Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Adventures in Missing the Point with Ben Carruthers
Ever wonder how the struggles of an ancient society mirror the distractions we face today? Join me, Ben Carruthers, as I recount tales of my son Ezra’s delightful distractions and the Israelites’ own diversions from their mission, as captured in the book of Amos. You’ll discover how their lapses and our modern-day detours share a common thread: an enduring message of hope and redemption even amid stern warnings.
Peel back the layers of ancient Israel's superficial prosperity to expose the deep-seated injustices that Amos, a humble farmer-turned-prophet, was called to confront. I’ll guide you through his bold exchange with Amaziah, the chief priest at Bethel, highlighting how Amos' lack of formal training became a strength. Together, we’ll consider why Amos was chosen to carry this challenging message, focusing on his intimate understanding of the oppressed and the misplaced hopes in a society riddled with inequity.
Let’s reimagine justice and righteousness not just as moral checkboxes but as divine gifts meant to uplift and restore. Through the stories of David and Amos, we’ll explore what it truly means to let these virtues flow like a mighty river in our lives. With quirky metaphors like the deceptive cheeseburger cake, we’ll reflect on the integrity of aligning our actions with our beliefs, emphasizing our untapped potential to foster justice and righteousness, buoyed by grace and mercy as we navigate our spiritual journeys.
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Thanks, ellie, we joked earlier. Roberta came in red at the first service and she comes walking back in for prayer time and she looks at me and she's like that was a really hard passage to read. And not hard as in there's big words, but that's a pretty intense passage, a pretty not like happy, happy, joy, joy feelings coming out of that passage and I thought to myself I'm like, oh my gosh, sweet little Ellie has to read that pretty harsh passage at the 10 o'clock. But, ellie, you did great. Thank you so much. Well, good morning once again. My name is Ben Carruthers, director of Student and Family Ministry. Great to be here with you, worshiping with you.
Speaker 1:Ryan's on his way back from a Colorado snowboarding trip, so he should be home relatively soon as well. But we continue our journey into the B-sides, the minor prophets, and they're not minor in the sense that they don't matter, they're just purely minor in the sense that these letters are smaller than the major. In my viewpoint, they were just more concise, right, they just got right to the point. And in Amos, the prophet that we're going to talk about today, it's truly, truly the case. He did not hold punches. So we're in this series called the B-Sides of the Minor Prophets and Ryan asked me to share. Just to let you know that I'm in seminary and my seminary journey is coming to an end it's relatively soon in June-ish and I'm in my internship here at Central, and part of that was to come up with goals, and one of the goals was I really wanted to see how a sermon series was created. How did it, where did it come from, how, what was the steps to go about and do that. And so Ryan was nice enough to allow me to do that, and this is the product of it is the B side. So if you didn't like it, please tell Ryan and Sonia and never let me do it again. So, but I hope you'd enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:So this morning we are talking this passage from Amos, which is it's not this really uplifting, happy, happy, joy, joy feeling. It can be kind of condemning. He's saying some harsh words here about the lives of the Israelites and really about how they have been so distracted this is called adventures in missing the point. They're missing the point of who they are as children of God and what their purpose is. They're so distracted by what's going on that they're missing the point. Distraction is something that I think we're all very well aware of and we all do to some point.
Speaker 1:So my youngest his name is Ezra. He is the ultimate king of distraction, right, like ultimate, it's insane. He'll be like, hey, ezzy, go get ready for bed. He'll run off and go get ready for bed and like 10 minutes will go by and we're like it takes five seconds to get jammies on what's going on and we'll go in. And he made it right past the door where his books are and he's standing there reading for the past five minutes. He gets incredibly distracted.
