Thank God for Amos!

 

Sermon. 13 July 2025. Saham Toney. Trinity 4 (Year C)

(Old Testament readings from Continuous Track)

Amos 7.7-17

Luke 10:25-37

 

Amos.

 

Amos. I have said the word, and the roof hasn’t fallen in, and we haven’t fallen out. So I’ll say the word again:

 

Amos!

 

If there is anyone who doesn’t know, “Amos” was one the options for the name of our benefice, our benefice of Ashill, Merton, Ovington, and Saham Toney churches. A.M.O.S. It was not to be. The bishop said no. That battle is over. I had no part in the discussion or the decision. It predates me. But it’s not a secret that some would still like us to be “AMOS”. And so controversy attaches to the very name.

 

Actually, controversy attaches to this morning’s reading from Amos in another way. “Controversy” is a bit strong. I mean: a decision was made which can fairly be questioned. What do I mean? I need to go back a stage.

 

Our readings come from a set cycle which is actually ecumenical, shared with many others, most notably with our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers. It is called the “Revised Common Lectionary”. But! But every now and then the Church of England allows itself to deviate from that common, ecumenical cycle of readings. And one such time is actually the whole of this long season of Green that we are now well into. The season after Trinity, sometimes called “Ordinary Time”. When it comes to this season, there are two tracks of readings from the Old Testament. And we Church of England people are supposed to choose between one track or the other. (You’re not supposed to keep switching, week by week.) One track is called “Related”. And “Related” means related… to the Gospel. Yes, like on other Sundays of the year, the Old Testament reading anticipates, or echoes, or augments, or helps us reflect on one theme in the Gospel of the day. But the Church of England allows itself a whole other track of readings. And that is called… “Continuous”. The idea is that we let the Gospel stand on its own, and we work our way through some books of the Old Testament “continuously”. Except of course we do no such thing. The Old Testament – at least four times as long as the New – is just too big for that. So what we do is work our way through some “edited highlights” of some Old Testament books. 

 

Is the Church of England right to let us go our own way, differing from other churches, in this way? It is, as I have intimated, controversial – at least in those circles where these things are discussed. I won’t hide my own view from you. I think the case for it is weak. So it’s the sort of thing we might do every now and again (every year and again!), but not normally. But, hey, here we are! We are doing it this year. So a note to all those who prepare for worship here (whether as leaders or just as interested people), in these Green Sundays, this year, don’t go looking for a deliberate link between the Old Testament and the Gospel. There may be links, but they are coincidental, not intended.    

 

I can see that you are finding this discussion a detail of the shape of our readings scintillating! Or just maybe not. So let me cut to the chase. Let me give you a very clear, very practical message. This sermon is going to give you something to do (something I’ll do only rarely). My suggestion is this. In the week ahead – maybe in the heat of the day, when you have your curtains and blinds drawn, or maybe in an evening, when you can sit in your garden in the cool of the day - read through the Book of Amos. It’s not that onerous. It’s called a “Book” by convention only. Amos is a mere nine chapters. It’s as little as six pages, or thereabouts. So: read Amos.

 

Here’s some context. Amos arose in the middle of the 8^th century before Christ. So around 750 BC. In today’s reading we get to know his background. He was a cattle-herder and a sycamore-tree-dresser. (I’m still not quite sure how you dress sycamore trees, and to be fair, nobody is.*) He was from Judah, the Southern Kingdom, and felt compelled to go to Israel, the Northern Kingdom, and speak words from Gd, words of judgment, of sharp, sharpest criticism. So he wasn’t a prophet by profession. He was a farmer first. And when he says he wasn’t a prophet’s son, he isn’t really telling us anything about his father. He is saying he is not one of the “Sons of the Prophets”, which really means be didn’t belong to a “Guild of the Prophets”. He wasn’t a civil servant who got paid by the king to speak holy words or encouraging words or esoteric words, to order. He was a man on a mission, his own unique mission. He is also, by the way, the first prophet to write down his words, in beautiful Hebrew poetry.  

 

It happens that Amos is one of my heroes. That the Book of Amos is in the Bible is one of the things that gives me hope. It is one of the fascinations of the Bible. It is proof that the Bible was not a book put together by religious people for the edification of other religious people. It’s much, much stranger than that.

 

What is it about Amos that so draws me? It’s that he condemns religious people in the strongest terms. Hear this from chapter five. Gd says:

I hate, I despise your festivals,

and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

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.

