when clean teath isn't a good thing

Good afternoon friends,
In today's reading Amos attacks the people of Israel for having a mismatch between their worship and their lives. When he talks about tithes and offerings, he suggests that people value their worship highly, but for selfish reasons. The truth is, if our faith and worship don't change our lives to lead us to treat our neighbors with justice, we aren't doing it right.

He also shows God using suffering to call the people back to God. Suffering is a challenge for our faith. The classic question is: "If God is all powerful and loving, why is there so much suffering?" I don't have an answer for that question, but we are going to spend the next several weeks in worship exploring faith and suffering. If suffering is a challenge for your faith, I'd encourage you to be in worship for the series. Since many people have questions about suffering, it would be a great series to invite a friend to. I can't promise answers, but I can promise thoughtful, biblical, honest engagement.

God bless,
Sam

Amos 4:1-13

Hear this word, you cows of Bashan who are on Mount Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their husbands, “Bring something to drink!” ²The Lord God has sworn by his holiness: The time is surely coming upon you, when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks. ³Through breaches in the wall you shall leave, each one straight ahead; and you shall be flung out into Harmon, says the Lord. ⁴Come to Bethel—and transgress; to Gilgal—and multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days; ⁵bring a thank-offering of leavened bread, and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel! says the Lord God.

⁶I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me, says the Lord. ⁷And I also withheld the rain from you when there were still three months to the harvest; I would send rain on one city, and send no rain on another city; one field would be rained upon, and the field on which it did not rain withered; ⁸so two or three towns wandered to one town to drink water, and were not satisfied; yet you did not return to me, says the Lord. ⁹I struck you with blight and mildew; I laid waste your gardens and your vineyards; the locust devoured your fig trees and your olive trees; yet you did not return to me, says the Lord. ¹⁰I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword; I carried away your horses; and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils; yet you did not return to me, says the Lord. ¹¹I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a brand snatched from the fire; yet you did not return to me, says the Lord.

¹²Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel! ¹³For lo, the one who forms the mountains, creates the wind, reveals his thoughts to mortals, makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth— the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name!

justice and repentance

Good evening sisters and brothers,
Amos is a real favorite of mine because he is scorching in his preaching against the injustice he saw in his home country. In 8th century (700-800 BC) the southern kingdom of Judah was doing well economically. The religious and political elite felt favored by God, so they figured they were doing things right. Amos tells them that they are wrong. A society's righteousness is not defined by how wealthy or successful it is, but by how it treats the poorest and most vulnerable. Israel's law (which instructs, but doesn't bind Christians) holds up values of protection and care for the poor and rejects profiting on other people's vulnerability. Amos calls Judah to account for how they treat the poor in powerful language. For Judah then and for us now, this is a call to repentance. I pray that each of us individually and our nation as a whole would hear God's call to repent and invitation to justice.

God bless,
Sam

Amos 2:4-13

⁴Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they have rejected the law of the Lord, and have not kept his statutes, but they have been led astray by the same lies after which their ancestors walked. ⁵So I will send a fire on Judah, and it shall devour the strongholds of Jerusalem. ⁶Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals— ⁷they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way; father and son go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned; ⁸they lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge; and in the house of their God they drink wine bought with fines they imposed.

⁹Yet I destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of cedars, and who was as strong as oaks; I destroyed his fruit above, and his roots beneath. ¹⁰Also I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and led you forty years in the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite. ¹¹And I raised up some of your children to be prophets and some of your youths to be nazirites. Is it not indeed so, O people of Israel? says the Lord. ¹²But you made the nazirites drink wine, and commanded the prophets, saying, “You shall not prophesy.” ¹³So, I will press you down in your place, just as a cart presses down when it is full of sheaves.

weights and measures

Good morning friends,
Undeterred by the priest's discouragement or his report to the king about Amos's preaching, Amos keeps sharing God's message. This is an odd vision because it's not at all obvious what a basket of summer fruit has to do with anything. As it turns out this vision is a play on words because the word for "summer fruit" and the word for "end" are similar in Hebrew (that's an insight from the study Bible, not my memory of Hebrew vocabulary). We can expect that Amos's vision of the end is going to be disturbing, and indeed it is.

