I appreciate the book of Amos; it challenges me as a person. Amos goes to a people who’ve drifted a long way from God and don’t even recognize it. God calls the shepherd Amos to go to the peoples of Israel and Judah and call them to repent and return to him, focusing mostly on Israel even though Amos comes from the southern country of Judah. As a shepherd, people are not likely to listen to Amos or respect him because he’s just a shepherd.
Amos
calls down judgement against Israel and Judah’s enemies first. The
Jewish people love this part, especially since many of their enemies are old
family from the lines of Lot and Esau who have become nations too, the
Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites. Family fights are the worst, just look at
our own church history. But then Amos gets personal and talks straight to
Israel and Judah, one family that split after King Solomon’s death into two
peoples who have a real love-hate relationship with each other; read the books
of 1st and 2nd Kings for those stories.
Judah
is charged with rejecting God’s law and following
after other gods. It seems that Israel’s God isn’t very appealing to his own people.
Then Amos lays into Israel and he’s not gentle with them. Amos 2:6–8, “This is what the Lord
says: “For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not relent. They sell
the innocent for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on
the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground and deny justice to the
oppressed. Father and son use the same girl and so profane my holy name. They
lie down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge. In the house of their
god they drink wine taken as fines.” They’ve become so
involved with building their own kingdoms that they’ve forgotten God’s kingdom.
The people, for the most part, have turned their back on God and on their most
vulnerable members.
God’s
angry because his law was given to protect the poor, the
vulnerable and the needy and to shape the people’s hearts so that justice,
compassion and humility and love for God and their neighbours would become the
core of their character. That hasn’t happened, so now God calls them out on it.
Instead of building God’s kingdom as his people, they’ve been building their
own little kingdoms and stepping all over people to get what they want with no
consideration for others. Instead of loving God and neighbour, they’re chasing
after wealth, power, and pleasure at the expense of those who are weaker or
poorer. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer and everyone does what they
want; kind of sounds familiar, doesn’t it. The people have forgotten that God’s
a righteous and just God; he’s not going to stand for this.
Jesus
comes to satisfy God’s justice. At the beginning before Adam and
Eve sinned, they were told that the penalty for sin was death, but to cover all
the sin in the world from Adam and Eve’s time until Jesus’ return, the only
death that would satisfy God’s justice needed to be fully God, but also fully
human, in other words, Jesus. Because God’s not only just, but also merciful,
Jesus comes, and through Jesus’ death the penalty is paid, and through his
resurrection we receive new life through repentance. Jesus comes not just for
our sin, but to bring new life and establish a new kingdom; the kingdom of
heaven.
Amos
calls the people to repent and return to God, Amos 5:4–5, “This is what the Lord says to
Israel: “Seek me and live; do not seek Bethel, do not go to Gilgal, do not
journey to Beersheba. For Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will be
reduced to nothing.” God wants us to return to him. But we’re so used to
thinking that everything’s good between us and God and every once in while we
need a wake-up call, like Israel, to take a closer look at our hearts and lives
to see where our loyalties and worship really lie. Amos now points to the day
of the Lord, the coming if the Messiah, telling them, don’t be so keen on the
Lord coming, “Why do you long for the day of the Lord?
That day will be darkness, not light.” The people are looking for a
powerful king to come and save them and allow them to continue to live their
self-centered lives, not for someone like Jesus.
The
people are doing the religious requirements outwardly, but
their hearts are hard and their lives are about their wants and rights instead
of caring and loving others. Not much different today where the constant call
is to want to have things “my way” and never mind about the “other”
person. People quickly cry about “my rights” instead of “my
responsibilities” today over even small things like wearing a mask in a
store to make others feel safe. Sacrificing a little for others is hard for
some. God looks at our hearts; our religious acts aren’t so important to him.
Amos’ statement that God “hates, despises your
religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring
me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you
bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for the. Away with the
noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.” This
freaks the people out! How can God be so harsh to them!
God
wants justice and righteousness to be part of our character, part
of who we are as his people. God’s ticked at his people for the injustice that
has become so normal, he’s angry that there’s not more outrage at how their
society has gone so wrong. Desmond Tutu writes, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have
chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a
mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your
neutrality.” James, the brother of Jesus, explains it a little differently,
“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims
to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or
a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in
peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs,
what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by
action, is dead.”
Injustice is still very much alive
in our country and
communities. This is why there are so many marches around racism, 3 of my
children are First Nations and there’s little to no action on addressing the
missing and murdered indigenous women cases. This could have been my daughters.
Lots of fine sounding words, little done. Our Korean brothers and sisters in
Red Deer who are joining the CRC have talked about how badly many of them have
been treated because of the language around COVID. Words matter, lack of compassion
and recognizing the image of God is others matters. Poverty, abortion, end of
life, and so many other justice issues surround us.
God put
his laws in place so that justice would roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream. If
you’ve ever sat on the bank of a river or stream where it goes around a bend,
you can see how the river slowly carves away at the land to find its way to the
sea. It doesn’t do it quickly, but over time it shapes the landscape. As
followers of Jesus, we’re called to do justice, to make it a natural part of
who we are as a church and as individuals. Like a river, we slowly and
consistently eat away at the banks of injustice and selfishness. We stand with
those seeking justice, we work together to create places where people are
supported by others who love them and are willing to invest their lives in
helping them flourish and become who God has created them to be. We work to
create places of healing and hope for our community, being a people of blessing
who allow God’s blessings to flow through us into our community so it can gain
a glimpse of God. This is why James emphasizes that how we live is an
expression of what we believe.
Justice
is about grace and mercy for those who have suffered from injustice. When
someone who has suffered from injustice sees someone who cares about the
injustice they are living in, when they experience the love of neighbour that
comes from our fighting for justice in our society, they see Jesus’ heart, they
see a people shaped by Jesus. Jesus says that how we live out our faith is
important, “Then the King will say to
those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your
inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For
I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me
something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes
and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you
came to visit me.’… “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did
for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”
May our
hearts be shaped by Jesus and the Spirit as God uses us to shape our
community for his kingdom.
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