I’ll admit I haven’t heard many sermons on Amos. In the words of John Piper, “Amos is a devastating book for people who give token attention to God through assemblies and songs, but whose hearts are much more genuinely engaged by sports, or business, or family, or hobbies.” Amos challenges us to move from our comfort, to step away from our idols, and to work towards justice in our world. And that’s a lot for the American church. That’s a lot for me. This book calls me to identify idols in my life, to examine my heart, to acknowledge my privilege. We are the Israelites. It felt uncomfortable on Sunday to hear the words of Amos 5: 21-24 read: “I hate, I despise your feasts, 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 peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” I struggle with what to do with that in my life. I get it on the one hand: God desires His people to resist the love of comfort, to care for the needy, the poor. But on the other hand I struggle. My primary vocation right now is to mother three little people. How does Amos speak into that? In a society that tells me to justify idolatry of my own children, I must instead hold them loosely before God. I should feel deeply burdened with the knowledge that today, mostly in poor global regions, 16,000 children will die before having reached their fifth birthday (who.int), the age of my oldest child. I should look into my infant daughter’s eyes and realize that more than her comfort and privilege in this life I must desire for her to seek God, a justice-loving God. That this may mean I need to see my responsibility as a Christian mother to help my children seek justice in their communities, in their schools, and that this must be vastly more important to me than how I’m going to pay for their college. As my husband works what are often long hours providing access to medical care for many of the city and state’s underserved population, I must remind our children, myself, of this important work and call as he misses dinners and bedtimes, instead of being tempted to let resentment set it. This text challenges me to have regular, on-going conversations in my marriage about how we will live this out: what jobs we will take, what neighborhoods we will live in, what schools we will send our kids to. How will we, in our family, help the marginalized, the victim, and the poor? We need to wrestle with it. I need to take seriously the men and women who stand with signs at our local intersections, push shopping carts with their few belongings, or live out of tents throughout our city. When my child asks me “what does their sign say?” or, “why are they pushing a cart on the street?” I need to be willing to give honest answers that will encourage my privileged children to desire justice to reign. And to pray. Justin has reminded us that prayer is action. I want my home to be a place where my children regularly hear prayers uttered for the marginalized, the victim, and the poor. Let us not grow callous towards the needy, but instead let us wrestle with how God can use us to bring forth justice. These challenging words from one of my favorite modern writers, Wendell Berry really convict: “Especially among Christians in positions of wealth and power, the idea of reading the Gospels and keeping Jesus’ commandments as stated therein has been replaced with a curious logic. According to this process, people first declare themselves to be followers of Christ, and then they assume that whatever they say or do merits the adjective ‘Christian.’” That God would give us hearts desiring to see justice “roll down like waters” so that bearing the name of Christ will be much more than an adjective in our lives.

~ Ellyn Yoon