irrigation system

Monday November 10^th, Amos 5:  21 "I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies.  22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. 23 Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. 24 But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! To quote William Sloane Coffin, it is one thing to stand with the prophets of old and call for justice to roll on like a river and righteousness like an ever flowing stream, it quite another to design the irrigation system.  Do we sometimes enter our sanctuaries and make a beautiful noise onto the Lord so we don’t have to hear the cry of the poor?  Do we sometimes focus on atrocities over there so we don’t have to face the atrocity of growing needs right here?  Do we spend more on military than on aid and diplomacy because it is more efficient at creating a better world, or because connected contractors find it easier to make money off death than off life?  These are questions to ask both inside and outside our worship.  We are saved by grace but unchanging worship with unchanged lives is an abomination to the Lord. Sometimes we need to get our hands dirty and dredge the irrigation system so the justice and righteousness begins once again to flow and in the process, reaches all.