I hate your holy days and despise your festivals; I am not moved by your solemn gatherings.
Your offerings are rejected; I ignore your slaughtered gifts.
Spare me the sound of your hymns, and let the music of your lutes fall silent; I am not listening.Rather let justice well up like water, let righteousness flow like a mighty stream.
——- Amos 5:21-2 1
It is not that God hates ritual. It is that God hates ritual done without a whole heart. When you pretend to act for God but are in fact acting for self, alignment with God is impossible. So much religion is simply pretend piety, masking selfishness in the garb of selflessness. You lay claim to an exclusive revelation; you uphold salvation only for those who think as you think; you deny the unconditional love of God and offer yourself and the world an idol supportive only of your own ego and its pretensions to power.
God does not care about your pretensions. God wants justice. God wants righteousness. God wants you to see yourself and every other as part of the One Who Is all; and then to act from that seeing.
