Recharge Bible Study: A future worth losing for

The Full Monty:

Amos 5-6 To read if you have time to take in the wider context.

The continental option:

Amos 5:14-24 To read if you want the core of the story.

One shot espresso:

Amos 5:23,24 ‘Away with your noisy hymns of praise! I will not listen to the music of your harps. Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living.’ (NLT) 

There have been many bizarre speeches at the Oscars, but the strangest was that given in 1973 on behalf of Marlon Brando. It was not an acceptance speech, so much as a rejection of the Academy’s honour. Brando was the winner of the Best Actor award for his role in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. Instead of attending the ceremony, he sent along Sacheen Littlefeather, a native American actress. Littlefeather had time to read only part of Brando’s prewritten speech, refusing the award in protest at the treatment of Native Americans by the US and specifically its film industry. The full text of the speech was printed in the New York Times, in which Brando said:

‘It would seem that the respect for principle and the love of one’s neighbour have become dysfunctional in this country of ours, and that all we have done, all that we have succeeded in accomplishing with our power is simply annihilating the hopes of the new-born countries in this world, as well as friends and enemies alike, that we’re not humane, and that we do not live up to our agreements… If we are not our brother’s keeper, at least let us not be his executioner… I would hope that those who are listening would not look upon this as a rude intrusion, but as an earnest effort to focus attention on an issue that might very well determine whether or not this country has the right to say from this point forward we believe in the inalienable rights of all people to remain free and independent on lands that have supported their life beyond living memory.’

The context of Brando’s controversial tirade was that the crimes of which he accused his fellow citizens - their mistreatment of native peoples and their refusal to abide by the conditions of agreements they had signed - were perpetrated not in times of war and strife but of prosperity and peace. It was the very affluence of American culture that made this failure to ‘love one’s neighbour’ such a scandal. How is it that peace and prosperity can bring out in a culture not its best behaviour, but the worst of its weaknesses?

Amos Everdeen

Amos, the shepherd who became a prophet to both Israel and Judah, might well have pondered the same question. The first prophet to lend his name to a book of scripture, Amos was an early contemporary of Isaiah. He lived in the era when Jeroboam ruled Israel’s northern kingdom and the much-loved Uzziah was king in Judah, the southern kingdom. This was a time of relative calm for God’s people. Enemies who, in the past had threatened and harassed them, notably Syria and Assyria, were locked into a protracted war, too busy fighting each other to bother with the Jews. Peace brought prosperity, and the people of both Israel and Judah were more comfortable than they had been for generations.

You might think that the result would be a stirring period of praise and gratitude to God; a season of passion for Yahweh that recognised his goodness. Far from it. This was an era of complacency and laziness, when God’s people ‘lived at ease’ (6:1). They  ‘recline on beds of ivory and sprawl on their couches’ (6:4). The people are living in safety and security, feasting on fine meats (6:4), drinking good wines (6:6) and anointing themselves with expensive oils (6:6). They are so self-satisfied they are even writing worship songs to praise themselves (6:5)! The picture is of an indolent self-satisfaction; God’s people have forgotten their God. Two glaring symptoms shout loudly that the people are no longer devoted to their God: their worship of idols and their crass mistreatment of the poor.

Amos is uniquely qualified to point out these twin failings for two reasons. Firstly, because he is himself a poor farmer (1:1, 7:14), detached entirely from the ruling classes and their priestly collaborators (7:10). Amos sees the world from the underside. He is Katniss Everdeen to Jeroboam’s Coriolanus Snow. Secondly, Amos is devoted to Yahweh. His has a simple faith of worship and obedience. He speaks because God has called him (7:15). Prophecy, for Amos, flows from a relationship with God - the very relationship so many of his contemporaries have left behind. When he denounces the public festivals of Israel (5:21-23), you can hear in his words the passion of a true worshipper. Worship, for Amos, reflects the character of God. It includes justice and mercy because God is just and merciful. To annex the name of Yahweh to anything short of this is, in itself, a form of idolatry. What can we learn from the life and words of this outspoken peasant?

God can and will use your background

Your experiences and insights and the things that by their nature make you angry are part of your prophetic calling. They can never be all of it, because unrefined anger becomes petulance not prophecy, but if you will let your God, in worship, shape you, he can bring the best out from your history. Moses tasted life on both sides of the tracks. David was a simple shepherd. Jesus served a long apprenticeship in woodwork. Mary was a poor, uneducated teenager. Gideon was not the only hero to hear God say, ‘Go in the strength you have…’ What threads of justice, passion and righteousness lie dormant in your story waiting for God’s fire to give them life? Even that which has hurt you in the past can be refined by grace to become a vital aspect of your calling.

Comfort is the enemy, not the friend, of conviction

Do you pray more when you’re broke, or when you have money in the bank? Does sickness compel you to seek God, or health? Conflict or harmony? In my own experience it is need - painful, personal need - that most drives me to the place of prayer. The things I so often pray for - provision, comfort, healing, safety - are, ironically, the very things that cause me to pray less. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst, Jesus said, but how many of us want to be hungry and thirsty? Amos shows us that in our personal as in our national life, it is in times of peace and prosperity that we should most give attention to our devotion to God. Where circumstances don’t drive us to the place of prayer, we need another motor, and only personal commitment will do it. There are motivations that are thrust upon us, and there are motivations we must choose. The second type is harder, by a long stretch, to maintain.

Very little changes in the real landscape of human interactions

The judgements of Amos are delivered to a people who, by today’s standards, lived in poverty and privation. Only Uzziah and Jeroboam, as kings, would have a lifestyle that comes remotely close to the comforts we now enjoy. We are so much better off than the people of the Eighth Century BC, but have our flush toilets and flat-screen TV’s made us more or less devoted to God? Have we too forgotten our maker, and all that he has done for us? Does the worship in our churches sometimes sound like a series of songs composed in our own honour? And what of the poor in our midst? Are we mindful of their needs? For Marlon Brando in 1973, it was the lives of Native Americans that roused a conscience. Who might it be in your world today? We are, in reality, no different from the people Amos spoke against, and his challenge to them works equally for us: to return to our God (4:8-11); to root out our idolatry (5:5) and to care for the poor in our midst (2:6, 4:1, 5:11, 5:12, 8:4, 8:6). The parallel with Isaiah 58 is unmissable; only through ‘true fasting’ can we find the true blessings God has for us.

No judgement of God is purely bad news

Beyond the admonition, the naming of our sins, there is the hope of redemption, the promise of a nation restored. Amos is a stunning poet, and he ends his book with one of the most beautiful descriptions in all history of the promise of God’s kingdom (9:11-15).

Take Away

Two easily digestible tweet-sized bites