Sep 03 | Resistance Lectionary Part 10: Those Sneaky Idols

Citation: Amos 5:21-24

Two weeks after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, a Pennsylvania church affiliated with Sun Myung-moon’s Unification Church held a gun-blessing ceremony. The article went viral nearly immediately. The rage expressed at this wanton idolatry was palpable among devout believers and nonbelievers alike.

The writer of Amos likely didn’t imagine something like this when writing today’s passage, but he did know plenty about blasphemous and hypocritical festivals.

What could it possibly mean to worship a God of justice in a golden palace while people outside are homeless? What could it mean to heap up mountains of animals in sacrifice when people are starving? What kind of God demands tithes so that preachers may fly in private jets, or gathers money to fund racist “missions” trips or psychologically torturous “conversion therapy”?

No kind of God at all.

Of course, lest we feel superior, we must remember that such hypocrisy is not always so dramatic. The Message, Eugene Peterson’s intriguing contemporary paraphrase of the Bible, renders this passage as such:

“I can’t stand your religious meetings.
I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions.
I want nothing to do with your religion projects,
your pretentious slogans and goals.
I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes,
your public relations and image making.
I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.
When was the last time you sang to me?
Do you know what I want?
I want justice—oceans of it.
I want fairness—rivers of it.
That’s what I want. That’s all I want.”

Anything, even religion itself, can become an idol.

Let our prayers be for the grace to desire above all things God, and God’s justice, flowing down like a waterfall onto the earth.