Speaker 1:So, as you know, it snowed Newsflash, it snowed a lot. And so I got my kids up at 7 am Saturday morning to go out and shovel Because my son, my oldest son, had to leave for work and I don't like tracks in the driveway. So I'm like we're all going out and we're all going shoveling. They love me, it's fine. And so these are my two youngest, arlo and Ezzy. Arlo is shoveling on the steps and we had just got out there, right Like we just started shoveling, and as he threw his shovel down, he said I got a better technique and he started to doggy paddle the snow between his legs, easily distracted, not even five minutes had gone by and we each probably shoveled three lines in the driveway. As he throws his shovel once again, he says, well, it looks like I'm done, and he went and started making snow angels in the front yard while the rest of us are shoveling our butts off trying to clear the driveway.
Speaker 1:He's incredibly distractive and I thought to myself man, where does this come from, right, where does this come from? I definitely don't look at my wife for that, and she points to me and made a very good point. We can no longer go to Buffalo Wild Wings together, just the two of us, because I'll be sitting down, I'll be looking at my beautiful wife across from me. And then there's television monitors everywhere you look and on every TV you know what's playing Sports, some kind of sport, right, like national cricket or pickleball or whatever it is. And my eyes just drift because we are people who get distracted, and the distractions are not necessarily the bad thing.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we view these distractions, and there are. There are things in this world and going on in your life right now that you can think of, that you're like this should not be going on. There are those types of distractions as well, but the distractions that we don't talk a lot about are these distractions that are fine. They're good in certain circumstances, but there are these things that pull us away, that take our attention away and off of God and, in doing so, away from the people that we are created to be. And in this passage of Amos, this is the message that he's bringing to the Israelites, and it's a harsh message, but every time God speaks words of harshness or it might seem cruel even there's always hope, because our God is a God of hope. So, as we go through this this morning, as we dive into this harsh critique of the Israelites, if it sounds just awful and horrible and you're like I'm feeling just full of guilt and shame, just hold on. Please wait, don't leave. Just wait until we get to the end, because there is hope.
Speaker 1:But before we dive into the passage, will you pray with me? Heavenly Father, lord, god, we give you thanks and praise for the opportunity to gather. We pray again for these third graders and those who received their Bible today. Lord, what an awesome day. Lord, let that word grow in their hearts. Be with the parents as well as they continue this journey of faith, and, lord, as we continue our journey of faith as we dive into this passage of Amos a pretty tough one to wrap our minds around Lord, we pray for open hearts and minds and willingness to be changed, willingness to be transformed and ways that we can make a difference in the world around us. So, lord, let your word speak truth today. It's in your name that we pray, amen, amen.
Speaker 1:Okay, so before we go right to the passage, context is pretty important here, so we need to know what's going on in Israel at this point, and we need to know a little bit about Amos. So Amos is writing this, the prophet Amos is writing this between 760, 755 BC, right around there. So, as you can see, it is about a little less than 100 years before the fall of the northern kingdom. So, at this point, israel has been split into two nations, two kingdoms the northern, which is Israel, and the south, which is Judah and they are divided. There's no longer one king that rules them. They are divided, and so this is coming close to the end, where Israel will be taken over for the first time, and then it happens multiple more times. But it's coming to that point Now right now, though, the time of Amos from the outside, looking in, israel is humming.
Speaker 1:They look like things are going their way. There's a lot of wealth in the area. They control all the trade routes through that area. There's a lot of wealthy people. There's actually one commentator that I read this week said that people would have a summer and a winter home. Right, so it was good, life was good.
Speaker 1:This is the picture of the Grand Floridian in Disney World. It's like their top Disney World resort and it's only in there. Because someone caught me last time that said, hey, if I was playing Ben preaching bingo, there'd have to be a spot that says mention Disney. So there you go If you're playing that game. There you have it. Life is good. There's peace in the land. No one's trying to take them over. There's money. There's influence From the outside. Life looks good, but that's not the true story of what's going on in Israel.
