Hymns by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette
God, you spoke your word through Amos long ago and far away.
Still your call for love and justice speaks to people in our day:
For we've trampled on the needy and brought heartbreak to the poor;
Lord, our way of life is greedy- we are always wanting more.
We confess the way we're living harms the planet in our care;
Many times our ways of spending hurt the poor and cause despair.
In a world where millions hunger, we consume without much thought.
So your land and people suffer; may we hear what Amos taught!
Even here within our churches, we have sometimes failed to be
Bearers of your love and justice to your world community.
All our songs and celebrations and the feasting that we do
Turn to mournful lamentations as we cry, "Lord, where are you?"
Lord, renew in us a vision of the world you're working toward.
Guide your church to make decisions that acknowledge you as Lord.
May we seek your ways of justice, care for earth, and gladly give;
May the words you spoke through Amos guide the way we daily live!
Permission is given for free use of this hymn by churches that support Bread for the World.
Amos 8:1-12 is the lesson for July 18, 2010/Eighth Sunday after Pentecost/Proper 11 (16):
This is what the Lord God showed me — a basket of summer fruit. He said, "Amos, what do you see?" And I said, "A basket of summer fruit." Then the Lord said to me, "The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass them by. The songs of the temple shall become wailings on that day," says the Lord God; "the dead bodies shall be many, cast out in every place. Be silent!"
Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, "When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat."
The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who lives in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?
On that day, says the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day.
The time is surely coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it. (NRSV Bible)
Biblical Hope: Biblical scholar Patrick D. Miller, Jr. writes, "In a world that assumes the status is quo, that things have to be the way they are and that we must not assume too much about improving them, the doxologies of God's people are fundamental indicators that wonders have not ceased, that possibilities not yet dreamt of will happen, and that hope is an authentic stance." (Patrick D. Miller, Jr., "In Praise and Thanksgiving," Theology Today, 1988, Vol. 45, No. 2, p. 180).
Hunger — Global and United States
(learn more at www.bread.org/hunger)
Global: The world is facing a hunger crisis
unlike anything it has seen in more than 50 years. 1.02 billion
people are hungry. Every day, almost 16,000 children die from
hunger-related causes. That's one child every five seconds. There
were 1.4 billion people in extreme poverty in 2005. The World Bank
estimates that the spike in global food prices in 2008, followed by
the global economic recession in 2009 and 2010 has pushed between
100-150 million people into poverty.
United States: 14.6% of U.S. households
struggle to put enough food on the table. More than 49 million
Americans — including 16.7 million children — live in
these households. Nearly one in four children is at risk of hunger.
Among African-Americans and Latinos, one in three children is at risk
of hunger.
See also Hunger for the Word: Lectionary Reflections on Food and Justice: Year C.
How Rich Are You?
Compare your personal income to the rest of the world at www.globalrichlist.com.
This hymn was originally written to support Bread for the World's Bread for the Preacher, July 2010.
Carolyn Winfrey Gillette is the author of Songs of Grace: New Hymns for God and Neighbor (Discipleship Resources/Upper Room Books, 2009) and Gifts of Love: New Hymns for Today's Worship (Geneva Press, 2000) and the co-pastor of Limestone Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, Delaware. A complete list of her 160+ hymns can be found at www.carolynshymns.com.
Several of Carolyn's hymns are on the Bread for the World web site: "When Mary Poured a Rich Perfume", "Sing Out! Sound the Trumpets! Proclaim Jubilee!", "In Haiti, There is Anguish", "Zacchaeus was a Tax Man", and O Christ, You are Life!".
See Stewardship Hymns for a list of other helpful hymns with stewardship themes.