We also hear more threats against those who take advantage of the poor. In this case the focus is on dishonest business practices. An ephah is a volume measure for grain or other things and a shekel is a weigh measure for money, so when you read this passage imagine a merchant in the market selling grain using falsely small baskets for their product and weighing their customers' money against a falsely balanced scale. Fair business practices are a matter of religious law as well as business ethics, and the Torah speaks specifically against dishonest weights and measures. Of course Israel's law as a nation was given by God, so there's not really a distinction between religious and secular law. On a broader level, the way we approach our daily lives, from work to shopping is part of how we live and express our faith.

Blessings,
Sam


Amos 8:1-14
This is what the Lord God showed me—a basket of summer fruit. 2He said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass them by. 3The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,” says the Lord God; “the dead bodies shall be many, cast out in every place. Be silent!”

4Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, 5saying, “When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances, 6buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat.” 7The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. 8Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who lives in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt? 9On that day, says the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight. 10I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day.

11The time is surely coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. 12They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it. 13In that day the beautiful young women and the young men shall faint for thirst. 14Those who swear by Ashimah of Samaria, and say, “As your god lives, O Dan,” and, “As the way of Beer-sheba lives”— they shall fall, and never rise again.

you can't silence the word

Good morning all,
We read this passage a week and a half ago in worship. It is a pretty jarring passage. Yesterday we saw Amos's vision of God with a plumb line; here we see the religious leader's response to his words. It seems that Amos was preaching at Bethel, one of the major religious centers of Israel, and a site that had been important religiously since before there were kings in Israel. As a priest Amaziah should hear and accept God's word, even though with this message we certainly wouldn't expect him to be happy about it. Instead he seeks to silence Amos because his words are too harsh.

The trouble is, silencing bad news doesn't make it go away. Instead, Amaziah is rejecting God's warning and loosing the opportunity to repent. As we see from Amos's prophesy, he is also angering God by trying to silence God's messenger. There's always a part of us that wants to hide from bad news and run away from our weaknesses. I pray that God would give us ears to hear and eyes to see so that we might receive judgement as an opportunity to return to God with all our strength.

God bless,
Sam

Amos 7:10-17
10Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. 11For thus Amos has said, ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.’” 12And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; 13but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.”

14Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, 15and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ 16“Now therefore hear the word of the Lord. You say, ‘Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Isaac.” 17Therefore thus says the Lord: ‘Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be parceled out by line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.’”

worship and righteousness

Good morning friends,
In this morning's reading Amos addresses the wealthy women in Israel, condemning them for living luxuriously while the poor languish. Bashan was a fertile area in Israel that was famous for its well-nourished, plump cattle. And as Amos refers to, according to my study Bible the Assyrians often did lead prisoners away from conquered places with hooks through their noses.

In addition to the prophecy of doom for the people of Israel, Amos criticizes their attention to religious ritual in sarcastic terms. His point is that they do the ritual they should but in the wrong spirit because their faith doesn't influence their lives. Jesus levels a similar charge at the Pharisees much later: "Woe to you Pharisees, hypocrites, you tithe mint and cumin but have neglected the weightier matters of the law like justice. You should have done this without neglecting the other." Faith isn't just going to worship and tithing faithfully; faith is trying to live every part of our lives by God's values, especially justice for all people.

God bless,
Sam

Amos 4:1-5
Hear this word, you cows of Bashan who are on Mount Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their husbands, “Bring something to drink!” 2The Lord God has sworn by his holiness: The time is surely coming upon you, when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks. 3Through breaches in the wall you shall leave, each one straight ahead; and you shall be flung out into Harmon, says the Lord. 4Come to Bethel—and transgress; to Gilgal—and multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days; 5bring a thank-offering of leavened bread, and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel! says the Lord God.

judgment and destruction

Good morning friends,
This morning we are back to Amos and he's in full force. Speaking for God he invites the Philistines and Egyptians to witness the injustice and oppression in Samaria (Israel's capital after the division). He foresees the invasion and defeat of Samaria with the only "rescue" being a few pieces of furniture. While he expects the total destruction of Samaria he also envisions the destruction of Bethel (standing in for the religious life of the nation) and the destruction of the wealthy people's homes. Since hypocritical religious worship (worship without justice) and social oppression by the rich are Amos's biggest concerns, this extra detail fits well with the rest of his work. These harsh words remind us how much God hates injustice. May we work to be part of the justice and peace God is building today.

