I AM THE CHURCH...YOU ARE THE CHURCH
July 12, 1998
Rev. Eugene Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
Amos 7:7-15
One thing about the prophet Amos...he was not shy. If he had something to say, he said it. And not somewhere on the sidelines where it might get buried on page 15 of the Jerusalem Press Democrat. No, he said it, shared the disturbing vision God had given him, right in the middle of the king's official sanctuary at Bethel - one of the centers of Israel's religious and political life. Amos went for the front page - the big headline: "See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people, Israel...the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword."
Amos is saying to the king and the people, "Yes, you are doing fine now. The stock market is up and the economy is booming. Everyone has a boat and an RV. But you have forgotten God. You have become self-indulgent and self-satisfied. You have forgotten the widow and the needy and the poor. And there is going to be a terrible price to pay." Pretty controversial words in a time of peace and prosperity, which is what Israel experienced during the reign of Jeroboam, 786 - 746 B.C.
So Amaziah, the official priest - he presided at the royal retreat at Bethel - comes to Amos with a little friendly advice: "Get out of town and never show your face here again! You may be a prophet, but what you are prophesying is dangerous nonsense."
Then Amos makes a fascinating reply - a reply I want us to think about this morning. "I am no prophet, nor a prophet's son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees..." He tells Amaziah. "Look I didn't want this job. I was quite happy with my flocks and trees. God made me do this. God told me, 'Go prophesy to my people Israel.' Quite frankly, my life would have been a lot easier if God would have left me alone."
Amos was just another poor working stiff. He didn't go to college and graduate school. He didn't spend two weeks at Princeton Seminary sharpening his theological skills. He simply went to work one day and found himself called by God. Not all that different from some fishermen who, a few centuries later, while mending their nets on the beach, would hear an invitation to follow and find their lives forever changed. "I'm not a prophet. I'm a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees. Not me, God, you couldn't mean me."
No, God couldn't mean me. Amos, sure. Peter, of course. But not me...not us. God isn't going to use ordinary folks like us. No way.
When I first met her, six or seven years ago, she was another poor Hispanic woman, living her life in a dead-end minimum wage job, in substandard rental housing - like thousands of other Hispanic women. She spoke no English, hardly spoke at all - easily intimidated by me and other wordy Anglos.
But working with us in what was then the Sonoma County Faith-Based Community Organizing Project, she gradually caught a vision - a vision of a house for her and her family; houses for others like her and their families. Affordable houses in Sonoma County? Right...maybe when it snows in July. But she had this vision.
Some land was found. A non-profit developer - Burbank Housing - showed interest. Before long, this shy woman was standing before the Santa Rosa City Council and challenging them with strong words to do the right thing - the just thing - and approve this project. And she prevailed.
Today, the impossible has come true. She lives with her family in a new home. But the story does not stop there. She is taking English lessons. She is working with other women in her church to form job coops. She has become a leader in her church and community. And, not long ago, this woman, Lupe Mendoza, became a citizen of the United States. And today, when other Hispanic women in her church and community speak of who it is that inspires them, who keeps them going when they get discouraged, who they would like to emulate, they speak of Lupe.
When I think back over the years I have known her, I am convinced that although she didn't know it at the time, God was about to move into her life. God had seen the need, had heard the cries of hopelessness and desperation. God needed someone to help do God's work. God called Lupe. Now she protested. She knew she was the wrong person. Certainly God could find somebody better, at least someone who spoke English. She wasn't educated; she didn't know how to be a leader. But God persisted, and the rest is history. No, God wouldn't use the likes of us. Not a chance. Amos, sure, but not us.
I was once told not to be afraid to preach a sermon that people already know. That's what I am doing this morning. You already know what I am about to say...we know it, but we don't necessarily believe it is true. Perhaps we don't want to believe it is true. Because the truth is this...we are not all that different from Amos, which is to say that there is no person here this morning who cannot be used by God for God's purposes. God is not going to let any of us off the hook.
Perhaps our text says as much or more about God than about us. It would see that the primary way that God gets God's business done is through people. Presumably, God could work through thunderbolts, miracles, and weird occurrences, and indeed as we wander through the Bible we discover some of that. But not much really. Mostly we find people, ordinary people like Amos or Lupe who are called - perhaps commandeered by God - to participate in the work of God.
The list of those who are called is both long and odd. God manages to choose people to help whom we might at first judge to be ill equipped to do God's work. There are not a lot of impressive resumes among some of our greatest Biblical leaders. But then, God seems to judge a great many matters differently from the way we judge things.
What this means is that wherever we go, there goes the church of Jesus Christ. And whatever we do - making ax handles or selling real estate or even going shopping at the mall - can be used by God to advance God's kingdom in the world. As one author has said" "In you, Christianity is lost; in you, Christianity, is won."
And that is why we don't necessarily want to hear the words we've heard in countless sermons before today...the words we know, but don't want to know. God can and will use each and every one of us, but is this good news? Do I want to be a person used by God? After all, look at all the trouble Amos got himself into. Paul spent as much time in jail as out of jail. Jesus himself ended up on the cross.
Well, I'm not suggesting this morning that all of us need to go out and become martyrs for the faith. However in this secular age dominated by the market and media philosophy of taking care of me and my needs first, where satisfaction of my desires becomes a sacred right, just to be a person of faith, to dare to use words such as sacrifice and forgiveness, can make one sound like a dangerous radical. (I will explore this topic in future sermons).
Rather what I am saying is perhaps best illustrated in a little story I shared with you before. In a safari park in Kenya there used to be a sign which read: "Visitors who throw litter into the crocodile pit will be asked to retrieve it." When an attendant was asked if that was not a bit extreme, he replied, "Yes, but it does help people be more responsible in small matters."
That is the thrust of our text - be responsible in the small matters - because no person and no task is too small, too unimportant not to be used by God for something truly significant. In fact, judging from many stories of the Bible, God takes particular delight in calling the "little people" of this world to do big things for God's kingdom.
I suppose that when I was in seminary, I thought that my life as a minister would be mostly composed of thinking great thoughts and preaching great sermons before adoring throngs of parishioners...all right, maybe not adoring and maybe not throngs. But what I have discovered is that much of ministry is also about budgets and schedules and leaky roofs. But as I think back over my ministry, I begin to see that God was often present in some of those seemingly unimportant issues and encounters...as much as in any sermon I ever preached.
In the words of George Bernard Shaw: "This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one...the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."
God says to Amos, "I am going to do great things for my people and guess who is going to help me?" It is a word God speaks still.