Priorities (Amos 8)

 As many of you know, I spent most of this past week co-directing church camp at Loch Leven, the camp and retreat center owned and operated by Bixby Knolls Christian Church and the other 100+ congregations of the Pacific Southwest Region.

The campers were young: first, second, and third grade. I’ve never been to camp with campers this young! 

Fortunately I had some amazing people to work with. My co-director, Cathy Perring, is an experienced Worship and Wonder facilitator, which made our morning keynote times meaningful for the campers and even for the counselors. 

Susan Gonzales Dewey, our former regional co-minister, was our camp chaplain; and our counselors included her husband and our other former regional co-minister, Don Dewey. 

T.J. Hillig also brought his unique and growing set of skills and talents to our staff, as did others - some of whom I had known previously, and others who I met for the first time.

And let me tell you: the campers we had were incredible. We had fourteen 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders who all experienced such incredible growth in understanding themselves as beautiful, beloved, children of God, and they quickly learned to share that love and to affirm one another - even when they were playing games that had them competing against one another.

When I counsel or direct camp, I set a pretty high goal for myself: I want this week at camp to be the best week of the year in campers’ lives, and I want their lives to be forever changed because of their time at camp. That sounds like an impossible goal, and for me to achieve it on my own it would be impossible, but God does amazing things at camp. 

And that’s why I keep going back.

It takes a lot of work to make camp happen. This year, it took even more work than usual. 

The COVID pandemic has made everything harder for all of us. On top of that, the El Dorado Wildfire in September 2020 affected Loch Leven, damaging part of the camp’s water system. These two events both happened just months after our previous camp manager unexpectedly resigned, which means leadership at the camp was lacking. And for the past two and a half years, the camp sat empty, unused, and in many ways neglected.

Any one of these four things would have presented a challenge, but to have all of them happen during the same time period was almost overwhelming. 

This past year, our regional board made the decision to enter into a partnership with United Camps, Conferences, and Retreats - also known as UCCR - a nonprofit organization that manages camps for their owners. UCCR was started by Disciples and for many years has operated the northern California region’s camp property, where I helped run camps in the years before I came back to the Pacific Southwest region, so I have prior experience with their management.

Since the beginning of this year, UCCR has been working hard to fix all the things at Loch Leven that needed to be fixed before we could resume camp. 

The list was long. Items on the list needed to be prioritized, and the most important things were worked on first: the road leading into camp was repaved, which provided access for equipment needed for other projects. It also made camp safer overall, since emergency vehicles such as firetrucks and ambulances could also more easily and quickly access the camp should they be needed.

The water system was repaired and made functional once again. That is essential, because if there’s no water, there’s no camp.

Flooring was replaced and cabins were cleaned, and in some cases, painted. Some of the furniture was replaced.

In short, a lot of work took place in just a few months, so that we could have camp this summer.

But because the list was long and needed to be prioritized, some projects and tasks had to be left uncompleted.

The meadow has no grass. After two years of neglect, it’s just dirt and a few dead weeds.

The tree climbing activities are not available… and neither was archery, at least not last week.

And this is disappointing, because many returning campers love these activities. 

But like I said, the list of projects and tasks had to be prioritized, and the important ones - the ones essential to having camp at all - had to be at the top of the list. With more hard work and the generous support of congregations and church members, hopefully more items on the list will get completed for next year.

And because those high-priority tasks were completed, we were able to have camp. And my mini campers were able to experience the life-changing wonder and joy and affirmation and spiritual growth that camp offers. And so were the junior campers who were at camp with us. And so were the chi-rho campers earlier in the summer. 

And so will our CYF campers - which includes Rajal and Rahail - be able to experience camp this summer. Nothing in this day and age is ever for sure, and I do know of some camps in other parts of the country that have had to cancel sessions because of COVID, so I invite you to join with me in offering ongoing prayers that our summer camp season can have a successful end with CYF camp.

I am thankful that UCCR took the time to prioritize the tasks that needed to be accomplished, because otherwise camp wouldn’t have taken place at all. Making lists of priorities is a good exercise. I know that too often I focus on accomplishing tasks that really aren’t that important, leaving more important tasks undone. I don’t always get my priorities right. 

