11.9.25 – Sermon written and preached by Leigh Rachal @ FPC Abbeville, LA

Last week, we heard the story of Elijah,

the prophet who called down fire on Mount Carmel

and listened for God’s voice in the sound of sheer silence.

Through Elijah, we saw God’s power and presence

breaking through a time of idolatry and fear.

After Elijah, the prophetic mantle passed to Elisha,

whose ministry was marked not by fire and thunder,

but by compassion: healing the sick, feeding the hungry,

showing that God’s Spirit moves among the people in everyday life.

Now, generations later, we meet another prophet: Amos.

The people of Israel have grown prosperous and comfortable.

Their worship is full of songs and sacrifices,

but their society has grown unjust.

Amos is sent to remind them that true faith

is not measured in offerings or rituals,

but in righteousness that rolls down like a river

and justice that flows like an endless stream.

Let us listen for the Word of the Lord in the words of the prophet Amos.

(Amos 1:1-2; 5:14-15, 21-24)

Generations later, Jesus stands in the temple during a festival

and uses that same image Amos used: water,

to speak of God’s Spirit that flows through those who believe,

Let us listen now for the Word of the Lord from the Gospel according to John.

(John 7:37–38)

Sermon: Come to the Water

There’s a certain kind of tired that doesn’t go away with a nap.

The kind of tired that comes from watching the world and whispering,

“Surely this isn’t what God had in mind.”

Maybe that’s how Amos felt.

He wasn’t a prophet by trade.

He didn’t have a pulpit, a robe,

or a professional headshot on the synagogue website.

He was a shepherd (a man who smelled like sheep) and,

as he liked to remind people, a “dresser of sycamore trees.”

Which sounds fancy, doesn’t it?

Like a profession you’d find on a sign in a charming little village:

“Amos & Sons: Fine Dresser of Sycamore Trees Since 750 B.C.”

But it wasn’t glamorous work.

Sycamore figs were poor folks’ fruit,

and to “dress” them meant going tree by tree, fig by fig,
and poking each one with a knife so it could ripen properly.

Amos spent his days coaxing sweetness out of something rough.

And maybe that’s why God called him –

because he knew how to take something unripe

and make it ready.

Amos knew how to do slow, patient work.

He knew how to keep going when nothing changed overnight.

So God sends this fig-pricking, sheep-smelling man north to Israel,

a country that believed itself to be doing just fine, thank you very much.

Business is booming.
The markets are busy.
The temple choirs are on key.
If you’d asked them how things were going,
they would’ve smiled and said, “We’re blessed!”

Amos is preaching into a Lake Wobegon world,

where all the women are strong,
all the men are good-looking,
and all the children are above average.

Everything’s wonderful, at least on the surface.

Except, of course, for the people who aren’t doing so wonderful…..

And it’s those forgotten ones,

living just below the shine,

that God keeps noticing.

Amos looks around and sees the truth under the glitter.

He sees people selling the poor for the price of a pair of sandals.

He sees judges taking bribes,

priests protecting the powerful,

and worship that’s big on pomp and circumstance, but small on soul.

And if Amos walked through our world today,

he might see different versions of the same thing:

people working two jobs but still unable to make rent,

families skipping meals to keep the lights on,

whole neighborhoods thirsting for fairness

while those with plenty build higher fences.

It’s not that we don’t love God;

it’s that collectively, we’ve grown comfortable

singing about justice and mercy and love,

while the world around us aches for it.

So Amos stands up and preaches

what must have set the record for the world’s least popular sermon.

He tells the people of Israel that God hates - no, despises - their festivals and worship.

I mean…. This is the kind of sermon you preach

if you don’t want to be invited back.

The kind of sermon that empties the fellowship hall before the potluck.

So, as some of my siblings in Christ who preach in the Black church tradition might say before offering a hard truth: “Stay with me now…”

“I hate, I despise your festivals,” God says through Amos.

“Take away the noise of your songs…

But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

Sometimes we hear those words and translate them in our minds

So that “Justice” equals “punishment”

and “righteousness” equals “personal holiness”

After all, we have a “criminal justice system”

that mostly punishes those convicted of crimes.

