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Posts Tagged ‘Father Dave’

It’s very graphic – the book of Hosea – and full of passion. For what is at stake, Hosea believes, is not simply a nation that is breaking a few commandments, but rather an entire people who have forsaken the lover of their souls.

“Plead with your mother, plead – for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband – that she put away her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts; lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst.” (Hosea 2:2-3)

No, we’re not at Sexpo, but you could be forgiven for wondering what place words such as these should have in the church, or, moreover, in the Bible! Ah, but we are in the book of Hosea, which has to be one of the most bizarre books in the Bible, and certainly contains one of the most bizarre stories.

Last week we looked at Amos – my favourite prophet. This week I get to introduce you to his bizarre mate, Hosea – another character who prophesied a message of judgement to Northern Israel, in the 8th century B.C.

These men may actually have been mates! Certainly they were preaching in the same place to roughly the same group of people at the same point in Israel‘s history. Many scholars think that Hosea might have started his work just as Amos finished his. Even so, there may well have been some overlap.

Certainly they were speaking to the same generation of people in the same place, and both were delivering equally grim messages of doom, though, despite all these similarities, there is no mistaking one prophet for the other!

Amos, you will remember, was a farmer from the South, who felt called to go and preach to the people of the North, after which he presumably returned to his farm. Hosea seems to have been a northerner to begin with, and we don’t know what his vocational background was, but he certainly seemed to have had a strong connection to the sex industry!

Hosea indeed married to a sex worker. That is clear. What is not so clear is whether, after divorcing his first wife, he then went on to marry a second sex worker, or whether, as most scholars who have tried to reconstruct his story suggest, he went back to his first wife and married her again – plucking her directly from the brothel, it seems, to take her back home!

However we piece together the details, two things about Hosea are uncontestable:

That he had a highly dysfunctional family life.

That his life, and most especially his tragic marriage, was his message!

Christian couples who give a priority to ministry have always recognised that there is no shielding your family from the work, and I don’t only mean persons in the ordained ministry. Any family that gives priority to ministry and mission recognises that giving yourself to God and to other people cannot be constrained within a nine-to-five framework. All your family will be effected.

Every couple in mission drags their children with them. It is inevitable! But no one in the history of the missionary work of the people of God, so far as I know, has ever pushed the envelope further in this regard than did Hosea!

Hosea did not just drag his family with him into battle (so to speak) while doing his best to shield them. Rather, he more or less threw his family out in front of him and stood behind them! He did this not only to his wife – his living sermon illustration of unfaithfulness. He did it equally to his three children, each of whom received a horrible symbolic name!

I admit, I did at one stage feel tempted to call our baby son, ‘Doom’, but that was because I really loved the game (the world’s first 3D shooter).

Hosea named his son, ‘Jezreel’, which doesn’t sound too bad until you realise that Jezreel was the place where Jehu, after killing King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, butchered their entire household – children, family, friends, associates, and really anybody who had even been rumoured to have had a friendly conversation with the deposed royal family. Each had his or her head thrown into a basket at Jezreel.

Calling your son Jezreel was like calling him, ‘9/11’ or even ‘Auschwitz’ – a name that evoked memories of violence and judgement. And the two girls didn’t fare much better. The first was named, “not pitied”, and the second, “not my people”. Admittedly, their names don’t sound too bad in Hebrew – Lo’-ruhamah and Lo’-ammi – but I’m still guessing that they had a hard time at school. Indeed, I can’t imagine their teacher keeping a straight face during roll-call:

Jessica (here sir)

Jacob (here sir)

Not my people …

It is Hosea’s wife, Gomer, though who was the real focus of the prophet’s message, for in her waywardness, Hosea believed, she illustrated the essential problem in the relationship between Israel and her God.

It matters not whether Hosea’s tragic marriage only started after he received his prophetic calling or whether he and Gomer had always struggled, as a couple and as individuals. What is clear is that Hosea saw Gomer’s inability to remain faithful to him as mirroring his nation’s failure in faithfulness towards their God. Gomer flirted and played and got sexually involved with a variety of partners. So likewise, Hosea said, Israel was flirting with the ‘Baals’’, and waking up in bed with even the most vile of foreign deities!

It’s very graphic – the book of Hosea – and full of passion. For what is at stake, Hosea believes, is not simply a nation that’s breaking a few commandments, but rather a people that had forsaken the lover of their souls. They had turned their backs on the one who loved them and who had always loved them.