Or, I’ll get started on an important task, but then I’ll take a break, and before you know it, a less-important task has distracted me and pulled me away from my more-important task. It really is helpful to have a list of priorities to guide me, and someone who can hold me accountable to that list, to say, “Why are you focusing on this less-important task when you have neglected what is most important?”

One way you could look at the work we do with children and youth in the church - and at camp - is to help them reorient their lives according to God’s priorities. In other words, to help them live lives that are focused on the things that are most important to God.

And the Bible is very helpful in letting us know just what is at the top of God’s priority list. Someone even asked Jesus once: “What is the most important command?”

And Jesus replied: “The most important command is that you love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.”

And that is what we try to teach our children and youth at camp, at church, in Worship & Wonder, at VBS, and anytime we have children and youth present: Love God wholly, completely, with all of who you are. Let your love for God be present and evident in every aspect of your life.

Jesus also said there is a second command that is very much like the first, and almost as important: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus said that these two commands: Love God, and love your neighbor - are the two commands on which all the other commands hang. I think Jesus was picturing a door with two hinges. The two hinges are the two commands, to love God, and to love one’s neighbor. These are the two priorities. You can’t have a working door without these two hinges. To focus on anything else without focusing on these two commands is to get your priorities out of order.

And boy, have God’s people gotten their priorities out of order. In just about every generation. 

Throughout scripture, we see that love for one’s neighbor is expressed by implementing justice, and by making sure that no person is neglected, forgotten, or excluded. 

In today’s reading from Amos, we see that the leaders and rulers and businesspeople have prioritized wealth and commerce and the economy over loving God and loving their neighbor. 

The religious observances that are meant to help people remember to love God, they find annoying. 

They can’t wait for these holidays to be over, so they can go back to business, making their profits, and even cheating their customers so they can get even more money for themselves.

We have the exact same problem with misplaced priorities today. People care more about the economy and the stock market than they do about justice, about doing what is right for the poor. They neglect the poor - perhaps I should say, we neglect the poor - just so we can see our own income grow. 

It bugs me every time I hear about a survey that shows that, for most Americans, the economy is the number one issue. People are saying that the next election may be decided by people’s opinions on the price of gas. 

Now, I don’t like high gas prices. I don’t like inflation. But what about justice? What about the poor? What about the millions living in poverty? 

Doesn’t “loving one’s neighbor as oneself” mean that we prioritize the wellbeing of others as much as we prioritize our own wellbeing? 

Voting rights are being taken away from poor people and Black people and Brown people. In many states, voter registration rolls have been purged, and districts have been so gerrymandered to ensure that an oppressive minority is made that much more likely to rule with power, while the oppressed majority is further oppressed and neglected and cast aside. 

And this is being done by people who claim to be Christian, who even claim that this is a Christian nation - all while they ignore the priorities set forth by Jesus, to love God and love one’s neighbor as oneself. 

Amos does not regard those who do such things favorably. Neither does Micah, or Hosea, or Isaiah, or Ezekiel, or any of the other Biblical prophets. And neither does Jesus; he also frequently condemns those who do not treat the poor with kindness and justice, and who therefore fail to love their neighbor. 

There are also many Christians today who move other issues that really aren’t a priority for God to the top of the list, above even love for one’s neighbor. A lot of what some Christians say about sex and sexuality comes to mind, and even a lot of what some Christians say about abortion. 

Why do some Christians talk so much about what the Bible says so little about, and why do they talk so little about what the Bible says so much about? Their priorities are completely out of whack.

Love God. Love one’s neighbor. These are the priorities. 

And they are implemented by doing justice. They are implemented by bringing good news to the poor, and freedom to the oppressed. They are implemented when we show love and affirmation to every individual - especially those who have been excluded, cast out, or condemned. 

These are God’s priorities. These are at the top of God’s list.

And I know we’re not perfect, but I am thankful that at Bixby Knolls Christian Church, and at Loch Leven, and in the Disciples of Christ, we really are trying to get our priorities right, and that we’re teaching our children to do the same - all as we try to be the church we say we are: a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world.

"Trail to Prosperity" (Amos 8: 1-12)

I spent the fourth of July at Upper Twin Lake, nearly 9000 feet high in the Sierra Nevada. It’s a good thing I and the other eleven people I was with weren’t any higher; even this late in the season, we had to hike four miles over numerous snow patches to reach our destination, especially as we came down the north side of Potter Pass.

