Going Through The Motions

 “Going Through the Motions”

 Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church – Sunday, Jan 20, 2019

Text: Amos 4:1-5, 8:1-6, 5:21-24 // Series: Back to the Start: AMOS

Good morning.  Welcome here.  My name is Brad Sumner, I’m part of the teaching and leadership team here at Jericho Ridge and it is our privilege and pleasure to have you here with us here at Jericho.  I want to invite you to come back in & take your seats as we continue with our teaching time. 

As you are taking your seats I want to ask “have you ever arrived somewhere and then realized that you cannot remember the journey of getting there?”  Let me explain what I mean.  This past December, we moved our offices over above the hockey rink on Mufford Cres to this space. But I had been driving to that old office space for 8 years.  So one morning, I got up, ready for work, headed out the door and my next conseciious memory was sitting in the parking lot at Mufford Cres.  As I went to get out of the car, I caught myself and thought “hold on a minute… I don’t’ have keys to this building anymore!”  But on top of that, I had no conscious memory of that drive that morning.  My mind was engaged in thinking about something else and so I went onto auto-pilot and then next thing I remember, I was several kms down the road at the wrong address! 

Neurologists and biologists have an explanation for this: it’s called our autonomic nervous system.  This is the amazing part of our bodies that regulates all kinds of stuff that we don’t ever need to think consciously about.  For example, breathing.  It’s happening. Your body is doing it right now. But you don’t have to take up space in your consciousness thinking to yourself: OK, breathe. And again. And again.  You autonomic nervous system makes sure it is happening.  You heart is beating. But what process is regulating that? It’s your autonomic nervous system. 

There are literally thousands of things happening in your body right now that you and I are not consciously aware of and they are all being controlled by your autonomic nervous system.  It’s like the auto pilot of your body and it is very helpful because it allows you to focus on what I am saying instead of remembering to breathe to telling your heart to beat every couple of seconds (although now that I’ve mentioned it).  It can also control very complex, real time interactions with the world. For example, my driving to the wrong office that morning.  Because I had done that action hundreds and hundreds of times, my autonomic nervous system just opened a file that said “office” and controlled a very complex series of actions involving a motor vehicle. But I was not consciously engaged in making them happen.  Essentially, I was on autopilot!      

Here’s what I want us to talk about today: I want to suggest that there is a spiritual version of your autonomic nervous system.  A kind of spiritual autopilot that can kick in if you’ve been at this for a while and you can end going doing all kinds of religious activities without consciously and thoughtfully engaging your soul.  When this happens, you[‘re on Spiritual Autopilot.  But here’s the danger of that: that Going through the motion of religious acts means nothing if the rest of your life isn’t in obedience to God.  I’ll explain what I mean and we’ll explore examples. 

In the month of January, we have been going through one of the short books tucked away at the back of the Old Testament: the book of Amos.  Amos was a shepherd and fig farmer whom God called to speak prophetically to the nations and also to the people of Israel and Judah. And his message was essentially that they had lost their way and that they needed to find their way back to the start again.  They needed to learn to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God.  Amos brought a message of justice. But the way in which he brought it was through a series of sermons, poems and visions that we then written down so that we can also benefit from them. Because Amos has some very potent things to say to us in our day and time if we are willing to listen.

As we move into the second half of the book, we see that God speaks to Amos is a series of pictures or images.  And this morning, we are going to look at 3 pictures of images that God gives Amos that help us explore this dangerous phenomenon of religious autopilot.  Amos wants to help us know if we are just going through the motions or if we are engaged with God and others in a genuine and healthy ways.  Turn with me in your Bible or on your device to Amos 4 and we’ll look at the first of the three images. 

It’s an unusual image, and to me, it is one of the most comedic and perhaps offensive images used in the book.  Picture 1: The Fat Cows    

I’ll be reading from the New Living Translation and the words will be up on the screen.  Amos 4:1-5 [two slides].  You may have been told that it is rude to speak about a woman’s weight.  Amos apparently didn’t get that message!  He launches straight in and says to the upper echelons of social and financial privilege in his day and time: Ladies, you are fat cows.  These women are like those real housewives shows.  (At least how I imagine those shows are!)  These women are calling “honey, bring us  another glass of pinot grigio!” But they are active participants in the economic system that oppresses people who are poor. They are crushing the needy and the marginalized in their society. BUT at the very same time, they are doing all of the right religious activities as set out in the laws of Moses.  They are going through the motions but missing the point. 

