Daily Devotional • December 6
A Reading from Amos 5:18-27
18 Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!
Why do you want the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, not light,
19 as 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.
20 Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light,
and gloom with no brightness in it?
21 I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
22 Even 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.
23 Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
24 But let justice roll down like water
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
25 Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? 26 You shall take up Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your star god, your images, which you made for yourselves; 27 therefore I will take you into exile beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.
Meditation
A couple of years ago I read Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather, aloud to my wife. It is about a saintly Catholic bishop in the earliest years of mission and ministry in the New Mexico territory. One of the characters is Father Martinez, a pompous priest who openly acknowledges children he has sired from various parishioners, and who has seized the properties of others by dishonest means. Yet he is a superb liturgist and preacher. The Masses over which he presides draw large crowds; they are beautiful and transcendent, and for this Father Martinez is widely liked and supported.
The situation is not uncommon in church history. It is the situation addressed in today’s lesson from Amos. The people of Israel have “solemn assemblies” and they offer the prescribed “burnt offerings and grain offerings”; they offer “songs” and “the melody of harps.” But they are only performances; they are not genuine worship. The Lord says, “I hate, I despise your feasts!” Whoa! That’s in-your-face!
Justice is lacking, and in spite of their beautiful liturgies for the Lord, the people also make images of pagan deities. Apparently they are completely unaware of their foolishness and fallacies, for they say that they “desire the day of the Lord” as if all were well. Amos’s prophecies say that the day of the Lord will be a day of disaster, and that what the people think they are offering is just “noise.”
In Cather’s book, Father Martinez is removed and deposed. He retaliates by forming his own church which gathers many followers, but it quickly sputters into nothing. God tells the people of Israel that they will be sent into exile. But his appeal is still there: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” The call and command are timeless: reject what is merely popular, and follow what is eternally true.
David Baumann is a published writer of nonfiction, science fiction, and short stories. In his ministry as an Episcopal priest, he served congregations in Illinois and California.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
The Diocese of Ruvuma – The Anglican Church of Tanzania
St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church, Tucson, Arizona
This ministry of The Living Church Foundation is made possible in part by a special bequest from the Anglican Fellowship of Prayer.
