Creek stomping in the river of justice and righteousness

A sermon for Bethel Lutheran Church, Parkersburg, IA

 Amos 5:18-24

The scripture readings for today are like a river in and of themselves—to follow that river I think it’s best to start at the confluence and to wind our way back upstream, which means I’m going to begin with the Gospel of Matthew and the reading from Thessalonians—both of which are about Jesus Christ coming along to reconcile and redeem a broken world. This is the central hope and belief of the Christian faith—that what Christ did on the cross, dying for all of us, will be work that is completed when the world has ended and when our lives here are over. “Keep awake!” says Jesus in the Gospel reading—for you do not know when Christ is coming.

            However, there is one thing about Jesus telling us to stay awake that can be misconstrued. The goal of life on earth is not to escape life on earth. It is to be awake; it is to see Christ when Christ appears before you. And Christ will come when all of this is over—for most of us, most likely, that will be when we die. And that day could be years from now or today. But Christ also comes to us in the form of others who enter our lives—others who do not know they are being Christ—and all of us can see Christ in those encounters if we are awake to it. Christ comes in a child who wants you to read a bedtime story. Christ comes as a beggar, or a prisoner, or a reject. The incarnation of Christ means that Christ has entered into all humanity, and as Victor Hugo said, “To love another person is to see the face of God.”

            So, it is well worth venturing further upstream in these readings back to Amos to discover what it means to act as a follower of God who is awake. Wonderfully, for the purposes of my river metaphor, Amos quotes God using the image of a river to talk about what it means to be human beings who are attempting to be faithful followers of Christ. “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

But that is not where Amos begins. No, we have to go even further upstream to find something perhaps a bit surprising. Amos quotes God as saying, “I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.”

            If that doesn’t concern you a little bit, then I don’t know what kind of church you have going on here, because most of what we do as a Christian church is either a festival—a celebration—or a solemn assembly. This is one of those readings where we are effectively saying, “This worship thing on its own is no good!” and then the lector says “The Word of the Lord,” and we respond “Thanks be to God!” as if we are thanking God for telling us we are doing this all wrong.

So, what’s going on here? Does God not want us to worship? Because you know, I’m feeling a bit of responsibility in this moment. The question, I think, is what does God want of us?

And Amos provides an answer: Justice and righteousness. 

But—and this is a BIG BUT—justice rolls down like water, and righteousness flows like an unending stream. It is passive. It is like a river flowing over us. It is not something we create, but something we participate in. We dip our toes in the river—perhaps we even submerge ourselves in the river—we cannot control God’s justice and righteousness. We do not create justice—justice flows from God. We do not make ourselves righteous—not through observance of the law, not by coming to church and partaking in these festivals or solemn assemblies. No, righteousness flows from God. It is God’s work in us.

So, I’ve said a lot without saying anything about camp, but the truth is I’ve been talking about camp all along. I have the immense privilege of seeing streams of justice and rivers of righteousness sweeping through camp every single day every single summer. I see it with campers and young adult counselors at Ewalu. I see kids who experience that river and feel the pull toward being part of something magical—something amazing, a grace almost too powerful to name. Justice that flows from God in to a thirsty world that is desperate for justice.

Our summer camp parent survey results show that only about half of these kids regularly attend church. Even those that do have varying degrees of comfortability with worship. They often do not know what to do, how to do it, or for what reason we do anything as church. I certainly didn’t understand as a child—I barely did after seminary! Some of these campers have never been to a church.

At camp, they discover that there is a river they never knew existed, one that they get to dip their toes in and perhaps creek stomp about, but it is not the Maquoketa River. Well, they do that, too. That’s the kind of creek stomping they’ll tell you about on the ride home from camp. But there is another kind of river that is far more impactful, and this river flows by the grace of God through generations of folks like you, who have been the church, so that a child can know that there is justice that will make right whatever is wrong in their lives, and there is righteousness that comes to them as a gift from God, who created them, loves them, and redeems them.

Too often, we have talked about camp as something that happens out there at Ewalu, where we have used the tag line “a place apart” for as long as we have been a camp, but the truth is that everything done at camp is an integral part of the church—not just a ministry you financially support, but an evangelism tool of your congregation. We are connecting kids with Christ every single day of every single summer. We are doing this work together, and we can’t do it alone. 

There are some distinctions between camp and church. Camp has some qualities that allow us to do things that may be a challenge for your congregation, so use us! See us as your partner who is able to move a bit more nimbly, who is free to take a few more chances, because our nimbleness allows us to engage with young people more deeply, who come to us with far more questions than answers, sometimes in need of far more love than we would ever hope, often needing a safe space to experience the river for the first time. Sure, camp can be the lightning rod for all the issues of the day, but we are also able to slough off the polarizing ways of our world and focus on the heart of Gospel—the promise of redemption through Jesus Christ—because young people and old people alike mostly just want to be known and loved, and boy, can we do that!

So, we do our best to stay awake. Awake to Christ who comes to us more often than we realize. Awake to the river of justice and righteousness flowing from the God who created and redeems us. Awake, because life is full of adventure and that is a wonderful thing to embrace, keeping our eyes on the grace that carries us when we cannot.

I want to close with a story from last week. I was at the Lutheran Outdoor Ministries national convention in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and one of the keynotes was Jenny Sung, a pastor from St. Paul, who talked about her first time at camp, backpacking in the Colorado mountains as a city girl who had never experienced a night in a tent, let alone digging holes to use the wilderness restroom. Jenny talked about the challenges of being out of her comfort zone, and yet, how God met her through that experience and nudged her into a path that led her to ministry. I think so many of us have a story like this—where entering into a place of discomfort leads to immeasurable joy. For those of you who are parents, I suspect that was one of those moments. Uncomfortable and challenging as they are, children give us meaning and purpose. And I suspect those children need the same freedom to adventure into uncertainty to discover who they are and whose they are.

We all do. So, stay awake, says Jesus. You don’t know the hour. But I have to point out that the best way to stay awake is not to sit still but to move toward one another, discovering Christ in one another, and finding ourselves—perhaps out under the open skies.

Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Oh, we do. And we will. And I thank God for you, who are partners in that effort. May you experience that river of justice and righteousness—today and every day.