Day 30 – Tuesday -- The Book of Amos

Day 30 – Tuesday

The Book of Amos

PREPARE TO MEET YOUR GOD!!! (4.12) Amos doesn’t mess around. Judgment is coming, and there is nowhere to hide. The fastest runners will not be able to hide (2.14). It will be like running from a lion, only to meet a bear (5.19). It will be like finding safety in your house only to be bitten by a snake hiding in the corner (5.19). No one will escape (9.1).

Amos was an outside agitator. He was a farmer in the southern kingdom, but God told him to go up to the northern kingdom and be God’s spokesman. (Time period is around 780-750.) He inspired a much later outside agitator named Martin Luther King, Jr. who liked to quote Amos by saying:

But let justice roll down like waters,
    and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream (5.24).

What Amos condemns is injustice:

They buy and sell upstanding people.
    People for them are only things—ways of making money.
They’d sell a poor man for a pair of shoes.
    They’d sell their own grandmother!
They grind the penniless into the dirt,
    shove the luckless into the ditch.
Everyone and his brother sleeps with the ‘sacred whore’—
    a sacrilege against my Holy Name.
Stuff they’ve extorted from the poor
    is piled up at the shrine of their god,
While they sit around drinking wine
    they’ve conned from their victims (2.6-8, MSG).

Furthermore,

They “run roughshod over the poor, taking bread right out of their mouths.” They “bully good people and take bribes; they kick the poor when they’re down” (5.11-12, MSG, adapted).

They have “turned justice into a poisonous weed” (6.12). They are arrogant (6.8). They “live in luxury” while being unconcerned for the poor (6.1).

Listen to this, you who walk all over the weak,
    you who treat poor people as less than nothing,
Who say, “When’s my next paycheck coming
    so I can go out and live it up?
How long till the weekend
    when I can go out and have a good time?”
Who give little and take much,
    and never do an honest day’s work.
You exploit the poor, using them—
    and then, when they’re used up, you discard them (8.5-6, MSG).

Want to know what “prophecy” is all about? Read the verses above again. Biblical prophets are concerned with the here-and-now; with justice; with right treatment of people; with fairness; with how we relate to the poor, the weak, and the powerless. Prophets aren’t fortune tellers; they are the ones who tell us that we are mistreating the unfortunate. They are not concerned with the end of time; they are concerned when we use people as means to an end.

If Amos were here today he would be railing at Congress for not prioritizing legislation to help the poor and needy. He would have harsh words for the “one percent.” He would insist on redistributing wealth in a fair way. And he would warn us that God will not let injustice go on forever. Nations are judged.


In chapter seven Amos has a vision:

God showed me this vision: My Master was standing beside a wall. In his hand he held a plumb line. God said to me, “What do you see, Amos?” I said, “A plumb line.” Then my Master said, “Look what I’ve done. I’ve hung a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. I’ve spared them for the last time. This is it! “Isaac’s sex-and-religion shrines will be smashed, Israel’s unholy shrines will be knocked to pieces. I’m raising my sword against the royal family of Jeroboam.” (7.7-9, MSG)

The moral and spiritual life of Israel had gotten out of balanced. The whole structure was crooked. Structural sin must be dealt with as a whole. Systemic injustice is not solved by a few charitable acts. Laws and courts and cultural values must be addressed. It is one thing to say, “Just say no.” It is another thing to establish community mental health centers and insurance coverage for those who need help with addictions. It is one thing to say, “Love your slave.” It is a better thing to knock down the institution of slavery by enacting legislation outlawing slavery. “But you can’t legislate morality,” you say. “Yes,” I say, “but you can legislate behavior and stop unjust practices.”

We cannot stand to live without hope. During the Exile the editors of the books of the Prophets added a supplement to Amos which is now Amos 9.11-15. These last five verses give a sense of hope. The editors couldn’t leave Amos the way it was. Too much gloom. No light.

The brother of Jesus—James—quotes from Amos nine during a debate at the Jerusalem Council where the leaders of the Christian Movement are trying to decide how to relate to non-Jews who are being converted to Christ. Here is how James quotes it:

After this I will return,
and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen;
    from its ruins I will rebuild it,
        and I will set it up,
so that all other peoples may seek the Lord—
    even all the Gentiles over whom my name has been called (Acts 15.15-17; emphasis added).

   
James quotes Amos to make the point that non-Jews are to be included as part of God’s plan; therefore, the Jerusalem Church ought not be too hard on them when it comes to keeping Jewish laws and traditions. A compromise was reached, and Gentiles were not required to be circumcised.

The message of Amos is always relevant. It needs to be heard around the world:

Here’s what I want: Let justice thunder down like a waterfall;
        let righteousness flow like a mighty river that never runs dry (5.24, NCV).

Finish this: When I stop and think about all that I have, and then think about people who do not have enough,…..