Servants' Entrance
David C. Myers
May 25, 2008
Hosea 5:15 - 6:6
Amos 5:18 -24
Matthew 9:9 - 13, 18 - 26
Text: "For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt-offerings." . . . Hosea 6:6 "But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." . . . Amos 5:24
The day will be forever etched in my mind. It was a warm sunny Tuesday morning in late September at West Virginia Wesleyan College in 1969. I was going to the required Chapel Service. Except today it chapel would be different for me. Instead of the usual preacher of college professor, there was a singing group fresh out of Wesley Seminary and now employed by the United Methodist Board of Discipleship as evangelists.
They were good! Their music - and many of their songs were written to fulfill degree or course requirements for their biblical and theological studies - was engaging, capturing and transforming. And it was haunting.
You may recall what was going on in the world - especially on college campuses - in the late sixties and early seventies. We were struggling with our identity, with civil rights, with the Viet Nam War that many might soon have to fight. In short, we were trying to decide how to respond to the world that we, as "the next generation," was about to inherit. I was supposed to be a campus leader. I was president of our student government. Very few people on the campus of West Virginia Wesleyan were in touch with the campus unrest that took place throughout our campus.
"Dust and Ashes" changed that - at least for me - that Tuesday morning at required chapel. (It was never "chapel" it was always "required chapel" as if those two words were one.) One of their songs, "I Want Justice" - changed all that. The song is based on this morning's passage from Amos.
Henry sings "I Want Justice" By Jim Moore © 2002
I'm just a lonely shepherd who hears the lambkin's cry
I wear no cloth, I'm not God's man by trade
I dress the lofty sycamore and it's for that I'm paid
But the lion has roared who shall not fear?
The Lord has spoken who can but speak?
Now therefore hear his word:
I hate and despise all your potlucks
Your solemn assemblies in church
Your prayers are as empty as deserts
Your hymns are all noise, not a search
You drink wine from bowls, not in jiggers
You eat of the calf, not the bull
You buy off the poor with your dollars
And sell the needy for shoes
Chorus
I want justice! Justice! like free flowing waters
And righteousness, Righteousness, like cascading streams
Love goodness, reject not the needy, the ghetto is not the Lord's dream!
But you have turned justice to poison
And given the fruit to the worm
You lie on your beds of white ivory
While the beds of the poor You would burn
Chorus
Let justice flow down like a stream
My life was forever changed. No longer could I go along with the ordinary; forever I would begin to question. God's Word and Will for my life came into clearer focus. God doesn't want only "nice worship", beautiful buildings and rituals. God wants mercy.
I began seeing things differently. Even things that had happened to me in the past.
I remember being in the Junior Choir of the Orono Methodist Church. We had a pretty respectable Children's Choir. Mrs. Grace Douglas was our director - she also directed the Senior Choir. At 6 - 8 singing in church was a big deal, back then, not unlike it is now for our Cherubim Choir. Except there was one major difference. Someone purchased robes for us. I am sure that person had seen pictures of the Vienna Boys Choir, and figured that we should look as nice! And we had to wear them. We had maroon cassocks with snowy white cottas. That would have been enough but someone well-intentioned soul decided that we needed heavily starched white collars with big bows.
Now, no 6 - 8 year old can get into an outfit like that without help. So we had a few persons called choir mothers who came before the service to get us dressed and to tie our bows. Whatever might have been our attitude about singing in church before this vesting ordeal, it quickly went down the hill by the time worship started. These choir mothers wanted us to look just perfect - our suffering was beside the point. They jerked us around, admonished us for moving, implored us not to touch our collars and bows once they were in place, and generally made us miserable and cross. By the time we were in the choir loft, we were in a nasty and uncooperative mood. If we sounded O.K., it was because the listeners didn't know the truth about what was going on.
After my later experience with "Dust and Ashes" I began to look back on my childhood days at Orono United Methodist differently. I had my chance for revenge when they asked me during my junior year of college to give the "Student Recognition Sunday" sermon. Fresh from hearing "Dust and Ashes" two months earlier, I informed them of how the church had become for many just another rung on the social ladder. I quoted Amos to them and told them that God wanted justice and mercy - not sacrifice.
Not too many people complimented me on my sermon that day. Looking back I now feel sorry for what my parents might have felt.
But I was beginning to grasp at something. My faith was coming into focus. And I pray that the edge that was given me during that time never dims so much that I lose sight at what I believe is God's central message - namely that while our worship and praise is important; God really wants us to be in ministry with people - especially those who experience injustice.
It is so easy to worship God. We can build great buildings and sanctuaries, fashion great choirs and lift up beautiful songs and music. And we feel so good doing it. We have worshipped God. Then we can go home, feeling good about what we have done. The church has been doing it for years! Last week I told about the Israelites who left Egypt wandering in the wilderness wanted a concrete place where God could be worshipped - something tangible - so they built a golden calf. King Solomon built a permanent place - the beautiful temple - for the arc of the Covenant. Cathedrals and churches have been built all over the world.
