Amos 5:18-24 (NRSV)
18Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord!
Why do you want the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, not light;
19 as if someone fled from a lion,
and was met by a bear;
or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall,
and was bitten by a snake.
20Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light,
and gloom with no brightness in it?
21I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
22Even though you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain-offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
23Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
24But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
A Message to the Church
To the church who is crying out in the wilderness, “Oh where are the young?”
To a church that creates self worth around the amount of grey hair in the pew.
To a church that says young people are of value
and yet do not empower the disenfranchised voices of the world.
You beg God that your institution,
the one to which have dedicated your life,
may not die.
You beg for a new generation to see the beauty and love of God.
I pray that you recognize what this next generation begs for:
The new generation is avoiding your pews not because they are too hard,
but because their form has not been challenged.
The words from your pulpit have instead made the pews soft,
made the people comfortable,
and made our God tame.
Our God, Our Jesus, Our Spirit are not docile. They are ALIVE and they are FREE.
Young people want to live,
they want to engage in the dialectic of the divine.
The dialogue of how to change the world in which we live,
to create a kingdom of God.
They want what YOU WANT
To live with the image of a new world
To experience a world that creates opportunity for ALL GOD’s PEOPLE
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