Take away from me the noise of your songs;

I will not listen to the melody of your harps. [5.21-23; cf. 4.4-5]

 

And the objection is not to idolatry. There are two – just maybe three – references to idolatry in Amos [2.4??; 5.26; 8.14]. But these are hugely outweighed by other references. So the worship that Gd hates is actually worship of Gd, of Gd named aright, of Gd of the covenant. Israel is worshipping the Gd of Israel… and Gd of Israel hates it! What is going on? Amos is clear that the people are combining worship that is right in its form with mistreatment of the poor among them, a mistreatment that is nothing short of cruelty. Here’s how he puts it, back in chapter two: '[you] trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way'. Strong stuff.

 

To be clear about two things. Gd’s harsh criticism of Gd’s people in Amos’ mouth is not that they combine worship with sin. We all combine worship with sin. That is our human condition, in this life. This is why seeking forgiveness is so central to our worship. The forgiveness of our sins both enables worship and is a large part of the content of our worship, and thank Gd for that. Amos’ criticism is so dramatic because they are so lost in their sins that they cannot see them. They are lost in their comforts, and their excesses, and truly have no sense of the price poor people are paying for their lifestyles. They combine worship that is right in form with utter smugness. And that – that Gd condemns.

 

We are not left in condemnation. We know what we have to do to avoid Gd’s condemnation: come carrying the needs of others in our hearts; come humbly, come indeed with compassion, the compassion of the good Samaritan, like Amos, another outsider who got things right.

 

To avoid any doubt, Amos was not named after the villages of Ashill, Merton, Ovington, and Saham Toney (sorry about that)! We don’t know the meaning of his name. It may well have something to do with burden, or weight, or load. So let me say again: we do come here carrying a certain kind of burden. Not of guilt. Not of shame. But the burden of authentically carrying the needs of others in our hearts. We come humbly. We come indeed with compassion. Compassion to meet Gd of compassion.

 

Amen.

* A member of the congregation did spend the afternoon reading Amos, and looking into what a dresser of sycamore trees might actually do. He says that he found out it really means figs. Discuss? 

 

Sermon: The Trinity? It's Simple, Always and Today. Racism? It's Simply Evil, Always and Today.

Sermon. 7 June 2020. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford 

Trinity Sunday (Year A) 

How to preach the Trinity?  

That Gd is both One, and Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  

There are many ways to get it wrong.  

Most obviously, preachers get it wrong by going for analogies, images.  

Yes, there [shows] is always Saint Patrick’s three-leaf shamrock or any plant.  

What do you think?  

One Gd made up of three, separate parts?  

One Gd, made up of three sub-gods? 

Doesn’t really work.  

Or there’s water, or rather H20.  

H20 as ice, and water, and steam?  

One Gd appearing in different guises, depending on circumstance.  

But, then, who did Jesus pray to?  

None of it works. 

No analogy can work.  

But... 

even worse is to be embarrassed about preaching in the Trinity,  

as if it were something abstract, intellectual,  

just for the keenies, or neurotic tidiers.  

I want to suggest three things about the doctrine of the Trinity  

which you may not have heard before.  

They may even shock you.  

I cannot argue the full case (that’s for another time and place).  

All I want to do is show you some aspects  

of a different way of engaging with this.  

First shiock: I want to suggest that the doctrine of the Trinity  

explains nothing about Gd.  

It is a refusal to explain Gd. It is a refusal to explain. 

  

You see, the Church, as it was coming to set out the doctrine,  

already knew some things it believed.  

These things were in its blood.   

• Gd is one.  It is not that there just happened to be one god,  but there might have been 47.  No. This is saying that Gd  is unique.  It just makes no sense to think that there might be another Gd alongside Gd. 
•  Gd reveals Gdself as I AM in the Old Testament,  and as Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the New.  This revelation is recorded in Scripture, but it is not past. Gd comes to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  In our worship we find ourselves 
• within the intimacy of the one Gd,  Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

And we don’t try to explain this.  

We hold it all together, and we enjoy it.  

We adore.   

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.  

So on this reading it is actually those who come to be called “heretics”  

who try to tie it all up, and explain Gd.  

• So some said that Gd is one, and so Jesus is really only a human being pretending to be Gd, or Gd pretending to be resembling a human being.  
• Some said: Gd is one, and so Christ is “god”, but in a secondary way, a derived way - some demi-god, some reflection of Gd. 
• Some said that Gd is one,  but comes to us sometimes as Father, sometimes as Son, and sometimes as Spirit, as the occasion demands.  

