Reflections...

About Amos (OT) by Doris

Amos and Mark have similar messages for us today. God expects us, you and me, to be the ones to uphold social justice. From Amos, chapter 5, we are reminded: Follow God. Uphold justice among you, my people, and in society. And you cannot consider yourselves righteous, while you are in security and comfort and your brothers and sisters are not.

It’s not a message most people want to hear. We often think we are on the side of good, and know injustice when we see it - and it is with other people. We feel rage towards them, but it blinds us to how we may be unjust ourselves, in our own communities. And we also can see in Hong Kong and in many places, that it is dangerous to be on the side of justice and against ones in power. It makes it all the more easy to excuse ourselves and even assure ourselves: I’m not a saint, I’m not a hero. I admire my brave brother or my generous sister, but everyone can’t be like him. This is normal in all of us. Things come to our minds to tell us that we’re doing OK, while justice is something for professionals or saints, or exceptionally brave people, to achieve.

 

But Amos left us with just that kind of message- a message which at that time he directed to the people of Israel, the chosen people of God. He condemned Israel harshly, and called Israel to repent and fully return to God. Amos said:

 

Ah, you that turn justice to wormwood, and bring righteousness to the ground! (5:7)

 

He goes on:

 

Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. (5:11)

 

These messages, are for us In Hong Kong – and in many places in the world - we are like Israel in the time of Amos. In Amos’ time, the rich had fortresses, they had mansions and winter and summer houses, beds of inlaid ivory, and the finest lotions, they had wine by the bowlful.

 

In Hong Kong, like Israel in Amos’ time, the wealth inequality is severe, as most of us are aware. There is enormous wealth here. 70 of the world billionaires are based on Hong Kong, juxtaposed with great poverty and exclusion. And from the Pandora papers that were leaked to the global media recently, we know that national leaders, ones entrusted with the care and growth of their countries, having been pocketing away private wealth publicly gained, to the tune of

trillions of dollars.

 

So this is one of the first and main messages of Amos. This is the kind of extreme wealth inequality is a social injustice that Amos condemns. But all kinds of inequality in a community degrade people and break relationships, because it brings humiliation. The poor, the uneducated, the sick, the low status, the excluded people… they are all people whom God loves, and God expects us as Christians to love them too, and take them as your people, and bring justice and equality. When we don’t, but let the injustice and inequality go on, this angers God.

 

But two more things make it worse – make God even more displeased. One is: rejection of critics and truth-tellers.

 

Amos says: They hate the one who reproves in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks the truth. (5:10)

 

Is this not something we also see in rulers around the world? In Hong Kong, we have seen leaders remain indifferent or even stifle criticism. And in Russia, and the Philippines, leaders also reject and threaten journalists, which is why their job is so dangerous. People turn away from critics. And Christians do the same.

 

In recent news, we have seen that hundreds of thousands of children, mostly boys from 9 to 13, have been sexually violated by Catholic fathers and others in the French Catholic Church. The children cannot be blamed. Many victims and their loved ones had tried to hold the church accountable. But they were rejected, they were ignored. Those leaders in the church – they did what they thought was right, what was best for the institution. We also have to make sure not to reject truth and criticism when it comes to us.

 

And the other thing which Amos tells us angers God is: religiosity while leaving injustice among us and around us. Christians count themselves as good, for their charitable works, for their law-abiding lives, their good acts doing good things. Yet still our desire for justice and equality can still be missing. We may still be keeping for ourselves, unequal knowledge, unequal resources, unequal power. God does not want our unthinking “good” acts or our pious acts – when we still fail to follow God and reflect our love and faithfulness to God, through our care and respect for our fellows in Christ. We may still be giving power to the powerful, taking from the poor and silent to the rich and dominant, accepting inequality and hierarchy that is against love and unity of community we seek.

 

Amos likewise had reminded the people of Israel: God does not treasure your religious acts, when you are not putting God first, and relying wholly on Him. He will instead be angry and reject it. “I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them.” (5:21-22)

 

We are challenged to ask ourselves, as a church as well: how have we made sure that no weak person is excluded, and no voice suppressed? How do we make sure that it is not us, who takes from the poor and builds for the rich? As Brother Aime said last week about unity – it starts with us, within our church. To examine ourselves, our relationships – establishing equality and justice with our sisters and brothers next to us.