Speaker 1:As much as it looks good and there's thriving and there's prosperity and there's peace and there's influence and a great sense of success, there's great injustice happening in Israel. The wealthy are taking advantage of the poor. This is a big farming area, and what would happen is the farmers wouldn't have enough money to grow their crops to survive. And so they'd have to go to these wealthy moneylenders, the wealthy of the time, and they'd go there and of course, they'd help them out. They'd give them this loan that they would never be able to pay back. They would never be able to pay this money back and in doing so, the poor becomes the slaves of the wealthy. And in doing so, if you go back a thousand years, the whole people of Israel, all of God's people, were slaves. They were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and God rescued them and pulled them out. And here we are, a thousand years later, where they are now enslaving their own people.
Speaker 1:Life in Israel is not all good. Amos references this in 8, 4 through 6. He says this you can't wait for the Sabbath day to be over and the religious festivities to end so you can get back to cheating the helpless. You measure out grain with dishonest measures and cheat the buyer with dishonest scales, and you mix the grain you sell with shafts swept from the floor. Then you enslave poor people for one piece of silver or a pair of sandals. There is great injustice happening inside of Israel. On the outside it looks great, on the outside it looks wealthy, there's peace, there's prosperity. But at the heart of the people is injustice Our people taking advantage of other people, of these people who once were slaves themselves now enslaving the people. This is the true Israel that's happening. This is the true Israel that Amos is called to go and prophesy to. So this is what's going on in Israel.
Speaker 1:So who is this Amos guy? Why Amos? Why is he called? Amos was a herder, and actually he was a farmer of fig trees, and so he himself was a farmer just south of the border that separated the kingdoms, in a town called Tekoya, and so he lived there and God calls him to go to be a prophet. Now, like most prophets, they did not want to be prophets, they didn't go to prophet school or anything like that. They were. He was happy doing his own thing. A matter of fact, amos, chapter 7, I love this, but I said, amos is a straight shooter man. He doesn't hold punches, he tells you like it is.
Speaker 1:Amos, chapter 7 says this then Amaziah. Amaziah was the chief priest in the temple in a city called Bethel, right kind of at the border of the northern kingdom. He sent orders to Amos get out of here, you prophet, go on back to the land of Judah and earn your living by prophesying there. Don't bother us with your prophecies here in Bethel. This is the king's sanctuary and the national place of worship. But Amos replied I'm not a professional prophet and I was never trained to be one. I'm just a shepherd and I take care of sycamore fig trees. But the Lord called me away from my flock and told me go and prophesy to my people in Israel. Now. Then listen to this message from the Lord. Now leave that up there for a little bit.
Speaker 1:Man, this is Amos telling it how it is here. He is laying out everything that God is telling him to lay out, telling the Israelites man, this is how you're living your life, this is what's going on, and they're like we don't want to hear that. Get out of here. So Amos stands up. He's like I don't want to be here. I didn't ask to come here and to prophesy and to bring this word. I had a great gig, going with my trees, right Like I was. I had a great, I was doing fine, and then God calls me to come up here with you knuckleheads to bring you this message. And now you want me to leave. You don't even want to hear it. And this is him. He says no, now that I'm here, I've got a word of the Lord and you're going to listen.
Speaker 1:I love this guy. It reminds me of a get off my lawn type of guy like this. I love it. I relate to him quite a bit. I love it. He's like no, I'm not going anywhere. God told me to come, I don't want to be here. And so here's what the Lord has to say.
Speaker 1:And why Amos right? Why this guy who probably doesn't want to be there, who had a good gig with his trees? Why did God choose him? I think he chose him because he was a farmer. He lived a life of the people who were being taken advantage of. He knew what that life was like. And so when you read the words of Amos and you hear the fire that's in his stomach and the words that he uses, you can understand why he's so upset, because he sees his fellow farmers being treated that way, and he also sees a people who claim to love and honor and worship God doing the exact opposite. So that's what's going on in Israel and that's who this guy, amos, is. And that brings us to this passage. Now you should read the book of Amos man, because it's full of fiery stuff like that. And so there were so many different passages we could have chosen. We could have stopped right there and talked about what it means to be called to a place where you don't want to go. That's a sermon right there.
