Have you ever been in a meeting where everyone knew something was wrong, but nobody wanted to say it? The project was failing. The budget wasn’t realistic. The elephant in the room grew bigger with each passing minute. Yet everyone smiled, nodded, and moved to the next agenda item. We’ve all been there—that uncomfortable moment when truth needs speaking but comfort keeps us silent.
Many of us experience this tension regularly. We see the coworker being treated unfairly but stay quiet to keep peace. We notice which kids always lack lunch money but look away. We drive past the same unhoused person regularly, eventually training ourselves not to see. It’s easier to focus on our own responsibilities, our own challenges, our own comfortable routines.
But here’s what bothers us: we know better. Deep down, we recognize these moments as spiritual failures—times when our faith should compel us to speak but fear keeps us silent. We leave those meetings feeling diminished, knowing we chose comfort over courage.
Sometimes the most unlikely person breaks that silence. Not the executive or committee chair, but the intern who asks the obvious question. Today we meet God’s unlikely truth-teller: a sheep farmer who couldn’t stay silent.
Throughout our “Called to More” worship series, we’ve watched God choose surprising people for extraordinary purposes. David the shepherd boy, overlooked by his own father, became king. Solomon inherited his father’s vision and transformed it into temple reality. Last week, Elijah discovered God not in earthquake or fire but in gentle whisper, learning that divine calling sometimes means quiet faithfulness rather than dramatic confrontation.
Today’s shift feels jarring. After Elijah’s gentle whisper comes Amos’s prophetic roar. While the others were called to lead, build, or listen, Amos received perhaps the most uncomfortable calling—to speak truth nobody wanted to hear. His story asks: What happens when following God means making others uncomfortable?
History shows us the cost of religious silence in the face of injustice. Sometimes we need distance to see clearly what Amos saw in his own time. Consider what happened during Ireland’s Great Famine, when comfortable faith chose politeness over prophecy.
During Ireland’s Great Famine, ships loaded with grain left Irish ports daily while millions starved. The wealthy continued exporting food for profit even as desperate families boarded overcrowded vessels, fleeing death. In 1847 alone, nearly 11 percent of those sailing to North America died at sea or in quarantine—bodies thrown overboard to sharks while landowners counted their export profits.
Churches held elaborate services, praying for the poor while maintaining careful silence about the system creating poverty. Beautiful liturgies rose from cathedrals while so-called “coffin ships” departed harbors below, their human cargo already weakened by hunger. Priests and ministers watched their congregations shrink—not just from death but from the silence that drove believers away. Religious leaders who dared speak truth faced immediate consequences. When prophetic voices called the food exports while people starved “murder,” wealthy supporters withdrew their patronage. Comfortable congregations preferred prayers to prophetic challenges. Church boards removed outspoken clergy, choosing institutional survival over gospel truth.
Like Amos interrupting Israel’s festivals, these truth-tellers named what everyone could see but refused to acknowledge: worship had become a shield for injustice. The same hands that lifted in praise on Sunday signed export orders on Monday. The disconnect between religious performance and human suffering had become unbearable, requiring someone to speak the truth that comfortable faith refused to hear.
This same deadly disconnect between worship and justice had consumed Israel twenty-six centuries earlier. The parallels are striking—prosperity built on exploitation, religious leaders choosing comfort over confrontation, beautiful worship services masking ugly realities. Into that ancient version of willful blindness, God sent an unlikely prophet.
Amos prophesied around 760 BCE during Israel’s economic golden age under King Jeroboam II. Wealth concentrated among urban elites while rural peasants faced crushing debt and land seizures. Courts favored the wealthy, selling justice to the highest bidder. Religious festivals flourished even as merchants cheated customers with rigged scales and inflated prices for basic necessities.
Into this prosperity built on exploitation, God sent an outsider—a Judean farmer—to speak truth to Israel’s power centers. The opening imagery captures divine fury: “The Lord roars from Zion.” This roar targets not foreign enemies but God’s own people who maintained religious respectability while perpetrating economic violence.
When Amos speaks of “justice” in verse 5:24, he means more than fairness—he’s talking about right relationships that protect vulnerable members of society. “Righteousness” implies communal flourishing where everyone has enough. Picture justice not as a gentle stream but as flash floods in the desert—sudden, overwhelming, transforming everything in their path. When Amos says “let justice roll down like waters,” he envisions total transformation, not minor adjustments. The city gate, where Amos demands justice be established, was where legal decisions and business transactions occurred—the ancient equivalent of courthouses and marketplaces.
God’s shocking rejection of worship—“I hate, I reject your festivals”—uses the strongest language possible to express divine revulsion. The Creator who freed Hebrew slaves from Egypt cannot tolerate religious ceremonies that mask oppression. This connects to prophetic tradition throughout scripture: Isaiah 58’s call to “loose the bonds of injustice,” Micah 6:8’s mandate to “do justice,” James 1:27’s definition of pure religion as caring for orphans and widows. Jesus embodied these principles, declaring his mission to “proclaim good news to the poor” and “set the oppressed free” in Luke 4:18.