God says through Amos “I cannot be bought by your religious rituals”.  You are going through the motions of being an excellent religious person. You are checking all the boxes. But I am about to render my just judgement and ladies, it is not going to look pretty.  It will be like a fat cow being led with a hook in its nose straight to the butcher.

Here’s what intrigues me most about this picture.  From the outside looking in, These women were doing impressive good works

• Daily Morning Sacrifices
• Tithes every three days
• Thanksgiving offerings
• Extra voluntary Offerings

That’s a LOT of religious activity!  But they are trying in essence to pacify their conscience with the currency of good works.  Maybe if I give enough money away to religious causes, I can convince myself and others that I am a good person.  But God is not deceived.  God is not mocked and God certainly cannot be bought off.  The core problem wasn’t that people were not religious. It was that at the very same time these ladies are lounging and putting their tithes and offerings in, they are engaged in ruthlessly and selfishly The Problem: Oppressing people who are poor.  They are not using their influence or finances to ensure that justice is done, they are instead putting just enough into the offering so that their conscience doesn’t bother them anymore.  They are going through the motions but their hearts are not anywhere near engaged in the process. 

Here’s how we know that: When they make an extra voluntary offering, they are quick to whip out their cell phone and take a hashtag #offeringbagselfie so that everyone in their social media feeds knows what a good person they are.  It’s using good works as image management   

Also a bad idea: Bragging about your good deeds.  This is hard work because all of us want to be seen as nice, good people.  We aren’t intending when we take those pictures on our missions trips to brag about what an awesome, compassionate person we are (or are we?).  Jesus teaches in Matthew 6:3 that if you struggle with image management, there is profound wisdom when you are giving or serving to not even let your own right hand know what your left hand is doing.  For those of us who like public accolades, the disciplines of humility and doing things in secrecy can be profoundly helpful.  Do something good this week and don’t tell a single soul about it.  Buy a meal for a person who is homeless and don’t let anyone know. Empty the dishwasher and don’t make a big deal about it. E-mail or call someone who is lonely not because you want to impress God or others with how awesome you are, but simply because it is an expression of God’s wonderful and generous and lavish love for another.   

Here’s why this can be helpful.  God isn’t ultimately concerned with the activities you did in Jesus’ name… God is ultimately concerned with your heart connection with the Spirit of God.    The “currency” of the Kingdom of God is measured in relationship NOT ritual

It’s not about how much money you gave to the capital campaign, it’s about the heart attitude in which you gave it.  That’s what theses fat cows were missing.  They wanted to fund their way into a right relationship with God. You can’t get there driving on roads of empty ritual and public optics. 

So let me ask you today  (?) Are there any ways (subtle or overt)     that I am trying to earn God’s favour by the performance of good deeds?   

This can come up in very subtle ways: we can fall into the trap of thinking “if I read my Bible more, God will love me more” or “if I go on that mission trip, that might cancel out the volume of gossiping I have done this year”. Let me assure you that God is so much more interested in your heart and in a vitalized relationship with you than God is interested in your money.  Don’t try to earn your way into relationship with God.  Some of you are hearing this with new ears and you need to act on this today. You need to confess this to God and you need to acknowledge that God has provided a way for you to have a right and powerful relationship with God through Jesus.  Today might be your day to turn your back on this kind of thinking. If that’s you, we’d love to pray with you and start walking down this new road of grace with Jesus.  During our worship response time, come pray with myself or with Wally and Sylvia Nickel.  

Let’s flip the page over to Amos 8 and we’re going to look briefly at the second image: A ripe basket of fruit.  I’m going to read Amos 8:1-2 and then when I get to verse 4-6 the words will come up on the screen. 