And yet . . .
•The prophets who wrote while the Hebrew people were in forced exile - some 500 miles from their temple, reminded the people that God was still active in their lives - without the presence of a place to worship; and what God really wanted was justice and righteousness, or mercy, not sacrifice.
•Stephen's sermon just prior to being stoned condemned the temple Solomon built, reminding us that God does not live in a temple built with human hands.
•Louis Paul tells me that the American church he worshipped at in Amsterdam had a sign in that Narthex over the entrance to the sanctuary that kept people focused on what God wants - it simply says, "Servant's Entrance."
Look what has just taken place in Matthew's gospel. Jesus has called Matthew to be among his 12 disciples. Now, Matthew is a tax collector. Jesus found him at the tax collector's desk taking the taxes from the people to pass on to the Roman government.
And Jesus goes into Matthew's house with him to a banquet dinner. They join a fairly large gathering there, tax collectors and other sinners. What a ragtag crowd! Tax collectors are not only guilty of bilking the citizenry out of extra fees to keep for themselves, but they are actually employed by the Roman government, a disgusting and disreputable job for any self-respecting Jew. And we don't even know what these people called sinners have been up to, but we may be assured that they are delinquent Jews whose behavior and life-style have distanced them also from the faithful and the religion of Israel. And Jesus is eating with them as their guest. Merely talking with them would have been bad enough, but eating with them - well, that added indignity upon disgrace.
The Pharisees learn about this motley gathering. And they complain about it. It's the Pharisees job to know the Law, to identify such serious infractions, to question such corrupt and abominable practices, and to admonish the transgressors. So, doing their job faithfully, the Pharisees say, "Why do You eat with tax collectors and sinners?" Why are you defiling yourselves by eating with unclean people?"
Jesus answers them first with a proverb, an old saying they all surely know. The work of a doctor is not to take care of those who are well, but those who are sick. The Pharisees are not able to hear that Jesus is talking about their own spiritual illness. And then Jesus suggests that the Pharisees to go and learn from the prophet Hosea when Hosea had said eighth centuries earlier, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice."
What the Pharisees need to learn is that these words when Jesus uses them they mean the same thing they meant when God first used them through the prophet Hosea. The people in those 8 centuries before had been busy doing their traditional cultic worship. They were busy with the details of how the offerings were to be brought forth and the sacrifices were to be made. They had written scroll after scroll of instruction and rubrics, and they were enforcing them rigidly and strictly so that all their worship might be perfect.
But they had forgotten one central thing. Worship, offering and sacrifice are not merely performances to be carried out with precision and exactitude. They are acts of a heart that seeks repentance and justice, righteousness and mercy. God saw their worship. God heard their prayers and their chants. They were doubtless impressive and beautiful. But apparently God perceived that an important component of all of it was missing. The steadfast love God showed the people, the justice and mercy with which God ruled the people were never emulated in their worship, were never recalled in their prayers, never present in their sacrificing. Hosea brought a word from a brokenhearted and languishing God. Amos reminds us that God does not want empty praise worship; but what God wants is worship that feeds and nourishes us to ensure that "justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."
What God is saying, in essence, is, "Your offerings and sacrifices are nifty and swell, but what I really want from you is a loving heart, a generous and merciful heart. Your worship and praise of me should only be nourishment to prepare you to go and heal the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, proclaim good news to the poor, set at liberty the captive, give vision to the blind, and help the lame walk!
When we enter the sanctuary we are the servants entering the place where we get fed. Servants entrance.
Then suddenly, while Jesus is talking to the Pharisees and the disciples, a seriously ill woman shows up. For 12 years she has suffered from an unstoppable menstrual bleeding. She is defiled, unclean. Aside from her physical discomfort, she can't go into the synagogue to worship, and she isn't even allowed to touch anyone. But she touches Jesus, and when He notices it, He acts with haste, saying, "Take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well." And suddenly she is well.
And then a noteworthy civil servant kneels before Jesus because his daughter has died. If Jesus would just touch her with his hand! And so Jesus goes to the man's house and brings the girl back to life because of her father's faith.
These healings are biblical metaphors for the spiritual healing the disciples need and the Pharisees need, and that you and I need. This is the kind of spiritual healing people need when we admonish one another, dare each other to follow the "unspoken rules of the church", and generally make each other miserable and cross like unruly junior choir members forced to wear robes and starched collars; or like people who know that worship is important, but because of the influence of culture and teaching, forget what the true purpose of worship is. God reminds us today: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."
These things bring about healing. They allow us to grow and to be faithful to God's gracious love. They let us be faithful to God's covenantal love; to keep our priorities straight. They allow us to heed the call of Jesus who said he was, "anointed to preach good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."