These justice imperatives flow directly into Methodist understanding of authentic faith. John Wesley insisted that personal holiness and social holiness cannot be separated—growing in love of God necessarily produces active concern for neighbors’ wellbeing. Wesley called this “practical divinity,” faith that transforms both hearts and social structures.
For Methodists, Amos’s message resonates with our doctrine of sanctification—the Holy Spirit’s work making us more like Christ involves not just individual piety but participation in God’s justice. Wesley demonstrated this by establishing medical clinics, schools for poor children, and programs to eliminate debt slavery. He preached against the slave trade when it was economically profitable, declaring that no amount of religious devotion could justify systemic oppression.
This theological tradition understands worship as incomplete without what Wesley called “works of mercy”—concrete actions addressing human suffering. The means of grace that nurture spiritual growth include not just prayer and scripture but also “doing all the good you can” in society. These convictions prepare us to examine how Amos speaks to contemporary injustices.
Look around McPherson today. Where do we see the disconnect between religious practice and social reality? Perhaps it’s in families choosing between medication and groceries while pharmaceutical companies post record profits. Perhaps it’s in workers calculating whether part-time hours cover both rent and childcare. Perhaps it’s in our own congregation, where we sing “all are welcome” while some feel invisible walls based on income, education, or social status.
The grain elevators towering over our town remind us that Kansas feeds the world, yet food insecurity touches families just blocks from our church. We celebrate McPherson’s industrial success while neighbors work multiple jobs without health insurance. Our beautiful sanctuary hosts meaningful worship while homeless individuals seek shelter wherever they can find it. We pray for healing while medical bills drive families into bankruptcy. We thank God for abundance while children in our schools rely on free lunch programs for their main meal.
This disconnect isn’t unique to McPherson. But Amos calls us to address injustice where we live, work, and worship. Truth-telling today means acknowledging that our community’s prosperity isn’t shared equally. It means admitting that zip code can determine educational opportunity, that medical debt destroys families, that working full-time doesn’t guarantee living wages.
Our Tomorrow First campaign for heating and cooling infrastructure offers a choice about justice. Will comfortable temperatures serve only Sunday worshipers, or will they ensure our food cupboard stays open year-round? Will climate control benefit only our programs, or will it keep STEPMC’s poverty-fighting initiatives running without interruption? The building that needs new HVAC systems also houses programs providing emergency assistance to struggling neighbors. That’s justice infrastructure—systems that enable service.
God asks not for better temperature control but for buildings that enable justice, spaces where all can gather comfortably to receive and give help.
The good news is that God hasn’t given up on us. Despite our failures to connect faith with justice, despite our preference for comfortable worship over challenging transformation, God keeps calling ordinary people to extraordinary purpose. The same Spirit who empowered Amos empowers us—teachers, farmers, retirees, students—anyone willing to see injustice and speak truth.
Justice doesn’t require perfection. Amos himself benefited from economic systems he later challenged. We too participate in imperfect structures while working for change. God doesn’t demand instant transformation but faithful steps toward righteousness. Start where you are, with what you have, doing what you can. Every act of courage matters. Every voice for fairness counts. Every stand for dignity creates ripples.
When communities embrace equity, everyone flourishes—not just the vulnerable but also those who thought they were fine. Rivers of righteousness bring life wherever they flow, refreshing both those dying of thirst and those who didn’t realize they were dehydrated. Justice creates joy, not burden. It builds communities where children thrive, where workers earn dignity with wages, where no one faces impossible choices between necessities.
We’re not alone in this work. Across McPherson, people of faith and goodwill already labor for justice in schools, businesses, nonprofits, and neighborhoods. The Holy Spirit connects our individual streams into mighty rivers. Christ walks with us as we speak truth, establish justice, and let righteousness roll down. Together, we become the answer to our own prayers for transformation. Together, we write the next chapter of God’s justice story in Kansas.
This week, practice prophetic seeing. First, examine one area where your faith and actions disconnect—where might God call you to greater integrity?
Second, identify one injustice in McPherson that troubles you. Research it. Learn who’s already working on it. Consider joining their efforts.
Third, speak one uncomfortable truth with love. Perhaps address unfair treatment at work, challenge a harmful joke, or question a policy that hurts vulnerable neighbors.
Finally, let your First Fruits offering reflect your commitment to justice. Consider how your financial gift can help our church become a center where righteousness flows freely through our community.
Amos returned to his fig trees, but his words echo through centuries. God still calls unlikely prophets—people like us—to speak truth that transforms communities. The question isn’t whether we’re qualified but whether we’re willing. Will we let God use our voices, our lives, our resources to let justice roll down like waters in McPherson? The choice is ours.
Will you pray with me?
God of justice, give us courage to speak truth, wisdom to speak in love, and strength to act on what we proclaim. Through Christ, Amen.
In crafting today’s sermon, I employed AI assistants like Claude and Apple Intelligence, yet the ultimate responsibility for its content rests with me. These tools offered valuable perspectives, but the most influential sermon preparation hinges on biblical study, theological insight, personal reflection, and divine guidance. I see AI as a supportive aid to enrich the sermon process while ensuring my own voice in proclaiming the Word of God.
Rev. Andrew Conard 