And Amaziah said to Amos, "O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom."  Then Amos answered Amaziah, "I am no prophet, nor a prophet's son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of mulberry figs, and the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel.'

Today's Song of Praise is taken from Psalm 85/86(V/RSV):

        All the nations thou hast made shall come and bow down before thee, O Lord, and shall glorify thy name.
        For thou art great and doest wondrous things, thou alone art God.
        Teach me thy way, O LORD, that I may walk in thy truth; unite my heart to fear thy name.
        I give thanks to thee, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify thy Name forever.
        For great is thy steadfast love toward me; thou hast delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.

Today's Epistle is from the Letter of Paul to the Ephesians, beginning at the 1st Chapter, and the 3rd Verse:

        Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.  He destined us in love to be His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of his glorious grace which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.  In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished upon us.  For He has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of His will, according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.  In Him, according to the purpose of Him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of His will, we who first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of His glory.  In Him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

+ A Reading from the Gospel of Mark, beginning at the 6th Chapter, and the 7th Verse:

        And he called to him the twelve, and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.  He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts;  but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics.  And he said to them, "Where you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place.  And if any place will not receive you and they refuse to hear you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet for a testimony against them."  So they went out and preached that men should repent.  And they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them.

        In the First Reading, Amaziah, the priest of the King's sanctuary at Bethel tries to run Amos off: "...flee away to the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there...", but Amos stands firm: "the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel.'"

        Amos makes the point that he is not a "regular" prophet, or a member of a professional caste of prophets -- "...I am no prophet, nor a prophet's son..." but an ordinary man:  "I am a herdsman, and a dresser of mulberry figs"  (a migratory farm worker), called out by the Lord to warn Israel.  His prophecies, like most of the rest of Jewish prophecy, are warnings -- not foretellings of the future.

        He was preaching to a kingdom of Israel steeped in sin and degradation -- where the rich had become proud and oppressed the poor, where justice went to the highest bidder, and the nobility did as they like, without regard to the commandments of the Lord.  Amos' message to them is that the Lord, who had supported Israel, and raised David and Solomon on high, would strike down the current generation of vipers for their evil and their sins against their neighbors.

        We, too, in an age when the Golden Rule seems to have mutated into:  "Them as has the Gold, makes the Rules.", are called on to witness for righteousness and fairness, for social justice, for the Second Great Commandment:  "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."  All ages share sinfulness and injustice -- there never was a Golden Age, since Adam & Eve left the Garden -- and we need to accept the prophetic yoke of correcting and enlightening the age we live in.
 

        The Song of Praise today celebrates the Lord, and reminds us of whence we come, and where we are headed:

        "All the nations you have made shall come and bow down before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name.  For you are great and do wondrous things, you alone are God."  We are grounded in the wonders of the Lord, in His Power and His Glory.

        "Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name."   The prayer here is to make us  prophets -- ones who announce the Word of the Lord, the Will of God, to all the nations.

        "I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your Name forever."  Here we are called on to praise the Lord -- to pray, and offer ourselves to Him;  to do the interior work, the work of the soul, that enlightens and informs the active, external life.

        "For great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol."  Here is the central message of both Judaism and Christianity -- that, in the words of the Gospel of John:  "Go so loved the world...".  The Lord, because he loves us -- each and every flawed, miserable one of us -- has reached out from His unimaginable vastness to pluck each falling sparrow from annihilation, from the dustbin of forgetfulness, from loneliness and despair.
 

        Today's Gospel shows the Apostles (the ones sent out) returning to Jesus to report on their work, and Jesus saying to them, "Come and rest a bit.", but the people will not let them rest, nor Jesus, but demand to hear more of the Gospel.  So, too, sometimes, we are pulled away from our well-earned rest, and required to do the Lord's work.
 

        The selection from Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians encapsulates the Orthodox dogma of theosis -- that not only we humans, but the whole Earth -- yea, the whole Universe -- is saved in Jesus Christ.  Paul talks about how God the Father, loving and desiring us from the beginning of time, plotted to send His Son, His other Self, out into the created, inferior world, to draw it back to Himself.

        "...his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth."  Not just souls, not just spirits, but all things -- the earth and its dirt, its rocks, its worms and its bacteria, are all to be saved, not thrown away. abandoned, and annihilated.

        We are therefore stewards of the Earth, and all that in it is -- we ought not to destroy it wantonly, to injure, maim, and torture animals, to pollute the streams and rivers, and destroy everything that comes into our hands, for our personal profit and amusement.  I expect to answer at Judgment for how I have treated "the least of them" -- animals and things -- as well as my fellow man.

        This is not to say -- as some ecological enthusiasts do -- that mankind is the least of things, and of no worth, and a pestilence on the land.  We are, indeed, made in God's image, as Scripture tells us;  we are the highest of God's creations to date -- and it is our responsibility to care for those things, animate and inanimate, which are not so blessed.

        "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him."  It is our responsibility to work at being "holy and blameless before Him" -- it is difficult, tremendously difficult -- but possible.

        "In Him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory."  Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, to bless and draw us to the Father.

        We are given the Sacraments -- most especially the Holy Eucharist -- to bring us into direct and intimate contact with Him who died for us, rose for us, and ascended before us into heaven.  Let us pray then, that we may be worthy of the challenge He puts before us, and that we may all be with Him in the next life . . .

        In the Name of
        The Father     +
        And of the Son
        And of the Holy Spirit
Amen.