To these and other explainers the Church replied:  

No.  

If you try to explain it, you end up explaining it away.  

We don’t explain away; we worship. 

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. 

Second shock: the doctrine of the Trinity tells us one simple truth.  

It tells us that Gd is love,  

and when we say that Gd is love, 

we really mean that Gd is love.  

It isn’t that Gd on a whim decided to make the world,  

and then pretend to be love,  

as if Gd thought: it might be fun to have creatures thinking of me as Love.  

No, love is who Gd really is, 

even before, even outside of creation.  

So there is love within Gd. 

So we need at least something like the doctrine of the Trinity.  

We cannot demonstrate this, of course. 

It is rather that none of our claims makes sense without this claim.  

So we are brought back to the simplest claim of all: 

Gd is love.  

Third shock: the doctrine of the Trinity is  

among the most practical of Christian teachings.  

This follows on from the previous point.  

Gd is love,  

and so, yes, in a sense, the Beatles were right:  

All you need is love.  

Christianity is not a set of rules for all circumstances, 

nor even a vision of a perfectly virtuous community, 

but a call to love.  

But whereas the Beatles might have meant 

an intense reaction or feeling,  

or (to be fair to them) some affection which might indeed last, 

we know that won’t quite do.  

Even when we are in our own minds “loving”, 

we can still be self-deluded and self-serving.  

But the doctrine of the Trinity says:  

embed your true insight that all you need is love,  

within in the story of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  

This will give it the breadth and the depth it needs.  

So the love we need is that of the Father, whose story we know,  

who is creative and nurtures.  

The love we need is that of the Son, whose story we know,  

who teaches, guides, heals, liberates, gives, parties, and sacrifices himself.  

The love we need is that of the Spirit, whose story we know,  

who comforts, who is advocate and life-giver.  

Here is the breadth and the depth we need,

to give real content to the love that is all we need. 

So  

• the Trinity is not an explanation of Gd, but a refusal to explain.  
• It brings us back to the simple truth: Gd’s nature is love. 
• And it calls us to the practical work of reflecting that simple, divine love.  

We might say that the Christian vocation is to find yourself,  

over and over again, just at the cusp of sensing and inhabiting  

the love of Gd, drawing us in and sending us out.  

And how are we, here, now, in 2020, in this world, 

just at the cusp of sensing and inhabiting the love of Gd?  

Since we are only ever just at the cusp of it, we will get it wrong.  

The Church as institution  

and we here in Manor Park and in all church communities  

will get it wrong.  

We will say too much, or we will say too little.  

Nevertheless, being clear that we will get it wrong, we have to speak.  

The love between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is a fire  

• that is brighter and more warming than we might ever dare to hope,  

• and a fire that is more revealing and refining than we might ever fear. 

Being clear that we will get it wrong, we have to speak. 

This last week have given us two great images, to anti-icons 

of what it is to oppose the love of Gd.  

The first is the image of one human being – a “law-enforcer” - 

pressing his knee into the neck and windpipe of another human being, 

who was not resisting 

for 8 minutes and 46 seconds,  

killing him, 

while other “law-enforcers” stood around. 

It is not possible that he did that, not knowing he was killing him.  

   

The other “anti-icon” is that of a “leader”   

ordering other law-enforcers” to clear a way for him,  

by force of arms and tear-gas, aimed at churchpeople as much as anybody,  

so that he could walk with ease, 

and stand in front of a Church with a Bible in his hand,  

waving it, like a magic charm.  

It is not possible that he did that,  

not knowing it would make for more division and rage.  

It was provocation to violence. 

It was sacrilege. It was blasphemy. It was idolatry.  

Where do we go from here? 

  

We are, in truth, where we always are.  

We are just on the cusp of sensing and inhabiting the love of Gd in the Trinity. So when we speak, we will get it wrong, saying too little or too much.  

But speak out we must, now against the evils of racism and oppressive power.  

We need as always to pray for one another,  

and for our leaders and people of influence  

in the Church and in the world, 

to pray for the right mix  

• of righteous anger and unbending, loud protest (yes) 
• with proper detachment that makes us wary of self-righteousness, 
• and makes us willing to do the searing soul-searching that alone will free us.  

We pray for one another within the love of Gd,  

giving thanks for the steadfastness of that love,  

Saying Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.  

Amen.