“But I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no saviour. It was I who knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought; but when they had grazed, they became full, they were filled, and their heart was lifted up; therefore they forgot me.” (Hosea 13:4-6)

Hosea prophecies judgement, but it is judgement with a purpose. The punishment of the people, the prophet hopes, will awaken them to the fact that they have abandoned their true partner and God, and so it will lead them back to Him.

[Israel has] “played the whore … For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’ Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths. She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them. Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.’“ (Hosea 2:5-7)

The essential problem, Hosea says, is a lack of commitment to the relationship on the part of Israel – a steadfast marriage-like commitment, embodied in the Hebrew word, ’hesed’, normally translated as ’covenant faithfulness’ or ’steadfast love’.

“For I desire steadfast love (ie. ‘hesed’),” says the Lord, “and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6)

Religion, as a set of empty rituals, he says, is not enough. Sacrifice and sacraments do not in themselves constitute a relationship with the Almighty any more than a wedding ceremony constitutes a meaningful marriage! It is love that is needed: real love, faithfulness, sacrifice, commitment, ‘hesed’.

Now I’m not going to plough further through Hosea today. You can read it yourself in about half an hour, and it really is a book with a single theme and a single message. What I want to conclude with is rather to think a little more about how this prophet, Hosea, compares with his contemporary, Amos.

For the two were, as I said, addressing roughly the same group of people at roughly the same time, and certainly in exactly the same place! Yet if you didn’t work that out, by looking at the timelines they each supply, you could be forgiven for thinking that they are addressing entirely different situations!

Amos’ message seemed to be basically a call to social justice! His words of judgment and doom came in response to the systematic oppression of the poor that was taking place in Israel. The people of the north had developed an unjust system whereby the rich and the powerful were crushing the poor and the weak. The judges were being bribed and there was no justice in the courts. The bottom line had become the bottom line, and all morality and human need had been set aside for the sake of good business!

Hosea barely mentions any of this. Indeed, he barely mentions the social situation at all. Instead, his focus is almost exclusively on the personal relationship between the people of Israel and their God, who is depicted as their lover, their husband, and their true and only life-partner.

So we must ask, were the two prophets just talking about totally different things? Did they have complimentary ministries – one focusing on the secular issues of the people and the other on their spiritual needs? Would it be correct to say that Amos and Hosea cover different issues within Israel – injustice and oppression on the one hand, idolatry and unfaithfulness on the other. One prophet challenges the priests and clergy with spiritual issues, the other challenges politicians and businessmen with economic issues.

This is how this pair of prophets have often been depicted, and I think that this is a mistake, for I believe that the distinction we like to make, between religious issues and justice issues, between the spiritual and the economic, is a distinction that is alien to the Bible itself.

In the Bible, the love of God and the love of neighbour cannot be easily separated. As the Apostle John would later say, “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar” It’s not that the two are simply inconsistent. They are contradictory. “for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” (1John 4:20)

When we work for justice and uphold the cause of the needy, we participate in a spiritual and religious act.

“Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the LORD”, says the writer of Proverbs (19:17). Likewise, to stand up for someone who is weak is an act of love not only towards that person but towards his or her God! Conversely, to neglect your neighbour, even the least of your brethren, is Biblically understood as an act of unfaithfulness towards God Himself!

What we see in the prophecies of Amos and Hosea are not two men seeing two different dimensions to a national problem. They are seeing the same problem, but they describe it differently!

When Amos decried those who “sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals” (Amos 2) he wasn’t upset because it was unconstitutional! Amos saw this as an offence against God, who took it personally, and would not tolerate a society where one segment of the population exploited another.

Likewise, when Hosea laments the loss of ‘hesed’ (ie. divine love) in the land, this is inextricably tied in to the crimes of violence he sees around him.

“There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.” (Hosea 4:1-2)

Friends, if there’s one thing I would like you to take home from our two-week venture into the 8th century prophets, it is this: that there is no distinction between sacred and secular worlds. There is no dividing wall between physical and spiritual, between the religious and the economic, between human issues and divine issues, between faith and politics.

All truth is God’s truth! All love is God’s love! All acts of mercy and justice are spiritual and religious acts, and genuine worship of the God of the Bible will always be embedded in communities that exude justice, mercy and love.

