Call to Confession
God sent the prophet Amos to Israel
to warn the rich and powerful
that the natural consequence of their mistreatment of the vulnerable
would be destruction for all.
In many ways, the modern United States
is not unlike that ancient nation —
A land of plenty only for the powerful few,
while the oppressed go hungry and unheard.
So come, let us confess our failings
by hearing some of Amos’s words
as if they were proclaimed to us.
Prayer of Confession
“Alas for those who are at ease in Zion,
and for those who feel secure…
Alas for those who ignore the evil day
causing violent rule to draw near:
for those who lie on beds of ivory,
and lounge on their couches…”
(Amos 6:1, 3-4a)
“…They have been led astray by the same lies
after which their ancestors walked.”
(Amos 2:4)
We cannot bear to hear of the atrocities
inflicted past and present by our fellow Christians
against Indigenous peoples —
such news shatters our faith in the Church,
wracks us with grief and guilt
we don’t know what to do with.
We cannot bear to believe all the stories
of violence committed by police
against Black persons and other persons of color —
such stories shake our trust in our country,
leave us wondering where else we could go
when our own safety is threatened.
We cannot bear the knowledge that
our world is burning due to human greed —
don’t we need the gas that poisons our planet
to power our cars and homes?
God, when we think we cannot bear these truths,
give us the strength to face them —
for in avoiding them, we move towards our collective doom.
“I raised up some of your children to be prophets…
But you…command the prophets,
Saying, ‘You shall not prophesy!’”
(Amos 2:11-12)
“[You] hate the one who reprimands in the city gate,
abhor the one who speaks the truth.”
(Amos 5:10)
We cannot bear the messages of
people we have individually harmed,
or of communities whose oppression
is the price of our own prosperity
because they pierce through our illusions
about ourselves as “nice” people,
and expose the pretty lie of the American Dream
for the nightmare it is, accessible only to the privileged;
they make us feel bad and defensive,
and expose the poison festering beneath
our “respectable” facades.
God, when we think we cannot bear these truths,
urge us all the harder to face them.
Do not let us look away!
“They do not know how to do right, says the HOLY ONE…”
(3:10)
You alone, O God, can teach us how to do right.
Open our hearts. Help us lower our defenses.
We will face the harm we have done
so that we can move forward.
Assurance of Pardon
God declares, “Let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream!”
(Amos 5:24)
Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus,
such justice is possible!
God will make all things right,
and empowers us to join Them in that task.
I wrote this confession for a service centered around Amos chapter 7, which includes the metaphor of the plumbline, which God has used to measure Israel only to find its very foundation is completely skewed; the whole thing must be leveled and rebuilt.
Israel’s high priest Amaziah cries that “the land cannot bear [Amos’s] words,” and tells Amos to go on back home to Judah, because his prophecies are not welcome in Israel. But in reality, it isn’t the message that Israel “cannot bear,” but the avoidance of that message: because Amaziah rejects this message and the repentance and reform it necessitates, Israel will be invaded and driven into exile by the Neo-Assyrian Empire; by 722 BCE, the Northern Kingdom of Israel will have fallen, leaving her sister nation Judah standing alone.
There are so many truths that we likewise avoid because we believe that we and our communities cannot bear the guilt, grief, and upheaval those truths would bring. But to fail to face those realities and respond with active reform spells doom for us all.
As James Baldwin writes in The Fire Next Time, “Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
What realities are the members of your faith community avoiding? How can the community come together to face them together?
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In the case of how white Christians can and must face our complicity in antiblack racism, I recommend Good White Racist? by Kerry Connelly as a good starting point. Connelly goes into the neuroscience behind why we react to our words or actions being called out as if such a thing were a life-threatening attack; how we value being “nice” and not making others uncomfortable to seeking justice; and how to move past that hardwiring.
Binary-Breaking Worship 