Jim Weller's remarks on receiving the 2018 Amos Award for prophetic advocacy and community organizing for social justice, at Peace United Church of Christ, Santa Cruz, California on January 28, 2018.
To the church and gathered friends:
Seventeen years ago, when I left my corporate job behind to become a seminary student, and a minister, I had no idea I would one day become a prophet - and be likened to Amos.
You know, before he got around to saying, "let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like a never-failing stream!" old Amos had just been raging and ranting to Israel's royalty and priesthood, "I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me!"
That's not my style, really. Although I do make uncomplimentary remarks on Facebook about certain regrettable public figures.
Probably it would sound cheesy to say it anywhere else but in church - but I'm really just a messenger. A humble person carrying the gospel message - the good news of God. Accompanied by a great cloud of witnesses.
As I understand it, this is the message of Jesus: God is real, and present, and you are acceptable as a vessel for God's grace. As you are. With all your character flaws, and mine. Whatever you've done, wherever you've been, whatever anyone may think or say, you are beloved of God.
The message Mark says Jesus uttered was this, "The power of God is at hand; change your hearts and believe in the good news!"
Here is the message as I know it intuitively, by heart: We are all children of God. God is ultimate reality, all that ever was, is now, and ever shall be; every being, every world, every universe.
We are made of God, and God is love. We are physical and spiritual manifestations of God, here and now. All of us. But we mostly don't know it. And we can't prove it to anyone who doesn't already know it. All we can do is just let it show and believe.
The power of God - the "kingdom" or imperial rule of God, as Jesus put it - is here with us now, among us and within us. At hand. God is the source of life, Caesar is not. The powers and principalities are not.
This means there is a higher power, a higher authority, a higher meaning by which to govern our lives than the ruling class of the moment - the plutocrats, the oligarchs, the bureaucracies, the corporate-ocracies, the pundit-ocracies, the merit-ocracies, the military-ocracies, the media-ocracies.
Our lives mean much more than that. Each one of us is a face of God, but not alone, all of us together. Our choices affect multitudes of lives, and generations to come. Therefore, it behooves us to choose carefully how we live. And to act meaningfully for the greater good while we live.
All indications to the contrary notwithstanding, we do indeed have at hand the power to save us and the world; to choose blessings instead of curses, to choose life instead of death, so that we and our children may live.
We have a choice, now and always. In everything we do or think or say, we have a choice. Meaning or absurdity. God or Mammon. Blessings or curses.
As Micah, another one of those wild-eyed prophets said, "What does the LORD require of you? This is all it is: be kind, be just, be merciful, and walk humbly with God."
Another way to put it is the way the earliest Christians did: Love God who made you, and your neighbor as yourself, and do not do to others what you don't want done to you.
Now, I can't go around outside the sanctuary of the church talking about God and religious meaning like this without making people cross the street to avoid me. In mixed company, other manners of dialogue are required.
Since I am called by the spirit of God to community ministry out there in the weird world, I have to speak in words of the world and get in the mess with the ways of the world, and hope my actions preach the gospel without God-talk.
So that's what I do. I advocate and try to organize people for the greater good. I guess you could call it disciple-ing. I hope others will go and do likewise.
Maybe I am sort of a prophet. But I'm not sure I want that label on me, except maybe here in the safety of the beloved community.
You know what they always do to prophets.
To the church and gathered friends:
Seventeen years ago, when I left my corporate job behind to become a seminary student, and a minister, I had no idea I would one day become a prophet - and be likened to Amos.
You know, before he got around to saying, "let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like a never-failing stream!" old Amos had just been raging and ranting to Israel's royalty and priesthood, "I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me!"
That's not my style, really. Although I do make uncomplimentary remarks on Facebook about certain regrettable public figures.
Probably it would sound cheesy to say it anywhere else but in church - but I'm really just a messenger. A humble person carrying the gospel message - the good news of God. Accompanied by a great cloud of witnesses.
As I understand it, this is the message of Jesus: God is real, and present, and you are acceptable as a vessel for God's grace. As you are. With all your character flaws, and mine. Whatever you've done, wherever you've been, whatever anyone may think or say, you are beloved of God.
The message Mark says Jesus uttered was this, "The power of God is at hand; change your hearts and believe in the good news!"
Here is the message as I know it intuitively, by heart: We are all children of God. God is ultimate reality, all that ever was, is now, and ever shall be; every being, every world, every universe.
We are made of God, and God is love. We are physical and spiritual manifestations of God, here and now. All of us. But we mostly don't know it. And we can't prove it to anyone who doesn't already know it. All we can do is just let it show and believe.
The power of God - the "kingdom" or imperial rule of God, as Jesus put it - is here with us now, among us and within us. At hand. God is the source of life, Caesar is not. The powers and principalities are not.
This means there is a higher power, a higher authority, a higher meaning by which to govern our lives than the ruling class of the moment - the plutocrats, the oligarchs, the bureaucracies, the corporate-ocracies, the pundit-ocracies, the merit-ocracies, the military-ocracies, the media-ocracies.
Our lives mean much more than that. Each one of us is a face of God, but not alone, all of us together. Our choices affect multitudes of lives, and generations to come. Therefore, it behooves us to choose carefully how we live. And to act meaningfully for the greater good while we live.
All indications to the contrary notwithstanding, we do indeed have at hand the power to save us and the world; to choose blessings instead of curses, to choose life instead of death, so that we and our children may live.
We have a choice, now and always. In everything we do or think or say, we have a choice. Meaning or absurdity. God or Mammon. Blessings or curses.
As Micah, another one of those wild-eyed prophets said, "What does the LORD require of you? This is all it is: be kind, be just, be merciful, and walk humbly with God."
Another way to put it is the way the earliest Christians did: Love God who made you, and your neighbor as yourself, and do not do to others what you don't want done to you.
Now, I can't go around outside the sanctuary of the church talking about God and religious meaning like this without making people cross the street to avoid me. In mixed company, other manners of dialogue are required.
Since I am called by the spirit of God to community ministry out there in the weird world, I have to speak in words of the world and get in the mess with the ways of the world, and hope my actions preach the gospel without God-talk.
So that's what I do. I advocate and try to organize people for the greater good. I guess you could call it disciple-ing. I hope others will go and do likewise.
Maybe I am sort of a prophet. But I'm not sure I want that label on me, except maybe here in the safety of the beloved community.
You know what they always do to prophets.
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