As Amos would say, if you want to genuinely worship the God of the Bible, then “let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like and ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24), or as Hosea would put it, while those who “sow the wind, reap the whirlwind” (8:7), if you “sow for yourselves justice, you will reap steadfast love”. (4:12)

When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into these boats and went to Capernaum to look for Jesus.

When they had found him on the other side of the sea, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus replied to them, “Truly, truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate the loaves and were completely satisfied. Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”

Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God: to believe in the one whom he has sent.”

So they said to him, “What sign are you going to do so that we may see it and believe in you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

Then they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread all the time.”

A wise person once told me that what you see in life depends on what you are looking at, and that what you hear depends on who you listen to, just as the answers you get depend largely on the questions you ask.

Now I do apologize for beginning my sermon with such a ponderous set of philosophical axioms, but in truth I actually want to use those questions to introduce the even more obscure German philosophical concept of ‘fragestellung’, which I think translates roughly as ‘the putting of the question’.  According to some of the great German thinkers, it’s the ‘fragestellung’ – ie. the way you pose the question and the position of the questioner – that is all important in determining the answer you get.

And while I’m not in the habit of calling upon the fathers of continental existentialism at this time on a Sunday morning, I did think we might need some help in understanding why Jesus responded with such aggression and even sarcasm to a group of people who asked Him a very simple question – namely, “When did you get here?”

It was the first of a series of questions that a throng of people posed to Jesus, as recorded in this Gospel reading from John chapter 6.

Jesus, it appears, was trying to put some distance between Himself and the crowd that was pursuing Him, and so as darkness fell after the great feeding miracle, He withdrew quietly into the hills and, while the crowd slept, He crossed the lake.

The crowd though, it seems, outsmart Him and track Him down.  They find Him and ask, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”  Jesus responds with sarcasm,  “You guys are only here for another feed!”

Admittedly, that’s my translation of John 6:26.  Your Bible probably reads: “Truly, truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate the loaves and were completely satisfied.” but I think it amounts to much the same thing.

“You’re here because you ate your fill!”, says Jesus – the implication being that they are looking for another free lunch, or, possibly, the other way of interpreting this being that they’d come back not so much for food as such but rather to see another fantastic miracle of a similar standard.  Either way, it seems that Jesus treats their return with some degree of contempt!

This is not the Jesus we are used to, is it?  The Jesus we are more familiar with is the Jesus who speaks of the Kingdom of God as being like one great big party to which everybody is invited – the rich, the poor, the slave, the free, blacks, whites, Jews, Greeks, males, females, gays, straights, the good, the bad and the ugly!  But not here!  ‘What are you doing here’, Jesus says.  ‘It seems that you’re just here for the show!’

Admittedly, of course, Jesus did have the best show in town.  If you were a rural peasant living out in the backwoods of Galilee, you wouldn’t get many opportunities to see something like that! Jesus was the best show in town!

That’s part of our problem for us, of course.  We, the church,  are no longer the best show in town – not for 21st Century Sydney-siders at any rate.  There was a time when the Sunday service at the local village church, with all its pageantry and colour, was the best show in town, but nowadays we cannot compete, and that despite our excellent musical team (and first-class preachers )..

Our Pentecostal sisters and brothers tend to do a little better than us in this regard of course – putting on a slightly more dynamic show.  Even so,  it is hard in this day and age to compete with the level of entertainment that can be streamed directly into your living-room, let alone with the standards of performance available at the theatre, and maybe that’s a good thing, as it seems that Jesus really wasn’t interested in functioning as an entertainer.

‘You guys are only here for another feed’. It’s  a harsh response to what seems to be a rather innocent question, but it’s the position of the questioner that is important here – the fragestellung. The answers they get from Jesus will depend on the questions they ask, and the problem is that they are asking the wrong questions because they are there for all the wrong reasons.

Now, as I say, I think we have to assume some level of sarcasm on the part of Jesus, as I’m sure that not all those people were all there only for the sake of getting another free feed.  Indeed, I imagine that most of them were there principally because their friends were there.

That’s how most of us have ended up here in this church, isn’t it? We followed our friends?  And I’m not suggesting that this is something that we need to feel ashamed of either. It’s sorta natural.