Our camp was actually situated about 100 feet above the lake. I took some time just after sunrise to just sit there, on a rock, beneath an old juniper tree, the lake below me, with the trees of its one island reflected in the water which, at this early hour, was smooth. Looking south across the lake, I could see the snowy ridge of Potter Pass; and to the east, off in the distance, the crest of the Sierra, some 13- or 14-thousand feet in elevation: nothing but rocks and snow pointing toward the sky.

Between me and those distant peaks were thousands of acres of red fir and lodgepole pine forest.

I could hear water tumbling down a hidden canyon not far to my right, a stream that was bursting with snowmelt. Birds of various types were whistling a call and response. Some of them chirped like smoke detectors in need of new batteries; others sounded almost like car alarms. And yet there were no cars or smoke detectors or any other sign of the modern world. The nearest road was miles away.

As I sat there on the morning of our nation’s independence, I thought about the hard work that it took to reach Upper Twin Lake … and the hard work that it took to build our nation. Our nation has been on a long, 234-year journey. And throughout much of that journey, there has been a dream: an American dream, of prosperity and opportunity for all people. Ideally, it is a dream that is achievable by anyone if they are willing to work for it. We are, after all, a nation that believes that all people are created equal, with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The journey to a place like Upper Twin Lake is part of what makes it so wonderful. It’s not the easiest of journeys. Simply breathing at 9,000 feet can be a challenge for someone accustomed to the more plentiful oxygen found at lower elevations, to say nothing of hiking over a mountain pass carrying all the food and clothing you’ll need for three days, plus a sleeping bag and tent. But to sit there, amidst the unspoiled beauty of God’s creation, is to appreciate the journey, because the journey is what makes it so satisfying.

One could, I suppose, try to take a shortcut. One could build a road, or drop in by helicopter. But roads and helicopters would destroy the beauty of the wilderness.

One could also try to take a shortcut to achieving the American Dream. One could seek the prosperity without the hard work. One could manipulate the system to benefit oneself, to the detriment of everyone else working to achieve the dream. One could carve a road to the American Dream, pave it, make it easy for them to reach that dream, and then put up toll booths along the way, charging others for access, and turning them back when the price becomes too much.

In fact, that is exactly what has been happening in recent years. People are trying to take the easy shortcut to prosperity. They are carving shortcuts on the trail, and as any hiker knows, shortcuts contribute to erosion and eventually wash out the trail, making it harder for others to follow.

Once upon a time it was a part of the American ethos to achieve prosperity in a responsible, ethical way. America as a whole saw its goodness as being dependent upon a basic sharing of wealth and resources, which any person could achieve with enough hard work. That’s not to say that wealth was distributed equally, but it is to say that we avoided the great disparities between the wealthy and the poor, disparities that threaten to undermine an economy or a society.

But in the past three decades or so, it has become easier for the rich to become richer, and harder for the poor to just get by. Economic policies have favored the rich, based on the theory that wealth would trickle down, but unfortunately, it hasn’t trickled down. Thirty years ago, the income disparity between the average CEO and the average American worker was 25 to 1. By 2007, that disparity was over 400 to 1. Fifty years ago, under republican president Dwight Eisenhower, the wealthiest Americans were taxed at 90%. Democrat John F. Kennedy lowered that to 70%. Today, it is less than 40%.

Financial corruption and stock market shenanigans have made the headlines in recent years, as have major problems with sub-prime mortgages. The rich are searching for shortcuts to even greater wealth, while the unemployment rate in California remains over 12%. Many of those at the top of the economic ladder are getting richer, even in this difficult economy, while those at the bottom are struggling more than ever.

As a preacher of the gospel, it is important for me to always ground my preaching in the stories of our faith as they appear in scripture. By this point, you might be wondering what all this economic talk has to do with faith or scripture, especially since I will readily admit to very little understanding of the finer points of economics.

Well, the interesting thing is that biblical archaeology has determined that, at various times in history, the economic disparity between the rich and the poor has varied, just as it has in our own time. In some periods, the differences between the rich and the poor were not so great, with everyone able to share in at least some measure of society’s wealth. Some still had more than others, of course, but the disparity was relatively not as great as it was in other times, when the rich lived in magnificent palaces, while the poor struggled dearly, fighting for their very lives.

