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. 

God’s criticism of the morality and spirituality of Israel in Amos 4:1-5 is very relevant to modern Australia. Many of us live according to our own standards, where the overriding concern is to accumulate wealth, possessions and experiences for ourselves, with very little regard for how it impacts others. On top of this general approach to life and morality, we think we’re doing well spiritually if we do anything that seems to acknowledge God or a ‘bigger’ spiritual reality. If you do some spiritual practice that helps you ‘be mindful’, or you give to a charity or help with a local community program - good for you! Whether you worship Jesus is not the important thing, but whether you keep certain key social rules. But as the explore reading guide for today points out, ‘the people of Israel are giving themselves a pat on the back for religious activity which is itself breaking God’s law… they have decided for themselves how to worship God in his land…’. So many of our friends and family have decided for themselves, not only how they will live, but how they will worship God. And God is not impressed by this. We don’t want to fall into the same thinking, and we need to recognise it if we have.

 

In verses 6-11 God describes how he has sent various difficulties over and over again upon the people of Israel to grab their attention and to call them to repentance. They should have recognised the various forms of disaster and trouble as punishments and warnings for unfaithfulness to the covenant (Deut. 28:22). And yet they did not return to the Lord. And so now, God warns: "prepare to meet your God!” The LORD God is their Creator and Sovereign Lord. They have trivialised him (sound familiar?), and one day soon they will realise that was a big mistake. The beauty for us is that when God did finally turn up - really turn up, in the flesh and all - he came to offer mercy and yet another chance to ‘return to him’. As we’ve seen in Mark’s gospel on Sundays over the past month or so, Jesus’ comes first and foremost to prepare us for God’s kingdom so that we might repent - we might turn back to God - and belong to it and enjoy it rather than suffer the judgement of the King. But Jesus will return. Just as he came to help us return to God he will come to bring salvation to those who have, and judgement to those who haven’t. Now is the time to listen and respond. And now is the time to help people prepare to meet their God.

 

Anyone else read Amos 4 this morning? What stood out to you?