In today’s reading God is again imploring Israel to repent and seek life in Him rather than continue down the path that leads to judgement. But now the themes of injustice, corruption and exploitation of the poor become more pronounced in God’s condemnation. Sometimes the message of the prophets as they are confronting Israel or Judah for their sin focuses on idolatry - that explicit unfaithfulness to God expressed in overt worship of other gods as the source of security and life. But just as often their sin is described in terms of what has gone wrong socially, economically and politically. “You levy a straw tax on the poor” (Amos 5:11) and “deprive the poor of justice in the courts” (v12). In verse 15, the simple and stark call to “Hate evil, love good”, which is as clear a description of repentance as any!, is paralleled with “maintain justice in the courts.” Then “perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.” The simple and plain truth is that God cares about how we treat the vulnerable. God is enraged by the wealthy using their wealth to buy security at the expense of justice. He hates seeing people in power tread on the poor and vulnerable, or even just treat them with apathy, as they continue their own agenda. 

I think these words are very relevant to us in this time of upheaval. As I watched on the news the massive lines of people queueing up at Centrelink because they had just lost their jobs or their business is all but ruined, I was struck by just how much money is going to be a big issue for all of us. Some of us won’t feel it straight away, but we will all be affected. And I think Amos 5 teaches us that at very least, those of us who belong to God’s church will be affected because there will be people all around us who are suddenly struggling and vulnerable financially. And God cares how we think about the vulnerable, how we act towards them. We certainly don’t want to close our eyes or our minds to the fact that some will be in desperate need. And we certainly don’t want to exploit people in their vulnerability for our own gain. That would not go down well at all with God.