[Amos 8:4-6 – one slide]

Here again, the absolute blatant incongruity between what is happening in the religious content and in the everyday life is highlighted for us.  Amos says “you can’t wait for the Sabbath day or religious festival to be over so you can get back to cheating the helpless”.  These are the people who on Sundays have their hands raised passionately in worship and who are crying out to God “Jesus, I am willing to do anything for you”. “Alright”, says Jesus, “I want you to re-order the economics of your life so that you spend less money on yourself so that you can give more away to help others”.  No thanks, Lord, Let’s talk about something else”  and they keep singing “Lord, you have my heart, I will search for yours” “OK,” says God. I’m so glad you want to discover my heart.  I have a person in your neighbourhood who is lonely and who needs you to invite them over for dinner”. We respond “Thank you so much, Jesus, But as you know, I’m an introvert. I don’t have any margin for new relationships.”

What’s happening here in this passage is a very real danger that can happen to any of us.  We can begin to compartmentalize our lives so neatly and tidily that we have what amounts to a “God box” compartment in our lives.  We take God out of the box on Sundays and at small group. Maybe occasionally when we listen to Praise106.5 or when we read the Bible or pray.  But the instant that religious activity is over, we close the box up and put God back on the shelf and we carry on with what we really wanted to do. 

But here’s the thing that the people in Amos’ day were missing and that we sometimes miss as well.  It’s not just what happens on Sunday mornings that is important to the Almighty: 2. Mondays-Saturdays Matter to God

These people were dutiful in their observance of the day of rest and participated in all the high and holy festivals of the religious calendar like Missions Fest – but then as soon as those were over, they rushed out and went right back to living however they wanted to live.  As soon as they drove off the church parking lot or the Christian school campus, they closed the God box and forgot about it.  Think about it this way…  

You spend 90 min in corporate worship a week…  What do you do with the other 9,990 minutes?  Are you really so daft as to think that God only pays attention when you start doing something religious and when you are doing all of the other ordinary parts of your life that God doesn’t care?!  That’s ridiculous!  How you treat your colleagues or siblings matters. How your spend your time and what you click to on your screen matters.  What you do Mondays – Saturdays matters to God and to us.  That’s why our core purpose statement as a church is phrased the way that it is: under the tab on our website “why we exist” it does not say “to provide a cluster of religious actives and services for me and my family”. What we understand our mission to be is that we exist to "CULTIVATING DISCIPLES OF JESUS WHO EMBODY GOD'S LOVE EVERYWHERE WE GO"  In other words, Jericho Ridge exists to help partner with God in God’s deepening developmental work in your life so that you can more deeply reflect and declare God EVERYWHERE you go this week.” 

You might say then “well, what part does Sundays play in that?”  I can do that deepening with Jesus thing on my own, right? I don’t think I need to come to corporate worship.  I can get better preaching that Pastor Brad online (which is true), I can listen to Hillsongs or Bethel Music do the same songs with much better smoke & lights than Ron can do it (which is true).  So what is the point of a corporate, public worship gathering on a Sunday? 

I love the way that pastor and Latina theologian Sandra Maria Van Opstal expresses this in her book “The Next Worship”. She talks about how hard it is to do or work well out in the world. Working for justice and watching the news nightly and getting discouraged that things seem to be getting worse instead of better.  Working hard to advocate for advocate for justice to be done in our schools only to have an administrator or concerned parent misunderstand and cause havoc in our lives.  Partnering to see God’s Kingdom come and God’s will be done here on earth as it is done in heaven is hard and discouraging work.  And so we need each other. We need encouragement to keep going. We need to have our faith stretched and challenged.  And so the practice of gathering on Sundays forms that reciprocal relationship between what we do Mon– Sat. Sandra says it this way: “Our corporate worship must fuel our actions in the world and our actions in the world are sustained in & by our worship”

The people in Amos’ saw corporate worship as an inconvenient interruption to their lives and they couldn’t; wait for it to be over so that they could rush back out and engage in the really important stuff they were doing in the world (which happened to be unjust). How do you and I see it?

What do you DO outside of Sundays with what you hear on Sundays?

Some of us have a very tidy “God box”.  We take God out on Sundays at around 10:30 AM and we put God back into that box on Sundays at Noon.  But what about the other 9,990 minutes of this week coming up?  God cares deeply about what goes on in every part of your life, not just an artificially contained “religious” part.  In the New Testament book of James, the author is speaking about the connection between what we believe and what we do.  And he talks about true religion (not the brand of jeans but what does a vibrant Monday to Saturday faith look like).     

“Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.” (James 1:27)  In other words, religion, in order for it to qualify as genuine, has to go beyond any Sunday rituals and touch how I treat people who are in need and how I think about economics and how I think about the world and what is wise & beneficial & healthy to engage in.   

