Rich?

This is a normal enough question for the hosts, except that what she was proposing to buy was a brand new very small, very fast very expensive foreign sports car...for her 17 year-old daughter!

Click and Clack went on a rampage like I never before heard them do.

“Are you completely crazy, lady?

That car should not be allowed to be manufactured: it is too small, too fast even for me, a professional car person, and especially for a 17 year old girl.

Do you not care about her, or anyone else?”

The woman's priorities were:
(1) Is it cute? And (2), does it cost a lot of money?

She had no concern about

(1) her daughter's safety,

(2) passenger safety,

(3) wasting a pile of money, or

(4) the safety of anyone else.

Amos would have gone further, but Click and Clack got started on the appropriate road in that conversation.

Whenever someone says “I want..., or I feel..., or I need..., without regard for its effect on others, we are deep in the mud-pit of a sinful separation from God and from our neighbors.

It is a mess that is reflected in all three of our lessons today.

Oh, it is easy to complain about someone else, especially if that someone is big, impersonal, and far away.

How often we target federal government policy, or multi-national corporations.!

Yes, there is evil residing there.

That needs to be rooted out.

But the prophet Amos takes things in a different direction.

He takes on a more difficult target; difficult because they are the faces right in front of him.

In a verse right next to our reading today, Amos makes it clear: You can pretend that judgment is not coming, but the judgment of which I speak is on you.

That is much harder to speak, and quite painful to hear.

Please proclaim woe to someone else, especially to someone far away, not to me!”

It is not just public policy that is twisted, it infects individuals also.

Here is a partial list of what Amos sees, a list that sounds all too contemporary:

--individuals opposing the innocent in court.

--attempting to intimidate witnesses or pay them off.

--using public funds for private purposes.

--discouraging the ordinary person from seeking a hearing.

--turning justice into wormwood.

--under-sizing measures

--rigging the scales and weights.

--since it is hard to bring a suit, selling wheat with the chaff mixed in.

It is a fair question, isn't it?

Do we give fair measure in our business dealings, or do we try to get away with whatever we can?

The question applies to manager and worker equally, to store owner and to customer alike.

Do we really care about the persons around us, or do we try to “get” them before they “get” us?

In the verse we read today, Amos lists a bunch of things: beds, lambs, calves, instruments, songs, wine, and fine oils.

The things are not evil in themselves; but Amos makes clear that their misuse by individuals is evil.

That occurs when one of these things is used without regard for its effect on everyone else:

--When a calf is eaten without thinking how it could give milk and meat for many if allowed to mature.

--When one lounges around, depending on the hard work of others to care for him or her.

--When one uses up scarce resources just because we can.

I remember a town kid from Punxsutawney during my growing up years who threw his perfectly good bicycle over the hill to break it so that he could wheedle a new one out of his parents.

The family was rich enough – so he did it.

He is still a professional person in town, but I've never wanted to have dealings with him because of that memory.

One can rightfully complain about the fashion industry, but it would not have the impact that it does if we did not go out a buy the latest shirt length or trouser droopiness.

The ill is multiplied when we do not recycle things through Daniel's Closet, American Rescue Workers, the quilting group, the congregational bazaar, the township recycling bins, etc.

Amos would not let us simply complain about how bad people were in 8^th century B.C. Israel, nor about other people, somewhere else.

It is you and me whom he challenges.

Why? Because the circle of God's care is bigger than we want to acknowledge.

Remember what Jesus said when someone asked him “Who is my neighbor?”

Jesus replied with the story of the Good Samaritan.

We are getting in the late garden harvests now.

We are in the midst of planning finances, and Consecration Sunday is next week.

We will do well to remember that verse from 1 Timothy today: We brought nothing into the world; and we can take nothing out of it.

If the main focus of our lives is how big a pile of things we can accumulate, we would then hear that verse as bad news.

But the promise of eternal life is about relationships, not things.

That makes the verse from 1 Timothy remarkably freeing, Good News!

We have the opportunity to use all of the things which have been entrusted to our care for the purpose of helping each other and building relationships, overcoming our personal foolishness,and letting our neighbors know that Jesus has bigger plans with us still to be unfolded.

Are we the rich ones about whom Amos complains? Sadly, yes.

But, by the grace of God, that woe will not be the last word in our story.

Rise up, O saints of God;

Have done with lesser things.

Rise up, O saints of God,

From vain ambition turn.

Rise up, O saints of God;

His word of hope proclaim.[LBW 383]

Let all who trust this renewing word say... Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.