And in the times when things were relatively stable, when the rich were not too rich, and the poor were not too destitute, there were no prophets. In such times, there was no Isaiah. No Jeremiah. No Amos.

Jim Wallis points this out in his book, Rediscovering Values. He also points out that archaeologists have discovered that, when the disparities between rich and poor became too great, that’s when the prophets were active. That’s when they spoke out against the injustices of their society. That’s when they spoke of impending doom.

Now, I’ve not always been a fan of prophecies of impending doom—doom is not really a part of the gospel I’ve been called to preach—but I do know that the growing disparities between rich and the poor in the 80s and 90s, as the rich sought to find the shortcuts and make money as quickly as possible no matter how morally sound the methods to prosperity… this period was followed by the economic collapse of the past few years, the great recession that we are now in. And the last time we had such a great disparity between rich and poor, during the 1920s, was followed by the Great Depression of the 1930s. It should be clear, then, that pursuing wealth and prosperity at all costs—making wealth and prosperity one’s god, if you will—and the development of a great chasm between the rich and the poor; these things are not beneficial to anyone in the long term, even those at the top.

Look at what’s happening in this short passage from Amos:

Amos begins with a vision of summer fruit: the symbol of prosperity. But that prosperity leads to the end—and, interestingly enough, the word for end sounds very much like the word for summer fruit, creating a play on words in the Hebrew language.

And why is this the end? Because the needy are being trampled upon. Because the land, the earth, is being trampled; the resources of the planet are being exploited for present gain, no matter what the future consequences may be. Those seeking wealth are searching for any shortcut they can find. They are impatient in waiting for the holy day to end so that they can sell their goods; and when they sell, they make the ephah small and the shekel great. That is, they make the measurement small; the quantity, as small as possible, and at the same time they make the price great. They do everything they can to make the poor pay more for less product.

They are deceitful about all this. They use false balances. As Amos says, they buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and they even sell the sweepings of the wheat, the sweepings which, according to Jewish law, were to be left for those who could not afford to purchase it.

Amos sees all this as stealing from those who can least afford it. Amos sees it as contributing to the gross inequalities that exist in society. It is nothing less than the wealthy seeking the easy route to even greater wealth, pursuing wealth and prosperity as their god, not caring about the effect it has on others, and Amos says that the Lord will never forget the injustice that has taken place.

Amos does not say that prosperity itself is bad. Indeed, God likes prosperity. But God likes prosperity that is acquired honestly. God insists on prosperity that is acquired ethically. God demands that prosperity be acquired justly, so that all are able to share in it.

On the path to prosperity, God insists that we take no shortcuts that erode the trail for those who follow. Indeed, those who are on the path to prosperity have an obligation to those who come behind them to make sure that the trail is in good, working condition, that it be in at least as good a condition as it was when they themselves traveled that path.

It is often a complaint of older generations that the young have it too easy. Well, perhaps it is true that, in this day and age, the insistence on having things easy has now begun to make things harder, for all generations. We have sacrificed our morals for the sake of our prosperity. We have sacrificed our values for the sake of a shortcut to wealth. And in doing so, we have sacrificed our faith and our children.

And look what it’s doing to us: we are taking away from our children the opportunities that we and our parents had. We are destroying the earth in our search for the energy that fuels our prosperity. Our actions are leading to impending doom, but the doom doesn’t come from God; it comes from our own actions.

Nearly a century ago, Gandhi saw the shortcuts that people often took, and this caused him to declare that there are seven social sins that destroy humanity. These seven sins are: politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.

I’m sure that Amos couldn’t agree more. As followers of Jesus, we of all people need to work to restore principles to politics. We need to work to restore work to wealth. We need to not throw away our conscience as we pursue pleasure. We need to maintain our character as we seek knowledge. We must insist that morality accompany commerce, that humanity accompany science, and that sacrifice accompany worship.

Yes, even when it comes to worship, folks are tempted to seek shortcuts. They want worship to be easy. They want deep spirituality, with no effort. They want it to be pleasant for them, without having to ensure that it is pleasant or meaningful for others.

But God calls us to do things differently. God calls us to travel the path of righteousness and justice. God calls us to live for others, and not just ourselves. God calls us to consider that how we reach our goal is just as important, if not more important, than actually reaching it. How we acquire our prosperity is important. How we follow the trail is important. The journey is important. It defines who we are.