God bless,
Sam

Amos 3:9-15
9Proclaim to the strongholds in Ashdod, and to the strongholds in the land of Egypt, and say, “Assemble yourselves on Mount Samaria, and see what great tumults are within it, and what oppressions are in its midst.” 10They do not know how to do right, says the Lord, those who store up violence and robbery in their strongholds. 11Therefore thus says the Lord God: An adversary shall surround the land, and strip you of your defense; and your strongholds shall be plundered. 12Thus says the Lord: As the shepherd rescues from the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear, so shall the people of Israel who live in Samaria be rescued, with the corner of a couch and part of a bed.

13Hear, and testify against the house of Jacob, says the Lord God, the God of hosts: 14On the day I punish Israel for its transgressions, I will punish the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground. 15I will tear down the winter house as well as the summer house; and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall come to an end, says the Lord.

sin and righteousness

Good morning everyone,
Today Amos's warnings get closer to home and he certainly doesn't pull any punches. He moves from the oracles against the nations to oracles against Judah and Israel. Notice the formula he uses is the same because even though God has a special relationship with Israel he rules all nations, so all of us face God as judge in the same way. Judah's sin is abandoning God's law, and their punishment will be fire, which probably means being burned by a conquering army. Amos is more specific in speaking against Israel: their sin has more to do with oppression of the poor and abuses by the powerful. The image of selling the righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of sandals is powerful and fitting for the way powerful people sometimes think of others, especially others without power, purely in terms of "profit centers."

Let me add two pieces of background that will help explain some of Amos's language. First, as God's special people Israel (and also Christians) are called to "be holy as I am holy." The book of Leviticus spells out in painstaking detail what it means to be holy like God, but the point is that people with a special relationship with God represent him, so when they act in ways that are wrong it desecrates God as well. Second, it was common practice when making a loan to take a piece of property belonging to the borrower as collateral. Scripture put limits on what could be taken and how it could be taken to protect the borrower, since they were probably in a vulnerable situation already. What do you think Amos's words here have to say to our society today?

God bless,
Sam


Amos 2:4-8
4Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they have rejected the law of the Lord, and have not kept his statutes, but they have been led astray by the same lies after which their ancestors walked. 5So I will send a fire on Judah, and it shall devour the strongholds of Jerusalem.

6Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals— 7they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way; father and son go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned; 8they lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge; and in the house of their God they drink wine bought with fines they imposed.

Judging the nations

Good morning sisters and brothers,
Today we jump into the prophet Amos, one of my favorite prophets because of his clear message of social justice. Amos probably prophesied and wrote in the 750's BCE in the Northern Kingdom, though he was from the South (Tekoa is about 10 miles from Jerusalem.) In this time Samaria was relatively stable and prosperous, but the Assyrian Empire to the east was becoming stronger and extending its influence. As it turns out, Assyria conquers Israel in 722 BCE.

Amos begins his book with a common form in prophetic writing, the oracle against the nations. Here he presents God's judgment against Syria (Aram), Gaza/Philistia and Tyre. You'll notice a repeated introduction for these oracles: "For three transgressions of_____ and for for I will not revoke the punishment..." This repetition gives structure to this part of the book. God judges these nations for their conduct in war; later we'll see Israel taken to task for social oppression. For Amos especially, news, social relations and politics are all a matter of faith. May we have eyes to see God's guidance everywhere.

God bless,
Sam


Amos 1:1-9
The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of King Uzziah of Judah and in the days of King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel, two years before the earthquake. 2And he said: The Lord roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds wither, and the top of Carmel dries up.

3Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing sledges of iron. 4So I will send a fire on the house of Hazael, and it shall devour the strongholds of Ben-hadad. 5I will break the gate bars of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitants from the Valley of Aven, and the one who holds the scepter from Beth-eden; and the people of Aram shall go into exile to Kir, says the Lord.

6Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they carried into exile entire communities, to hand them over to Edom. 7So I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, fire that shall devour its strongholds. 8I will cut off the inhabitants from Ashdod, and the one who holds the scepter from Ashkelon; I will turn my hand against Ekron, and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, says the Lord God. 9Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Tyre, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they delivered entire communities over to Edom, and did not remember the covenant of kinship. 10So I will send a fire on the wall of Tyre, fire that shall devour its strongholds.