miserable treatment of the poor by the well to do. His devotion to matters of social justice makes Amos a stand out among the prophets. He is convinced that if Israel does not repent and remake its social order, God will allow them to be overrun and captured, again. 

This vision of a need for social consciousness is also represented in the works of other prophets who works reflect the conditions around the same time as Amos; Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah. 

The apostle Paul was driven by a sense of urgency; he believed that the Second Coming of Jesus, and the end of this age, would occur during his lifetime. He was persuaded that the only hope for eternal life came from accepting the love of Jesus Christ, and seeing the goodness of God through the lens of the Christ. His obsession with the immediacy of the end of the age seems to have taken root in the faith of the Thessalonians.  

Apparently the Thessalonians were losing hope, because there had been deaths in their community. They may have felt that their faith was lacking which allowed people to die before Jesus returned. They may have felt that there was more to know and do, that they were not aware of. Clearly, the Thessalonians had understood and accepted their identity as Christians in community, and whatever happened to any of them, affected all of the others. 

So Paul, out of compassion and deep love for the church in Thessalonica, articulates that Jesus will first call the faithful from death, even before the living are called into communion the clouds.  

You and I have lived through any number of declarations that the end of the world is coming next week. We are aware of the entire “Left Behind” series of popular novels, that work on the theme that time is short and a specific set of personal commitments, are required. Only your own faith will save you. Your faith even supersedes your actions and your love of others. 

While there is plenty of bad theology to take apart in that series of books and movies, our focus this morning is that recently we traced this obsession with “a personal faith” in Jesus Christ to the era in post World War II and the booming economy. There was a foolish sense that major wars were done with, a fallacy even the Korean Conflict could not expose.

I have been telling you that we are connected to one another. That connection is not simply here in the faith community, but extends to our relationship with all of creation. St. Francis of Assisi is the earliest and most clearly associated with reverence for the way we are connected with all of creation. Long before scientists discovered that we share the same carbon based elemental building blocks with the rocks and trees, and even the stars, Francis created his “Canticle of the Sun.” This may well be the first piece of literature composed in Italian, not Latin. 

We are familiar with the illustration “brother sun, sister moon.” Here is a selection from the Canticle. 

Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, especially through my lord Brother Sun, who brings the day; and you give light through him. And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor! Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness. Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars, in heaven you formed them clear and precious and beautiful.

Within our own tradition, we sing the hymn, “All Things Their Creator Bless.” This morning our doxology takes its root in this very same poem. 

So we are all one. Our time in the faith community then is to be treated as a gym, or a rehearsal hall, for practicing the art of caring for one another. We learn how to behave towards one another, so we can do better at home, and in the office, and driving in traffic; the place where I am most likely to call people names and claim superiority.  

So the prophets call us to behave in a moral way. We treat each other  with respect. We are called to actively promote what is best for the community. As yet another gunman stalked the Sunday morning Worship Service with a Colt AR-15 semi-automatic machine gun, we have to ask, “Isn’t it time to take measures to limit mass shootings?” It is time to recognize that this is not a problem of one sick person, it is an epidemic of violence in the community. Our entire community is indicted by God for sending “thoughts and prayers” but not lifting a finger to make things better. 

Traci Blackmon, the United Church of Christ Executive Minister for Justice and Witness Ministries said this week, “White male domestic terrorism is on the rise in America, and the white males in the White House refuse to acknowledge it. This is our nation’s greatest threat: the conversion of white hate and white power.” 

The prophetic voice is the one to say out loud truths that we are reluctant to hear. Hard truths, spoken in love, in hopes of calling the community into a better relationship with their holy Creator. 

But it is complicated. We can take the mantra of improving the morality of the community in a variety of ways. This same spirit of corporate morality is often interpreted to justify restrictions on any who are not white males. For instance, in the Congress there are plenty of measures to restrict health care to women. New insurance rules limit whose insurance covers pregnancy, because only women get pregnant, and apparently some in congress think they accomplish that all by themselves. 

You see, this upholding the morality of the community becomes complicated in a real hurry. So let me introduce a radical idea for our time and place in history; just because an issue is complicated and cannot be completely captured in a 140 character tweet, does not mean it is too complicated for public debate and negotiation. 

We can learn to respect each other. We can learn to honor nature and require civilized people to treat the environment with care and respect. It might be hard to quit smoking, but the majority of people will experience real and often measurable improvements in their health if they develop the necessary persistence to quit. 

The role of the prophet is not really focused on telling the future, although that is how it is characterized. Rev. Stamerjohn clarified this during our Bible Study this week. I cannot quote him directly, but he said, the prophets warned the communities to change their sinful ways, or there would be consequences. Then, failing to change and bad things happened, people said, ‘See, the prophet predicted it.’ In fact, the role of the prophet is to make the sins of the nation clear, and call for a change of heart and a change of behavior. 

Repentance means, to change. It is not much concerned with feeling sorry for sins and errors. Repentance means - turn around - go a different way - leave the path you are on and do something better,

There are plenty of churches with the names of: Christ the King, because everybody loves a winner. Many churches celebrate Christ the Redeemer, because it is all about Jesus and me. I often snicker at the name, “Our Savior’s ‘Favorite’ Church,” has it implies an insider’s access to special privileges. 

What we do not find is, “The Church of Jesus the Prophet.” We like to limit our association with telling the hard truth, since we know that is not a warm and cuddly feeling. We fear speaking out too sharply, might mark us as “holier than thou,” or invite our neighbors to call us hypocrites. 

So today my invitation is for us to simply consider that a life of faith requires us to be self-aware, and ready to grow in faith. To grow in faith means that, we need to continually “up our game.” in order to live out our faith in ways that respect our new awareness. We need not fear “change,” just call it repentance. 

I have a song for you this morning called “Ready, Set, Repent.” I will have the lyrics of the chorus projected, should you want to sing along. It is a part of the collection of songs I wrote for Advent, the season before Christmas, when we prepare not only for the coming of a baby - but also - prepare for the Second Coming of Jesus to earth at the end of the age. The song celebrates our connection to each other, and a willingness to change and grow. 

“Ready, Set, Repent” 

Chorus

One, two and three, prepare for the coming. 

A, B, and C, get a clue from this advent. 

On your mark, to make a new beginning. 

One, two and three, Ready, Set, Repent.