A Sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields on November 12, 2023 by Revd Sally Hitchiner
Reading for address: Amos 5: 18-24
We mark Remembrance Sunday this year in a particular context. Despite the best hopes at the end of the World Wars we face conflict in Europe again. Despite the hopes of those who established a home for the Jewish people in creating the modern state of Israel we face serious conflict there. Yesterday 300,000 marched through our streets, many gathering around our church to try to express their concern. Others judge differently where the fault and the solutions lie and are concerned about the oppression of Jewish people in Israel and beyond at this time. As we look back on the World Wars there are also different judgements. Among our community are those who believe that when all else fails warfare is better than letting oppression win. Others do not. So how do we, in a few minutes, gather together in a moment of silence and remember?
I would like to offer a humbler option. In St Martin’s our particular brand of ethics is rooted in a hope of stepping away from a small group of people discerning what is right and wrong for others, most of whom they will never meet. We are called to discover our ethics in the context of our liturgy. I would like to invite us to put our thoughts and judgements aside for a moment simply listen, to hold silence with those who decided to leave safety and to offer their bodies and their minds and their hearts in the service of others.
People like Neil Flanagan. Neil was born and brought up in Jamaica. Like most recruits, from the UK and the Empire he was young and working class. ‘I was working on a chicken farm shortly after I left school when I read a newspaper call. And there was an advertisement saying Britain needs you. And we as loyal members of the Empire thought it was definitely good that we were required to go and help the mother country at the time when they were facing threat and under distress. We thought nothing of our personal lives we only wanted to help. I was fortunate to be offered a choice of what I did. One was Avionics, not knowing what the word meant I took that one. The Germans bombed us night and day. There were bombs on the base where I was. People died. Men died. It wasn’t a simple picnic. Many from the Colonies didn’t come back. It was ghastly for young folk. When the aircraft returned it wasn’t a joy to see two men in there dying but I had a job to do, getting the aircraft back to working and returning to make it again. I think I made a contribution to make Britain strong and sound today, that I now live in and enjoy.’
Amos, the author of our Old Testament reading today was also a young man when he felt a call to leave the safety of his home to serve others and respond to oppression. His poems and talks and letters were compiled many generations later by those who wanted not to forget his message. The word Remember is mentioned 169 times in the Old Testament alone and always with the message that memory isn’t just a candle that we light for the dead, but that their service, their stories, should be a light to help us to see the future and what our responses to injustice might be.
Amos was holding down two jobs as a shepherd and a fig tree farmer when he received the call. He lived on the boarder between two countries. At that time his nation was split into two kingdoms, Amos lived in Southern Kingdom but not far from the boarder with the Northern kingdom of Israel, around the 700s BC, the same sort of time as Isaiah and Hosea. The north was ruled by Jeroboam II, a successful military leader. He won lots of battles, gained new territory for Israel and from this he generated lots of wealth. But his power and wealth fostered apathy to his faith and he left unchallenged a belief that only the rich and powerful in their society were worth protecting. Injustices became prevalent and yet they continued with their beautiful religious practices regardless. Amos’ question, to the Northern Kingdom elite but I think also to himself and to us, was “Is it enough to follow religious acts when we are surrounded by injustice and oppression?” Is there any meaning in gathering for a Eucharist of remembrance in the face of war? Are “Thoughts and Prayers” going to cut it?
Like a lot of those who find themselves moved to action by injustice, Amos was just an ordinary guy. He seems to have been religious, open to God’s call but when he experienced a call to take action, his response was “Who am I? I’m not a prophet or the son of a prophet.” But like many after him, the need drew him beyond his limitations. The injustice Amos could see across the boarder got to the point where he couldn’t take it anymore. He had to act. He left his home and crossed to the Northern country, to Bethel, an important city with a large temple and worshipping community to see what he could do.
Amos goes around all the local countries highlighting their oppression but instead of this excusing the Northern Kingdom it spirals towards it. He then moves to reflect on this country’s injustices with a poetic accusation that is three times longer and more intense than he did for any of the others. He accuses the wealthy of ignoring the poor and allowing grave injustice in their land, specifically by upholding a system where the poor were routinely sold into debt slavery then denied any legal representation and rights. Amos asks, is this the nation that was once denied justice and enslaved in Egypt, the nation that God rescued from oppression and slavery? Amos calls for letting justice flow like a river and Righteousness like an unfailing stream. These two terms are very important for Amos and virtually all of the prophets and many who engage with conflicts today.