Speaker 1:Chapter 7 is fascinating. He gets visions of what God is going to do to destroy Israel and Amos says God, don't do that. And God relents Twice. God says I'm going to punish Israel and this is how it's going to happen. And Amos says don't do it that way. Two times God says okay, I won't do it that way. Fascinating, but that's not today's sermon. That's a little side note. So read chapter 7. Chapter 5 is today Amos chapter 5.
Speaker 1:The passage that was read earlier by Ellie. I'm going to read it again and I think it's important that we have some context of what's going on. You have an idea of what life was like in the land of Israel, and on the outside it looked great, but on the inside, man, there was a lot of injustice happening. And now you know who this guy, amos, is, and you know where he comes from. It's his heart and his passion, and so he says this, starting at verse 18 through 24.
Speaker 1:What sorrow awaits you when you say if only the day of the Lord was here. You have no idea what you are wishing for. That day will bring darkness, not light. In that day you will be like a man who runs from a lion only to meet a bear. Escaping from that bear, he leans his hand against the wall in his house where he is bitten by a snake. Yes, the day of the Lord will be dark and hopeless, without a ray of joy or hope.
Speaker 1:Listen to these words. I hate all your show and pretense, the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies. I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won't even notice burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won't even notice all your choice peace offerings. Away with your noisy hymns of praise. I will not listen to the music of your harps. Pretty harsh, pretty harsh.
Speaker 1:And it's harsh because the people, the Israelites, have become so distracted of the people who they were supposed to be that those people are completely gone and they're in the temples singing the songs, worshiping God. Sing people or stand people who do not know what it means to be people of justice and righteousness. They're so distracted by the wealth and the lifestyle and hear this. Wealth is not a bad thing, prosperity is not a bad thing, influence is not a bad thing. For some reason, that gets a bad rap sometimes in our culture. That's not bad, that's not evil, that's good and can be used for good. That's not what God is saying. He's saying that this moment where the wealth has started to pull you away from the purpose of who you are, when the prosperity of Israel has pulled you away, that's when it becomes a distraction, that's when it becomes a problem To a point where they would go to the temples and sing the hymns. They would go to the temple and offer their offerings, their sacrifices, and then they would leave the building and go and cheat the poor, go home and create more slaves for them to work. This is why the words are so harsh.
Speaker 1:And the day of the Lord, when he's saying they come to temple like we can't wait for the day of the Lord, we're so excited, and Amos is like you're nuts. Do you know what the day of the Lord is? The day of the Lord is when God comes and judges, and those who fall short, those who treat people poorly, those who don't love God and love others will be judged. The day of the Lord is when God's people will be free. Amos is saying look at your life. Why are you excited for this day? Because they're blinded by the truth that's right in front of them. This idea of distraction and wishing for something that maybe you shouldn't be wishing for is not new.
Speaker 1:There's story after story after story in Scripture, and one famous one comes from the book of Samuel, where King David has a conversation with his prophet Nathan. So Nathan is the prophet for David, king David. This is when the kingdoms were united, near the last king of that. And so Nathan is noticing behaviors in David that are not good, that are not actions of justice and righteousness, not actions of God's chosen people, god's chosen king. And so he's like I need to go and talk to David, I need to have a conversation with him, I need to set him straight. But you just don't walk into the king's room and be like dude, you're doing some bad things. Horrible mistakes change your life. You don't do that, because if you do that, the king has you killed. So Nathan comes up with this plan.
Speaker 1:So Nathan has this story, and so he goes to King David. He said King David, I want to tell you the story of this man. So David says all right, I've been my lazy boy, I'm ready to listen, let's go. So he tells this story. The story is something like this he said there's a mighty king, a strong king, and he has hundreds of sheep and they're beautiful sheep, they're well fed, they're almost perfect sheep and he has an abundance of them. And then there's a poor man who has nothing, but the one thing that he has is his sheep and he treats that sheep like a member of the family. He loves that sheep, it's his family member. And one day this king is out cruising around with all of his hundreds of sheep and he notices this poor man with his one sheep. And this king says I want that sheep. Even though he's got all these hundreds, he chooses that one. And so he has his guards go and take that man's one sheep and just adds it to his flock.
