Worship November 6, 2020
Call to worship from Psalm 63,
verses 1-4—The Message
God—you’re my God!
I can’t get enough of you!
I’ve worked up such hunger and thirst for God,
traveling across dry and weary deserts.
So here I am in the place of worship, eyes open,
drinking in your strength and glory.
In your generous love I am really living at last!
My lips brim praises like fountains.
I bless you every time I take a breath;
My arms wave like banners of praise to you.
Opening Prayer
Holy God,
May your justice and righteousness flow through us in to this land.
May we be instruments of your peace even in the midst of the chaos that seems to be surrounding us.
May your Holy Spirit give us strength to step out and to speak your truths.
May we find strength in the knowledge that we are you children, now and forever.
Amen
Scripture Reading
Amos 5:18-24
18Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light; 19as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear; or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake. 20Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?
21I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. 22Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. 23Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. 24But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.
Reflection
Oh the words of the prophets. How they can shake us and stir us up. How they can pull us out of our comfort zone and challenge us to be better. The words from Amos in this week’s Scripture do just that. The people of Israel had become content to simply walk mindlessly through the steps of worship, making their offerings and lifting their voices in habitual song. They find themselves content to do the bare minimum required for worship. They were content to honor God with only the gestures of the requirements and no devotion behind those actions. They had become accustom to going through the motions, disconnected from the calling that God meant for them.
Right now we are facing a world that could use a little more action. We are in a time when we can do more than just say ‘love your neighbor’ -- we can do it in actual, concrete ways even in the face of being a minority. We can wear our masks. We can self-isolate. We give up a little bit of our ego for the wellbeing of those around us. We can speak peace, calm and hope in a society that is on edge. We can pause and think before we act or react. Instead of simply speaking the words that we think God wants from us, we can put those words in to actions. Instead of being full of Biblical shaming, we can act in love and peace.
Amos spoke to call the people back to God. He work to remind them of God’s purpose for them beyond simple movements of worship. Maybe we could pause for a moment in the midst of a country in chaos and a world facing a pandemic to be reminded of the same thing—God’s purpose for us. Maybe in the midst of all that is happening we can try to listen to what God wants us to learn during this time—to see the error of our human ways and be drawn back in line to God’s will. Perhaps God wants to see how selfishly we act, how we have turned ‘God’s will’ to be in line with our own will, and how we sometimes hand pick God’s words to only reflect our own desires. Maybe we can instead use this time to be challenged by God’s calling for us. Perhaps God wants us to see how we have become too dependent on worldly things and turned from the call of Christ to love one another. Perhaps we could see that we have become so drawn into our corners that we forget to love ALL of God’s children. Perhaps God sent us a time of isolation to reflect on who we are and who God really calls us to be. Maybe this is a time to reflect on if we are living out God’s gifts of justice and righteousness in the world around us.
We are facing a time when the church is in need of reevaluating what ‘church’ should look like. We are face with a time, or perhaps the opportunity, to reevaluate our priorities. We are given a chance to look at how we worship God and see if it is in line with what God’s purpose for us is. Are we really seeking justice and righteousness through our actions of worship or are we just lifting empty words up to God? I recently read a book “The Post-Quarantine Church” by Thom Rainer. Rainer points out in the book that many churches have seen a decline in attendance over the past several decades and suggests that part of the reason why is because they have become so inwardly focused on themselves that they have forgotten that they have forgotten to reach out the community around them. In other words, many churches have become so self-focused that they have forgotten to be both in the community where God has placed them and with God. We have been given the chance to take the church outside of our doors into the communities in which we live. An opportunity to realign our worship with what God actually calls us to. Not empty steps of worship, but actual become the hands and feet of Christ in the world around us.
Let us take this time to not just do church but be church—working for justice and righteousness, God’s gifts to us.
Questions to think about
What practices leave you just ‘walking through the motions?”
Sometimes Sunday mornings at worship can be more about showing up than actually applying the message.
What in your personal life would make it worship more active outside the “doors” of church?
Strengthening my prayer life would help me more integrate worship into my life. Also being more conscious of those in need around me and how I can help.
Amos invites us to offer our lives as radical incarnational testimony both at the alter and in the public square. What is one thing you can do to work towards a more justice society?
Thoughts:
Write a letter to your state representative about an issue that speaks to you.
Volunteer at a local shelter. Speak to some of the people there to get a sense of the larger needs.
Research needs in your community and develop a plan of how to become involved.
Activity
Turn on some sounds of rushing water.
Take a moment to envision what a world flooded in God’s justice and righteousness would like.
Let the image grow.
Make the details clear in your mind.
Step into that world.
What would it look like? How would people treat one another? How would you feel? How would other feel? How would everyone interact?
Take a moment to live in this world.
Now, draw a representation of what that world looked like. You can do this in anyway your feel comfortable. You can draw it with pictures, you can use words to represent the world, you can simply use colors…whatever works for you.
Closing Prayer
O God you are a just God and righteous beyond measure.
You call us to follow your lead and to walk in your path.
Too often though, we take your words and meld them to our own desires,
instead of melding our hearts to you.
Help us to open our minds to your will and your calling,
to set aside our own pride and ego and to step into the
role of your children here on earth.
Each day may we move closer to a just and righteous kingdom here on earth.
Use us to met that goal.
Amen
Benediction
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you now and forever more.
