Do you know Amos? He was a farmer who lived at a
time when the Land God had given his people had been divided in two. You see,
living in the Land was part of the covenant agreement between God and his
people, and as such was conditional, on holding faithfully to that covenant
agreement. God had established David as king, and his descendants. But David’s
son Solomon did not remain faithful to God, despite having had profound
experiences of encountering God himself. So God told Solomon that he would tear
the kingdom from his family, although, out of love for David, God would not do
that in Solomon’s time but in the time of his son; and God would not tear away
the whole kingdom, but leave one tribe plus the city of Jerusalem, which did
not belong to any of the tribes.
And so the kingdom was divided: Israel in the
north, ruled from Samaria; and Judah in the south, ruled from Jerusalem. Two
lines of kings. One after another, the kings in Samaria led the people away
from God, until God's patience ran out, and Israel was carried off into exile
in Assyria. The kings in Jerusalem were not much better – there were a couple
of revivals, and Judah is spared for a longer time, but eventually God’s
patience ran out with the southern kingdom too, and they were carried off into
exile in Babylon.
But again and again, God sent prophets to call his
people to repent and believe, to turn away from corruption and embrace God’s
pattern for a just society.
Amos was an unlikely prophet – a farmer, the son
of a farmer, no history of prophets - those sent by God to proclaim a message,
to hold out potential futures and call the people to choose life not death - no
history of prophets in his family history. But God calls this southern farmer
and sends him to speak to the urban ruling elite of the northern kingdom...who
tell him to take the next train back south and not come back again.
But he will not. God has placed a word within him
that must be given voice, whether the people respond or not. And the word is
this: your kingdom is rotten to the core. The wealthy have become obscenely
rich; the poor, a scandal. A scandal not of their own making, through a
stubborn refusal to become rich; rather, they are exploited, by a political
system that exploits them, stealing their land so that most of the resources
are in the hands of a very few, and a corrupt judicial system that refuses to
stand up for them and deliver justice. Moreover, the ruling elite have become
utterly immoral in their private lives - for the public and the private are
inseparable - while displaying a public piety that might fool some, but
certainly doesn't fool God.
The problem with the Bible is that it was written
so long ago and in such a very different culture from our own that it is hard
to see what relevance it has to our day...No, despite the constant temptation
to adopt a positivist view of human history, this sounds frighteningly current.
The message Amos brought was this: you have not
been faithful to the covenant agreement with God. A society built on injustice
cannot stand indefinitely. That you are enjoying the fruits of darkness for now
is testimony to God’s patience, not his approval. Though you are unfaithful, he
is faithful, and that is why he keeps calling you back. But if you will not
return, if you will not repent and change your ways, your world will collapse,
will come to an end. And because God is faithful, he will, in time, restore
those you have exploited. In time, they will prosper; but in order for that to
happen, you will have been removed.
The elite of Samaria did not repent, and sometime
later were swept away, never to return. So much for then. What does Amos have
to say to us, today?
Firstly, as part of the family of faith, Amos is
our ancestor, a prophet in our family line. We, too, are sent to address the
ruling elite, to remind them of the burden placed upon them to administer
justice, to defend the widow, the orphan and the resident alien, to protect the
poor from the rich. We are sent to remind them of God's patience, but also that
a corrupt society sows its own destruction.
But our speaking out does not guarantee that
hearts will turn away from the fruits of darkness. It may well be that we will
be called, as some of the prophets were called, to live through the end of the
world as we have known it. To play our part in being faithful in a ruined land.
And to play our part in rebuilding communities after the waters have subsided.
No comments:
Post a Comment