Of course that won’t account for everyone, and indeed there may be some here in church this morning who are here because God spoke to them and said, ‘Get ye up and go ye to Dulwich Hill’  just as there may be some people listening to the online version of this sermon who reached it by Googlling ‘I want to hear a really solid sermon’, but that’s not likely to account for most of us.  For most of us it is most likely that we are here because we’ve followed family or friends.

Mind you, I think it’s clear too that some people do come to Jesus because they are looking for solid wisdom and rules to live by.  And indeed, that had to be a part of the agenda for the crowd who were chasing Jesus in John 6, for the first question they ask Him (after the seemingly innocuous ‘How long have you been here’ ) is “What must we do to perform the works of God?”

Perhaps that was their real agenda – their deeper reason – for following Jesus.  Perhaps, for many of them at least, they weren’t simply looking for another free feed but really wanted someone to tell them how they ought to be living their lives – what rules they should be following in order to please God, as indeed I think it is a very natural human hunger to want to be told what to do.

I appreciate, of course, that once we human beings reach our teenage years we tend to rail against being told what to do as much as we can, though of course one of the great ironies is that some of us who rail against the rules most violently do so by joining highly structured gangs where junior members are told exactly what they can and cannot do!

Human beings do seem to find security in straightforward rules and boundaries, and perhaps most  especially in this day and age when the possibilities for life are so great and when so many things are up for grabs.

Once upon a time, it would have been straightforward to me as a young man to know what vocation I was to pursue in life. I would have followed on in the trade of my father (and become the village smith!).  Or as a woman, my prospects would have been reasonably straightforward.  I might have not known exactly who I was to marry, but the path of marriage and motherhood would have been non-negotiable and beyond my control, as quite possibly would have been my choice of life-partner.

Nowadays we have enormous freedom of choice, not only over how we choose to live our lives as women and men, but in terms of how we understand ourselves as women and men.  And while we really appreciate that freedom and don’t want to return to the bad old days, at the same time, I am sure that the rise in popularity of more legalistic religious systems in our culture is an indication of the fact that there is something in each of us that just wants to be told who we are and what we are supposed to be doing!

I do believe that this is part of the reason for the increasing popularity of Islam in our world today. Of course an understandable contempt for the  corruption of Western civilisation also plays a role, but I would suggest that one of the most attractive things about Islam is that it gives you a very straightforward set of rules to live by. It tells you exactly who you are and how you ought to live!

Judaism, which was the religion Jesus’ disciples were familiar with, does the same. It just has even more rules and regulations!  And if you were a God-fearing Jew, the chief role of your Rabbi would have been to tell you, when you weren’t sure what to do, exactly what you should be doing.

And so the crowd ask Jesus “What must we do to perform the works of God?”  and Jesus, notably, refuses to dictate to any of them what they should do, beyond telling them that what they should  do is believe in Him!

And again the real issue here is the fragestellung – the ‘position of the questioner’ and the ‘putting of the question’. For of course there is nothing wrong, in itself, with asking Jesus how it is that God wants us to live, but if where you are coming from in asking that question is that you are looking for a straightforward set of laws and rules to live by, then it is not the right question, for that is not what Jesus was about.  That was not what Jesus came to give.  That is not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ!

For what was it that Jesus came to give us?  If it wasn’t a set of rules and more than it was a free feed. What did Jesus come to give us? He came to give us Himself!

“I am the bread of life”, says Jesus, “The one who comes to me will never become hungry, and the one who believes in me will never become thirsty.” (John 6:35)

And this is what we need to grasp, for this is the point of demarcation between Jesus and any number of other religious teachers, as this is the point of distinction between the Christian faith and any number of religious systems, for what Jesus gives us is not a new set of rules or a free feed. He gives us Himself, and so the Christian life is not a life lived according to a new set of laws but a life lived in mystical union with Jesus, where He enters into us by His Spirit and becomes our food and drink, so that He might live His life through us.

And it is quite possible that we will never really grasp this if we allow our relationship with Jesus to be dominated by our own set of questions – ‘how do I become successful?’, ‘where do I find happiness?’, ‘where do I get a free lunch?’  – or if our ‘fragestellung’ is such that our perception of Jesus is always twisted around our own agenda.

For what you see in life depends on what you are looking at, and what you hear depends on who you listen to, and the answers you receive depend on the questions you ask.