We often think of righteousness as being about being a good person, even standing out from those around me. It doesn’t matter what others are doing as long as I’m in the right. This definition destroys those engaged with the mess of the world, as it’s impossible to make every decision with moral certainty when you are immersed in a society of injustice.
That isn’t how Hebrew defines it. Righteousness – Tsedecah refers to equitable relationships between people, all people. And Justice –Mishpat – refers to concrete actions that you take to correct injustice and create the equitable relationships of Righteousness. There is no way to be passive, getting on with your religious practices in peace without losing righteousness and justice. Both Justice and Righteousness are to permeate the world like a rushing stream fills a dry riverbed.
But the sad truth is that the book of Amos, the young shepherd boy and fig farmer who responded to a call to liberate a country from oppression, this book was compiled much later. It was compiled as a cautionary tale. We don’t know what happened to Amos’ physical body or mental health, but his mission was not successful.
We remember the World Wars from the vantage point of history but our gratitude to Neil, the avionics technician from Jamaica, and others for their sacrifice cannot be based entirely on the fact they won. They didn’t offer themselves knowing that they would win, at some points it seemed most likely that they would lose. And yet they continued to be motivated to action to be in solidarity with those who are oppressed, pleading with others to do the same.
Amos’ book gets darker and darker. As he faces more and more resistance the end if the injustice is not overcome becomes clearer to him.
The book of Amos ends with a warning that if they do not repent that The Day of the Lord will come. The day of the Lord is a day when a more powerful neighbour will wage war against them and carry them into exile. If they don’t help others, one day they will be the ones in need of help and who will be left to help them? This demise will be fast like a locust swarm or a scorching fire or overripe fruit being swallowed whole. In the final vision Amos sees the great pillars of the temple in Bethel, the place of their performative religion, come tumbling down. For those who tried to worship God in a way that ignored justice for those who were oppressed in their daily life, their end has finally come.
But then, right in the final paragraph something surprising happens.
Right at the very end of the book, in the final paragraph, it shifts.
It picks up this image of Israel as a destroyed building and God says that out of the ruins God will one day rebuild the House of David. In other words, God is going to bring the future Messianic King from David’s line and he will rebuild this community, which surprisingly, we are told, is going to include people from all of the nations.
“In that day” Amos reports God saying “I will restore David’s fallen shelter— I will repair its broken walls. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills, and I will bring my people Israel back from exile.”
God too responds to the question of whether a religious response is enough.
For Christians we cannot talk about remembering without the context of the ritual we share every week. After the silence, or before it depending on timing, the priest will raise bread and will and repeat the words of that Son of David. “Do this in remembrance of me”.
Jesus, this young man who leaves the safety of his home to be as vulnerable flesh and blood, a vulnerable mind, with those in situations of injustice and where things are not right.
Throughout the Old Testament God’s people are told to remember, mostly to remember that they are the people who God saved from oppression in Egypt. This memory is to transform the way they live so that they cannot be complacent in the face of injustice and wrong. In the New Testament we, as Christians, are called to place all of our experiences within the framing of the memory of Christ’s passion and resurrection.
This memory gently washes all of our memories from cynicism and apathy. It says that no young man and woman who died in the service of others could die in vein, whether their fight was successful or not.
Because each individual who seeks to place their lives on the line in the service of others is seen and the good in that is caught up in the story of Christ. He will forever be with them and so they are forever with us as we remember Christ’s passion at the Eucharist. This memory invites us to remember their sacrifices and service with wonder and gratitude, opening our hearts to what we too might do to stand with those who face injustice around us.
“In that day” Amos reports God saying “I will restore David’s fallen shelter— I will repair its broken walls. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills, and I will bring my people Israel back from exile.”
At the end of our service today, as every week, we will be invited to “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” These words are the two halves of the Christian ethic. We are invited to participate in God’s work, to offer ourselves to overcome injustice where ever we see it. But we are invited to do this within a particular context. Because of Christ, as we look back, we can place our memories within the great memory of one who was with us in all suffering and service. And as we look forward we see the promises of an active God who will one day overcome all injustice and wrong and draw all people to himself.
We can go in peace, to love and serve the Lord.