And when someone is “acting righteous,”

we usually mean that they are acting in ways that seem “holier than thou.”

But when Amos says “justice,”

he’s speaking the language of covenant—

the kind of justice that flows from God’s own heart.

In scripture, justice isn’t an argument or a policy.

God’s Justice refers to the way God sets things right.

Justice is God lifting up the poor,

defending the orphan and the widow,

welcoming the stranger….

Justice is the promise of the Jubilee year,

when debts are forgiven and land is restored.

Justice is manna in the wilderness,

daily bread enough for everyone,

with nothing hoarded and nothing wasted.

When the prophets cry for justice,

they’re echoing God’s dream for creation:

that everyone would live in right relationship,

with God and with one another.

God’s justice isn’t enacted simply by going through the motions,

or checking the right boxes,

or even getting the right policies in place.

God’s justice is love made visible.

It’s the steady, everyday practice

of seeing our neighbors as God sees them….

of feeding the hungry,

freeing the oppressed,

lifting the fallen,

forgiving the debtor.

It’s the shape of love taking on flesh.

It’s the sound of God’s heart breaking open in the world.

That’s why justice and righteousness are always paired together.

Justice is what right relationship looks like in public,

and righteousness is what it looks like in our heart.

Justice is the outward current,

righteousness the inward spring.

Both flow from the same source: the mercy of God that never runs dry.

Because justice, at its core,

is love with our sleeves rolled up and work boots on.

It’s love that gets its hands dirty.

Love that shows up early and stays late.

Love that builds ramps and serves meals

and writes letters to those in power.

Love that keeps knocking on the door even when change is slow.

It’s the kind of love that doesn’t just feel sorry for the hurting

but joins them, listens to them, stands beside them.

That’s the kind of love God calls justice.

And righteousness is about being in right relationship

with God and with our neighbors.

Sometimes we call it “being faithful.”

But Amos’s call to righteousness

is about living out a faith that moves to the margins of society,

faith that walks where Jesus walked,

into places respectable religion often avoids.

Faith that looks into the eyes of the outcast and says,

“You belong to God too.”

It’s the kind of faith that refuses to stay comfortable

while anyone else is left outside the circle of grace.

That’s the kind of faith God calls righteous.

Centuries later, Jesus stands in that same city,

in the middle of another festival,
and he cries out:
“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me.
And out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.”

It’s as if he’s answering Amos,

as if he’s saying, Yes, that river of justice still flows.

And it begins right here, in me….

It begins in Christ.

And through the waters of baptism, it flows to us.

As a living current of grace, meant not to be contained,
but to spill over the edges of our lives
and bless the world around us.

So maybe the question isn’t “Where has justice gone?”

Maybe it’s “Where have we dammed up the stream?”

Where has fear or comfort or apathy

stopped the flow of God’s love from running freely through us?

The good news is, that Jesus doesn’t tell us that

we have to manufacture that river out of our own power.

He tells us to come and drink.

To draw close enough to the Source

that living water rises again within us

and overflows into acts of kindness, courage, and care.

Amos spoke to a people who thought their prosperity was proof of blessing.

Jesus speaks to a people still trying to quench a deeper thirst.

And both of them, the shepherd and the Savior,

invite us to live lives where mercy flows naturally,
where worship and justice are one river, not two.

Let justice roll down, Amos said.
Let mercy roll down….
Let peace roll down….
Let love roll down…

Because when God’s river flows freely,

everything dry begins to live again.

So let us come to the water.

Let us return to the Source of living water that never runs dry.

Let our hearts be renewed,

our spirits refreshed, and

our lives made whole again….

For the living water is still flowing,

and God is still calling,

to every heart that thirsts,

and to every soul that longs for justice and righteousness.

Let us come to the water,

and let the river of God’s grace, the living water of Christ

flow through us, together,

as we not only long for, but also work together for….

nothing short of the healing of the world.

This is Amos’s call and this is Christ’s invitation: Come to the Waters.

May our response always be, “Here I Am, Lord…. Send me.” Amen.