 

Amos reminded us how easy it is for the people of God, which is us now, to get complacent, to turn justice to wormwood, and to reject criticism. We believe we love justice, and hate injustice. But justice, like unity, are for you and me to seek. It is very possible, they are in each one of us, to achieve. The first step is, to “seek the Lord, that you shall live.” I believe the message continues in the New Testament. So I pass now to Phyllis.

 

N.T. by Phyllis

In the Old Testament, Amos had addressed Israel, God’s chosen people. In the New Testament, Jesus came to fulfil God’s law and he has called the church to be the chosen one.

1 Peter 2:9 says : “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people..”

Like the people of Israel, we Christians are chosen as God’s people. (1 Peter 2:5, 9-10). With the love and mercy granted to us, God expects us to remain faithful and follow His Will. Same as in Amos’s time.

The love of God and the justice of God are not contradicting each other, but rather, they are tied to each other. God wants us to be a united community, with faith in Him and reflecting His love in our relationship with each other. When there is injustice, God’s people are being hurt and His love being taken for granted.

Turning to today’s New Testament reading in Mark –

The gospel reading we heard today is taken from Mark 10: 17-31. It is a good passage to reflect on our theme for today: justice and compassion in action.

The passage talked about a rich man. He believed himself to be already very good, because as a decent law-abiding Jew, he had kept all the laws required of him since he was a boy. He went to Jesus asking what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus told him to sell what he owned, and to give the money to the poor, and then come follow him. And he was sad for he had many possessions.

Jesus confirms to us, through this story, that being religious and following the law are incomplete ways to follow Jesus and gain eternal life. Jesus’ radical command and teaching to sell all his possession and share with the poor posed challenges to disciples in his time and of today.

First, it is a challenge to the accumulation of wealth by the rich and the unequal wealth distribution between the rich and the poor in society. Poverty is related to injustice. The people who have more power and possession accumulate wealth for their own interests. This is greed and unjust social structure that makes poverty worse. But we often fail to recognize this. For church, doing charity is not enough. We need to challenge unjust systems and exploitation, and to ensure  equal share of resources and power amongst all.

The second challenge that we are given is the mentality of the rich man: “I have done what is required. I have done it my whole life.” But Jesus, and Amos (as Doris had clearly explained earlier), challenge us to break through our complacency, which makes us believe that “we are good, we are better than our neighbours”. But in an unjust world where our brothers and sisters are still suffering, our work as a Christian community is not complete. We are called to follow Jesus, to give all that we have to advance his Kingdom of justice and love, to uphold the dignity of our sisters and brothers with all our efforts.

In the gospel story about the rich man, we should notice that Jesus loved the rich man too. Jesus tried to liberate him from earthly attachment. Attachment is source of suffering. Jesus has strong compassion to everyone even the sinners.

Jesus’ command on selling all possession and give to the poor is a divine way of love, love to connect, love of mutuality and love of equality.

Pope John Paul II has made a powerful statement -  “Nobody is so poor he has nothing to give, and nobody is so rich he has nothing to receive.”

When we are both giver and receiver, we are equal human being in God, mutually enriched and mutually blessed. This is a beautiful Kingdom of God where loving and equal relationship is cultivated. 

Both Amos and Jesus reminded us God’s deep concern to justice because God is loving and compassionate. Justice matters to the church and to each one of us. The reason is clear and straight forward - we are One as God’s children, created in God’s holy image. One member of our body suffers we all suffer, God suffers too.

Sisters and brothers, let us join in one spirit to achieve justice and compassion in our united and loving action.

To close the sermon, I would like to invite you all to sing this song to let the message that we just heard sink in, and to seek God’s strength to build a Kingdom of ONE.

 

We are one in the Spirit

We are one in the Lord

We are one in the Spirit

We are one in the Lord

And we pray that all unity

May one day be restored

 

And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love

Yes, they'll know we are Christians by our love

 

We will walk with each other

We will walk hand in hand

We will walk with each other

We will walk hand-in-hand

And together we'll spread the news

That God is in our land

 

And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love

Yes, they'll know we are Christians by our love

 

We will work with each other

We will work side-by-side

We will work with each other

We will work side-by-side

And we'll guard each one's dignity and save each one's pride

 

And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love

Yes, they'll know we are Christians by our love