Speaker 1:So King David hears this story that Nathan is saying and he's irate, he's so upset, he's like this is horrible. How could this injustice happen? He's like if this was real, I would pull that guy up right here and I'd have him killed. That is a horrible, horrible story. And Nathan just looks at him. He says man, you're the man that's about you, because earlier he saw something that he really wanted that wasn't his. It was this woman named Bathsheba. Bathsheba had a husband named Uriah, but David saw her and saw her beauty and he wanted her, and so he took her husband, uriah, and put him on the front lines of battle, the front lines of war, where the probability of you coming home was next to none. And, sure enough, he dies and David takes Bathsheba as his own. Nathan calls him out and David hears these words and he repents. He tears his clothes and he repents and asks for forgiveness Because David was blinded.
Speaker 1:David was pulled away. He was distracted, maybe with the wealth, maybe with the power of being king, the control of Israel, whatever it might be, but he got his eyes no longer focused on God, but focused on the things of this world, and allowed that to change and transform his heart. Distraction can start off very, very small and it's not a big deal, but then they continue to grow and continue to grow and grow until our eyes are no longer fully on God and our lives no longer reflect that of someone who follows Christ Jesus, but instead is someone who's completely blind. That says man, today should be the day of the Lord, and sometimes we need a prophet to say hold on, are you sure? Because what's going on in your heart and in your life?
Speaker 1:Verse 21 through 23, I think I skipped over that one, didn't. I Sorry, yeah, I hate all your shows and pretense. The hypocrisy of your religious. I Sorry, yeah, I hate all your shows and pretense. The hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies. I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won't even notice all your choice peace offerings. Away with your noisy hymns of praise. I will not listen to your music or harp.
Speaker 1:See, it just wasn't the fact that they were off living this lifestyle. That was not of God. It were off living this lifestyle. That was not of God. It was the fact that they would show up to church on Sunday and sing the songs and put the money in the plate and say the confessions and take part in the sacraments and then they'd go out and they'd leave this part of who. They were here and they'd go out and mistreat people. This is what's really getting at Amos today, the hypocrisy that he sees, because we're not supposed to be that type of people we are called to be, people who have justice and righteousness flow like an endless river. That's how this passage ends to let justice and righteousness flow out of you like a mighty river. Now, this image of water is really important Because Israel is like a desert, not a lot of water happening there. They have a rainy season. Where that happens, they will collect as much water as they can. They have systems in place to do that. But this type of picture a mighty, rushing river is not something that they would see often. They see a slow, trickle bit of water, but water brings life, and so for Amos to use this picture of a powerful rushing water river, this is what justice and righteousness should look like flowing out of us. This is what it looks like.
Speaker 1:Justice and righteousness are two words we've talked a lot about over the past few weeks. Justice is this word, mishpah, which means bringing balance. We've talked a lot about it. It sounds a lot like mosh pit, so that helps remember it mosh pit, it's about bringing balance right. And then the righteousness though righteousness is a word and I'm gonna horribly botch this, but tzedekah. Everyone say tzedekah, there you go, there you go. I don't even know if that's right. It's pretty close. Right. It's pretty close being in right relationships with God and others. Being in right relationships.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we think of words of justice and righteousness as these huge words that are really big out there, that are things that we can never do. Man. How do we do justice, righteousness? This is scary. It's this. It's the relationship between you and God. It's the relationship between you and your family. It's the relationship between you and the stranger, you and the person who doesn't have the same ideas as you. It's this right relationship. It's balancing both of those. This is what God is calling us to be People who allow that to flow out from us Justice and righteousness. I love this.
