This week, we wrap up the Practicing Faith sermon series on the five baptismal covenants by exploring God’s call for Jesus’ followers to “Strive for justice and peace in all the earth.” This is the fifth and final week of the series; here are parts one, two, three, and four.
This week’s Scripture readings are Amos 5:18-24, Psalm 146, 1 John 4:16b-21, and Matthew 28:16-20. I found John Herman’s book, Called to Follow(Amazon affiliate link), helpful for this entire series.
No sermon podcast this week, but here’s the livestream from Christ the King.
Grace to you and peace from the One who was, who is, and who is to come, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
The first lines of today’s reading from the prophet Amos are not the easiest section of the Bible to hear in church, especially verses 21 and 22. Here we are, assembled together for a worship service, and we hear God saying, “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.”
We aren’t offering burnt sacrifices, so that part’s fine, but then, “Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps.” (That probably includes pianos and organs and guitars.)
We have gathered here today to sing praises to God, and apparently God doesn’t want to hear it. Kind of an awkward reading.
It’s not like we just came up with this idea of coming together to worship and sing. Psalm 146 says over and over, praise the Lord! I will sing praises to my God all my life long.
Psalm 22 says God is enthroned on the praises of God’s people. Worship and music are good! This is what we’re supposed to be doing!
But it’s not all we’re supposed to be doing, and of course, that’s Amos’ point. Worship that does not contribute to justice is hollow. It is hypocritical in the worst way to praise God for the work God is doing for us while ignoring God’s call to participate in God’s work.
Psalm 146 lays out some of what God does. The Lord executes justice for the oppressed, gives food for the hungry, sets the prisoners free, opens the eyes of the blind, lifts up those who are bowed down, loves the righteous, watches over the strangers, upholds the orphan and the widow, and opposes the ways of the wicked.
God is at work for justice, and Amos wants to make sure we know we are supposed to participate in what God is doing. Let justice follow down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Over these last few weeks, we’ve been talking about practicing faith, using these five parts of the baptismal covenant. Do you have them memorized yet?
Live among God’s faithful people, hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s supper, proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, serve all people, following the example of Jesus, and today’s final line: Strive for justice and peace in all the earth.
Live, hear, proclaim, serve, and strive. If you didn’t get a magnet last week, make sure you take one today, or take another one—we have plenty.
These are simple statements summarizing how we live as God’s people. It’s all based in the promise of baptism, because in the waters of baptism, God claims us as God’s own beloved children.
We are made a new creation through God’s living word by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are given a new identity as part of Christ’s body.
Everything we do is in response to what God has first done for us. God’s love always comes first. God claims you in baptism not because you do the work and come to get baptized, not because you decide to be a better person, not because we deserve God’s love, but because God loves you.
God chooses to claim us, chooses to wash us clean, chooses to forgive us of all we have done wrong, chooses to name us beloved.
In baptism, our old, sinful nature is drowned and left for dead. And then we are raised up out of the water to new life. We are marked with the cross of Christ, labeled forever as God’s own people. The cross is the symbol of Jesus’ death and resurrection, the proof of God’s love, the proof that death no longer has a claim on us.
The power of sin is destroyed. God’s grace and love are enough to cover all of our sins, all of our failings. Even when we run away from God, God pursues us. God loves you and wants to spend eternity with you. Your eternal future is secure, because of Jesus’ death on the cross for you. Period. That’s the good news. That’s the end of the story.
Except, we’re not to the end of story yet. We know how it ends, but we’re not to heaven yet—God’s kingdom is breaking in, your eternal life has begun, but we’re still living in this world. And this world is not ok.
Baptism is a calling, a commissioning. Everyone in Christ’s body is claimed, gathered, and sent for the sake of the world. In baptism, we are given a purpose, new meaning for life.
Listen again to 1 John: “We love because he first loved us.” We always start there. God’s love comes first. And we respond to God’s love by loving God in return. “Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”
In worship, we gather to give thanks to God. But if the only way we give thanks is through a few songs and prayers on Sunday morning, we are missing the point.
Baptism is the foundation for how we live every day, not just on Sunday mornings. Jesus calls us to discipleship. We are claimed, forgiven, washed clean…and then sent out into the world to be God’s hands and feet.
We are sent to work for justice, to love God by loving our neighbors. I love that the language in the hymnal is to strive, because it’s an ongoing task, and it’s hard work.
Sometimes we see justice happening. Sometimes we get to see glimpses of God’s kingdom being built around us, worship leading to action.
Weekly prayer meetings for peace in the 1980’s at St. Nikolai Evangelical Lutheran Church in Leipzig led to mass demonstrations that eventually brought down the Berlin Wall.
The Lutheran World Federation runs the Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem, which is the only hospital in the Palestinian territories for cancer patients to receive radiation therapy, and the only medical facility in the West Bank offering pediatric kidney dialysis. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down.
Martin Luther King Jr. in his preaching and speaking often quoted this passage from Amos about justice rolling down like waters, including in his I Have a Dream speech.
I think it’s clear justice has progressed since King’s time. Segregation once enforced by governments in this country is now illegal, thanks to the hard work of so many in the civil rights movement. And yet, racism is still a reality in this country. We continue to strive for justice in areas of civil rights and so much more.
I spent a few days this week at our Greater Milwaukee Synod’s leadership conference, and I’m grateful for the ongoing work our church is doing to pursue justice and peace. We have an anti-racism team in our synod, and if you’re interested in getting involved in that work, there’s a training coming up in a few weeks I can let you know about.
We’ve heard quite a bit about the big Outreach for Hope fundraiser last Saturday, and I’m happy to tell you this year set another record for participation this year, with around 650 people showing up to walk, run, or bike, raising over 107 thousand dollars.
That money goes to support ministries like the Breaking the Chains church, an ELCA worshipping community located inside the Felmers Chaney Correction Center in Milwaukee. It supports the ELCA welcome center in Kenosha, which includes a lunch program, a free clothing closet, infant supplies, GED classes, legal advice, and Bible studies; and the Lutheran Church of the Great Spirit, a small Milwaukee congregation rooted in Native American traditions to which the synod and churchwide just committed to fund a full-time pastor for three years, serving a population among the most-discriminated against in our country.
Those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also, and there is plenty of work to do.
In our Gospel reading from Matthew, we hear the final instructions Jesus gives his followers—both the eleven disciples standing there with him and us today.
He says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”
As God’s people, we are commissioned to proclaim the good news of God’s salvation, the good news of what Jesus has done for us, the good news that we are forgiven and set free.
We are sent out to invite others all over the world, in every nation, to join in the work God is doing, the work of striving for justice and peace in all the earth.
And then Jesus makes the key promise. This is the reason all of this is not overwhelming, even when we don’t see the results, when we are overwhelmed by reports of yet more violence in the Gaza Strip, when ideologies we thought were defeated seem to be rising again.
Jesus says, “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” We are not left alone. The Holy Spirit, God’s presence, is with us. No matter what happens, no matter how bad things get, no matter how far away justice and peace sometimes seem, we are not alone.
Even in those times when we as Christians fail to live out our baptismal commitments, Jesus is here offering grace and forgiveness, calling us again to discipleship. God is still at work. God’s kingdom is coming.
And as long as God is still at work, as long as we are still alive and breathing in this world, we will continue striving.
We will continue loving first, like Jesus. We will continue assembling for worship as God’s people, gathering to be reminded who and whose we are, and to be commissioned and sent out to keep striving.
May you know God’s presence with you today and always. Amen