Dear Friends
I have found this week’s email very hard to write. I sat down yesterday evening and the muse just did not come, so I’m trying again tonight! One reason is, I think, that everything is so much up in the air, that it is difficult to know what direction I should be facing in. I don’t know if this rings bells for you? A general feeling of being unsettled. A sense of resignation that life is curtailed once again. If so, I’m not sure I can offer very many pearls of wisdom yet, but maybe we can do a bit of exploring together!
Amos 5: 23, 24
23Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
24But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Amos was a foreigner in Northern Israel, coming from the South, around Jerusalem after the North and the South of Israel had divided. Therefore he saw things a little bit from the outside; he was clearer when society was not just. He came to the north in a time of relative prosperity and he had a lot to say about the unjustness of society in Israel at the time. In chapter 6 he says, ‘Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the stall; who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, …’.
He was not interested in worship that was not genuine. ‘Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps’, and called for a more thinking society where he could see justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.’ He is suggesting that because it is the same people who are worshipping God with songs and harps as the ones who are treating their neighbours unjustly, that you may as well not bother with the worship because it is not genuine and heartfelt.
We are in a very different but parallel situation in Britain in 2020. Our worship in the church building is about to stop again and the songs and the harps will stay silent for at least a month. Speaking as the person who coordinates and leads the worship, I hope it is genuine! But it is true that we live in a very unjust world where the rich grow ever richer and the poor ever more desperate. I see in myself, that one of the reasons I like worshipping in church is that it is a return to what was familiar before the days of Covid. A harking back to how life was. A stable presence in the middle of a confusing world. When it is removed I am forced once again to confront the ever increasing inequalities in society, both nationally and internationally. Perhaps during this second period of lockdown we will do well to wrestle with these inequalities anew and ponder how we can work at reducing them? That will give it all meaning.
A prayer
We cannot merely pray to you, O God, to end war;
For we know that You have made the world in a way that people must find their own path to peace within themselves and with their neighbours.
We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end starvation;
For You have already given us the resources with which to feed the entire world, if we would only use them wisely.
We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to root out prejudice;
For You have already given us eyes with which to see the good in all people, if we would only use them rightly.
We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end despair;
For You have already given us the power to clear away slums and to give hope, if we would only use our power justly.
We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end disease;
For You have already given us great minds with which to search out cures and healing, if we would only use them constructively.
Therefore we pray to You instead, O God, for strength, determination and will power,
To do instead of just pray,
To become instead of merely to wish.
Here is a choral piece by David Briggs based on a prayer you may know, ‘O lord support us’ which I hope you enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0mubkYli8M
Every blessing
Andrew
