The Daily: Tuesday September 23, 2025

I hate, I despise your festivals,
   and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
   I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
   and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Amos 5:21, 23-24

Theologian Sunshine Dulnuan's comment on this week's lectionary passage from Jeremiah 8 helps expand the common understanding of this well-known passage from Amos. In her poetic dialogue, speaking of the tears of Jeremiah, she responds,
Your tears are not wasted.
Let them be rivers of justice,
Overflowing through the parched fields
Of forgotten bodies.
Maybe the voice of God for us in Amos is more than a finger-wagging "you shouldn't." Maybe it is a recognition of what is. Sometimes festivals don't cut it. Sometimes we can't muster a song. Sometimes all we have is our tears. Our tears are enough. They can become rivers of justice.

Have you ever noticed how one person's tears can move us to weeping ourselves? There's something profoundly connecting about shared grief. It reminds us that despite our differences, we share a common humanity. The prophet Amos understood this connection when he called for justice to "roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!" (Amos 5:24). His words remind us that our individual sorrows can join together to become powerful forces for change. When we grieve the loss of a loved one, we may suddenly feel more compassion for others experiencing similar pain. When we mourn environmental destruction, we might find ourselves more attuned to other forms of injustice. Our personal grief doesn't isolate us—it connects us to the larger web of life and suffering. This connection is not accidental but essential to our spiritual growth. By allowing ourselves to feel the weight of the world's pain, we participate in God's own grief over creation's brokenness. We become vessels that can register the losses around us and respond with love and action. Today, consider how your personal sorrows might be doorways to deeper connection with others. Rather than keeping grief private, how might sharing it create bonds of understanding and compassion?

Reflection Question
How has your personal grief ever connected you to the suffering of others or to larger issues in the world? What might happen if you viewed your tears as threads connecting you to the larger tapestry of human experience?

Prayer
God of compassion, thank you for the gift of tears that connect me to others. Help me to see how my grief joins with the rivers of sorrow flowing through your world. Use my broken heart to increase my capacity for empathy and understanding. Make my tears part of the stream of justice you are bringing to our world. Amen.