Speaker 1:Someone put it this way this week when I was looking at it. It says justice and righteousness are not behavioral goals, but rather gifts from God given to us to lift up, support and care for others. I'm going to read that again Justice and righteousness are not behavioral goals. It's not a checklist of did you do this? Did you go to church? Did you do your tithe? Did you volunteer for kids? Did you do all that? It's not a checklist of did you do this? Did you go to church? Did you do your tithe? Did you? Did you volunteer for kids or did you do all that? It's not a checklist of behavioral goals, but rather gifts given from god to allow us to help us lift up others, support others and care for others. But in this time of israel, they were so distracted that their eyes came off of that and the outside no longer matched the inside of who they were. And that's what God does. God creates that way. God creates where the outside matches the inside. God is a God of integrity. We are created to be people of integrity where our actions match up with what we say.
Speaker 1:So anyone know what's this? A pineapple. How do you know it's a pineapple? Yeah, oh, yes, right there, it looks like one, right? Yeah, she was great. She had all the answers in Bible class too. That was awesome.
Speaker 1:It's a pineapple right Now. You might be here the first time and you might not know who I am or nothing. You're like I don't know you, I don't trust you, but I know it's a pineapple. Why? Because I can cut into it and it's a pineapple. There's no shock Now. It would be a shock if I cut in there and it'd be like a snicker bar. That'd be like it's impressive, right, but you know it's a pineapple, there's no question.
Speaker 1:How about this? What's this Cantaloupe? What else is it called? Sometimes Musk melon? Has anyone ever heard to call it Rotten melon Rotten melon? Maybe it's because it's gross, I don't know. But you know it is right, because it looks on the outside and if I was to chop it up, it's what's inside? There's fruit, god's creation, it's created with integrity. Well, this bad boy, watermelon, right? No joke, there's no, it's not a question. You know that if I cut into this, where's Sonia? This, where's Sonia? It's all okay, sonia, it's all for Jesus. Okay, this is what it's supposed to look like.
Speaker 1:This is what we're supposed to look like. We're supposed to come and gather and worship and pray and sing songs and take part in the sacraments and take part in third grade Bible rituals and lift these young ones up. We're supposed to do that. We're supposed to come and pray for the sick, pray for those who are persecuted, and then we're supposed to leave this place and continue to do that. We're supposed to leave this place and continue, but we get so distracted. We get so distracted that you can come here and gather and have this cool experience where maybe you experience God for the first time, or learn something new about God for the first time, or learn something new about yourself, and you can just man, this was good, this was great. And then you get in your car and some guy cuts you off and the first thing you do is cuss at the guy when you just came from having this experience.
Speaker 1:Because the world distracts us, it takes us away from the people who we are supposed to be and, unfortunately, it turns us in to something like this what's that? It is not a cheeseburger, it is cake. It is a cheeseburger cake. My friends and I tried. I went to Walmart this morning at 630, really hoping they'd have one. One because it'd be great for the terminology, two because it's delicious. Okay, but this is what we become. What looks like a burger, what looks like one thing? When you slice it up, it's something completely different, because the ways of this world, the distractions it pulls us away from being that and turns us into this.
Speaker 1:This sermon was a tough one because we started off reading this passage as pretty condemning, right, it's pretty harsh. And now I'm about to leave you and I'm just telling you that you're burger cake, right, like this is horrible, bad sermon. But like I said in the beginning, man, whenever the word of God is spoken, there is always hope. Because how does this passage end? It reminds us of the people that you and I were created to be. We are created to be people who allow justice and righteousness and bringing right relationship with each other and with God into this world. How do we do that?
Speaker 1:It's a tall order and I think my answer to that would be just focus on today. Just focus on today. What could you do today? What relationship can you make right today? And here's the thing if you're feeling, man, this is I'm gonna make a right relationship, I'm feeling good, and you leave this place and you can't pass the door and somebody cuts you off and it's just like how I said it was. It's okay because our god is full of grace, our god is full of grace, our God is full of mercy and our God is a God of restoration, which means, at the end of the day, if you can look at that day and be like man that was tough, I was distracted it's all right, because tomorrow God's waiting to restore you and start all over again. So today, let us be people who let justice and righteousness flow like a never-ending river. Let us be open to what God wants to do in our lives and when we become distracted, let us find hope in the fact that our God is a God of restoration, amen.
