Amos 5: 6-7, 10-15
Natasha Taylor
October 13, 2024
Amos has shared some harsh words from God to the people of the Northern Kingdom - “Seek the Lord and live, or the Lord will break out against the house of Joseph like fire.” Throughout the whole book, Amos shares messages of anger and frustration in response to the ways that the wealthy in the Northern Kingdom, which included descendants of Joseph, were treating the poor. Clearly, in the generations since Joseph showed mercy to his brothers, who had sold him into slavery, providing food and a home for them in the midst of a great famine, his descendants have decided to live differently.
Scholars tell us that this was a time of great prosperity in the Northern Kingdom - well, for the wealthy that is. They had exploited poorer landowners so that they could obtain larger farms and vineyards, and built large homes for their pleasure and ease. The wealthy then collected levies from the former landowners, who were now working these large farms and vineyards, so that the wealthy could sustain their lavish lifestyles.
This description doesn’t sound that foreign to us, does it? There have always been, and will likely always be, some people who are more concerned about how much they have and the ease of their own life, more than they are concerned with those around them. And so perhaps we hear Amos’s prophecy of judgment with some relief because those who have exploited others will get what they deserve - judgment and destruction.
The other message that Amos has been sent to share is that God is angry with their superficial worship. Later in chapter 5 are verses you might have heard before - “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them, and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps” (v21-23). The people have continued to fulfill - in action at least - the prescribed festivals and worship practices, but God knows their hearts, and we have seen their actions. There is much recorded in the Hebrew Bible about how the Israelites were to worship God, how they were to maintain their holiness, but Amos is making it clear that God cares more about their intention in worship than whether or not they have kept the traditions.
When Hannah and I were first talking about our service today, she pointed out a connection to the prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel believes that our immaterial faith is demonstrated by victory in material things, in our financial and physical wellbeing. This moves beyond the idea that God will provide for God’s children to the idea that I will gain wealth if my faith is strong enough. How can we know if our faith is strong enough? Well, if we participate in all the festivals, make all the appropriate offerings, sing all the right songs, that all has to demonstrate our faith, right?
Amos is telling the Israelites, no, none of those things demonstrate your faith! In fact, all your worship is made unpleasant to God because of what you are doing in the rest of your lives! In this passage, God is making it clear that God knows “how many are your transgressions and how great are your sins” and that is what God is judging, not what they are doing in the sanctuary. God is concerned about how they are treating the poor and the righteous.
Of course, Amos’s message isn’t just for the worst of us, the ones that have hoarded wealth and power. The reality is that we can find ourselves in most, if not all of Amos’s condemnations in this passage. Have we ever ignored someone calling out injustice, or given them a hard time? Maybe we haven’t enforced levies or taxes on others, but we live within systems that we know harm others and have we voted in ways to lead to changing those systems? Have we kept silent when we see harm being done? Trust me when I say that I know how hard it is to hear and truly consider these questions! While the details may be different, the heart of Amos’s message is still relevant - God has called us to love God and love our neighbors and we have failed in doing both.
And yet, Amos reminds us that God hasn’t completely abandoned us. Yes, he’s better at pronouncing the condemnation we face - Amos is a prophet and not a pastor - but he tells us that we should “seek good and not evil, that you may live, and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, just as you have said” (v14). Despite all that we do, all the ways we fail to love God and love our neighbors, God longs for us to come back to our senses and seek God.
I’ll be honest, often when I think of seeking someone I think of playing hide-and-seek. There are variations of the game, but it always involves action - seeking means I am moving about, looking under every table, opening every door, imagining all the spaces someone can fit into. So when we’re told to “seek the Lord and live,” I have this image of moving through the world, looking into every space, opening doors, imagining all the places God can fit into. While I think that God would be an expert hide-and-seek player, I firmly believe that God doesn’t want to hide from us. However, just as when we are playing hide-and-seek in a place we don’t know well or with people who are more competitive than we think they are, we aren’t always good at finding, or recognizing God.
Luckily, God knows this and we have not only been given Biblical stories about where our ancestors in faith have encountered God, we have been given a whole community of people we actually talk to about where they have seen God! And the reality is that God is everywhere we look! We all are created in God’s image, God’s image is throughout all of creation.
Amos’s audience had stopped looking for God, focusing instead on what would bring them prosperity in this world. They had forgotten that God does not judge using the same standards of the world, and that God’s standards are what truly matters. When we seek God, when we are actively looking for how to live as God wants us to, we recognize that we do impact the world around us.
Long ago, someone explained that if I’m taking care of those around me, and they’re doing the same, rather than just one person (me) taking care of me, I’ll have a host of folks taking care of me. This is an idea that at first feels unsurprising - it’s a simple reality that five people looking out for me is more than just one looking out for me. But isn’t it so easy to forget that it’s really that simple? When we all care for those around us - when we all care for God’s creation around us - everyone, including ourselves, are taken care of!
When we hear the words of Amos, and other prophets throughout the centuries, we clearly hear the condemnation and think God has abandoned us. But God has not abandoned us - we have forgotten how to seek God, who is hiding right in front of us, longing for us to come to our senses and see God in all the places God can fit in this world God created.
And so we join the psalmist in praying, “Teach us to count our days, that we may gain a wise heart! Let your work be manifest to your servants and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and prosper for us the work of our hands!” (90:12, 16-17).