I love the way musician David Crowder says it. “If what you’re singing doesn’t change what you do, what’s the point of singing? There’s a phrase that’s like, “What good are love songs if they don’t make me a better lover?” Kind of the same deal: the way we sing should change the way we think.” - David Crowder (Relevant Magazine)  Are you letting God use this church and the things you read and the people around you to change you and shape you into a person who loves others more?

Let’s look at that third image that Amos brings up in chapter 5.  It’s a powerful image of a mighty endless river of Justice flowing on and on. 

I’m reading in Amos 5:21-24. Listen to God’s commentary on the worship gatherings and the religious activities of the people:

Does that last verse sound familiar to you at all? If you are a student of recent history, it should.  Tomorrow in the US is Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  A day set aside to celebrate the life and accomplishments of one of the champions of the civil rights movement in the US and to carry on his work.  And as a pastor, Dr. King was intimately familiar with his Bible. This was one of the verses that was most near and dear to his heart.  He preached in every opportunity he had, including from the most unlikely pulpits. 

In April of 1963, King and others had organized a series of marches. Peaceful demonstrations against the unjust segregation of people based on the colour of their skin. But a white judge issued a blanket injunction against demonstrations of any kind and so on Good Friday, with people dressed to go to worship, King and others were arrested for a peaceful protest and he was thrown into the city jail in Birmingham.  Conditions were not good and King was not treated well.  On April 12, an ally smuggled in a newspaper which contained an open letter by 8 white clergymen denouncing King and his methods.  The article incensed King and he began to write on the margins of that newspaper what eventually became known as his letter from Birmingham Jail.  In it, King asks “Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. … The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?”

What Amos was putting his finger and what King was also highlighting was that the religious people of their day cared more about optics than justice.  They cared more about how they looked to others than risking something for the cause of mercy and righteousness and love in the world.  Instead, they practiced a very safe and sedate for of religious piety.  We are going to gather and sing and few songs and take up an offering and have a nice man tell us how nice we all are and we will go home and feel good about ourselves”.  And God says “I HATE IT!”  Hypocrisy. Pageantry. Pretense… all of it!  I will not even listen to it.  (You know it’s bad when God says “I will not be attending your church gathering because I hate the music!”)

Here’s the point: 3. God Cares about Your HEART, NOT About How You LOOK.  You see, you can dress up and play the part of a church-goer really well.  It’s honestly not that hard!  You can go through all of the activities and actions that make you look like a “good Christian person”. But it can all be pageantry and pretense. Your heart can be filled with all kinds of evil but you can cover it up with kakis and a golf shirt.

How do I know this? Because I can recall whole periods of my life when this was true of me.  In high school, I went to a Christian school. I was on a global mission team ever year. I was leading worship teams. I was a cabin leader at summer camp.  I was going to Promise keepers conferences. I was involved in an accountability group.  I was highly involved in my church.  I looked like the model Christian teenager.  But all the while, I was inappropriately involved physically with my girlfriend d.  I had secret addictions that I was hiding from everyone.  I was living a full-on double life.  But man did I look good for my Christian friends and family!  I was so focused on keeping up appearances but I was dying on the inside.         

This is why I find it fascinating that Jesus’ strongest critiques were reserved for those who focused on appearance.  Matthew 23

• “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. 28 Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.” (Jesus in Matthew 23:27-28)

Hypocrisy is when the image doesn’t match the reality.  And religious people can get very, very good at playing that game.  But Jesus says “this is like a graveyard” You can manicure the lawns really nicely.  You can paint the tombstones all the same colour of white and it can look architecturally almost beautiful. But let’s not let the paint job distract us from what’s really going on in there.  It’s a place for dead bodies. All kinds of really yucky stuff is rotting away inside.  Friends, don’t make the same mistake I did.  As Ron and the team come and lead us in two songs of respond to God, you may need to take some time to reflect and ask   

Am I more concerned with what God thinks or what other people think about me?  

• Repent of any known areas of hypocrisy (anything done for show or pretense) Tell God (God knows anyway)
• Resist going through the motions as a way of trying to fit in

We are about authentic community here are Jericho. We don’t need or want you to pretend and God doesn’t either. Let’s pray together.