Old Testament
Amos 5:21-24
21 I hate, I despise your feasts, and I can’t stand your solemn assemblies.
22 Yes, though you offer me your burnt offerings and meal offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat animals.
23 Take away from me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24 But let justice roll on like rivers, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
New Testament
Revelation 11:18
18 The nations were angry, and your wrath came, as did the time for the dead to be judged, and to give your bondservants the prophets, their reward, as well as to the saints and those who fear your name, to the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”
Amos shocks us by putting worship on trial. Festivals, songs, assemblies: God rejects them when injustice is normal and the poor are trampled. “Let justice roll down like waters.” The prophet is not anti-worship; he is anti-hypocrisy. He insists that praise without righteousness is a lie. He insists that the God who receives hymns also hears the cry of those harmed.
Revelation 11:18 carries that insistence into the last horizon. God judges the dead, rewards his servants, and destroys those who destroy the earth. Whatever our theories of symbols and timelines, the moral point is plain: the Creator does not treat ruin as a trivial matter.
So we must beware of green piety: the easy language of care without costly change. Justice for creation is never detached from justice for people. Environmental harm is almost always neighbour harm. If those breathing dirty air, losing homes, or living beside poisoned water were sat beside us at the Table, we would stop calling damage a mere “trade-off”.
Lord, cleanse our worship from performance. Give us repentance that reaches our habits, our speech, our spending, our votes, our work. Strengthen those who pursue truthful regulation and honest enforcement. Protect whistleblowers, inspectors, and those who bear the cost of naming harm. And make your Church a people whose praise and practice agree, for Jesus’ sake.