“I am the bread of life”, says Jesus, “The one who comes to me will never become hungry, and the one who believes in me will never become thirsty.”

Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?” The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.” (Amos 8:1-12)

I sorta promised someone in the parish that I’d choose a more cheery passage next time I preached. “Come unto me all ye who labour and are heavy laden” was suggested – a message of encouragement and hope. This is not that sermon.

Inspired by our set lectionary readings, for better or worse, I have found myself irresistibly drawn again to the figure of Amos – one of the fieriest or the fiery prophets of the Old Testament. So … my apologies, but strap yourselves in!

Amos is actually an old friend of mine. Indeed, we became friends a long time ago. During my crazy early Christian days, when I was busy preaching on street corners, trying to convert all my old friends, doing my best to share all my possessions, set up shared bank accounts with the other members of the youth fellowship, and turn my flat into a de-facto shelter for local alcoholic persons, Amos was my inspiration.

I preached my first ever sermon at my home church – the Chinese Presbyterian Church in Surry Hills – on Amos, at the first service of the day, and I got so carried away that I just couldn’t be stopped. I preached for 25, 30, 35, 40 minutes, and as people arrived for next service and started knocking on the door, I was still going! You have been warned! Strap yourself in (and pour yourself a cup of coffee).

Why was I so drawn to the figure of Amos? Because nobody in the Bible, I think, more clearly reflects the Biblical passion for social justice as does the prophet Amos

Amos was an 8th century prophet, meaning that he preached in the 8th century B.C., before the destruction of Northern Israel.

If you know the history of ancient Israel, you know that after the reigns of King David and his son Solomon, there was a civil war of sorts in Israel, after which the country was split into north and south. The southern state of Judah remained loyal to the line of David and maintained Jerusalem as their capital, while the much larger state of northern Israel set up their capital city in Samaria, and built there an alternate temple, which, according to the books of Chronicles, was the beginning of the end.

The importance of this with regards to Amos is that Amos was a southerner, from the southern state of Judah, but was preaching in the north! This was a point of tension for Amos, and when he comes into conflict with the northern religious authorities he’s told to go back home and mind his own business, and I’m sure that his southern drawl would have made it difficult for him to get a unbiased hearing.

Amos was no professional preacher either, with a clever, polished style. He tells us quite frankly that he was a farmer who felt called one day to go and preach to the people of the north. So he closed the farm door, got on his donkey, rode all the way to Samaria, the capital of the north, set up a soap-box, and started preaching:

Thus says the LORD: “For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment” (Amos 1:3)

I’m in Amos chapter one, where we read of Amos giving a series of prophecies of doom to a variety of middle-eastern nations – Damascus, Moab, Edom, etc. – and he speaks of the terrible judgement that God is going to bring upon these peoples for the crimes of violence that they have committed.

We’re told that the people of Damascus “threshed Gilead with sledges of iron”, and that the Edomites hunted down their Israelite relatives “and showed no pity”. We’re told that the Ammonites even “ripped open pregnant women in Gilead”!

We are not unfamiliar with this sort of violence. Crimes such as these continue to happen. Indeed, for some of our parishioners, who have come to us seeking refuge from their own war-torn homelands, these reports may sound all too close to home!

They were crimes took place, of course, in the context of war, but so far as Amos in concerned, this is no excuse. Don’t bother pleading, “I was only following orders”. God will not overlook such terrible acts of inhumanity.

In terms of Amos’ overall message, it’s worth recognising that in this opening spiel, Amos is railing exclusively against Israel‘s enemies. Indeed, if you take a map of the area and pinpoint the nations that Amos targets in these prophecies, you‘ll see that they encircle Israel, and that crimes of violence were all perpetrated on Israelites.

This was probably Amos‘ attempt to get his audience on-side by whipping them into a patriotic frenzy. “Woe to the you violent Iranians”, he cries. “woe to the Syrians, woe to you Hezbollah Muslim fanatics”, … and all the people say, “Amen!”

In chapter 2 though, Amos adjusts his sights, extending his message of doom firstly to Southern Judah (his home country) and then finally to the people of the north, and again it’s for crimes of violence, though this time of a more subtle nature:

Thus 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 – those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted; a man and his father go in to the same maiden, so that my holy name is profaned; they lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge, and in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.” (Amos 2:6-8)

Amos’ basic charge is one of violence against the poor, but it’s not because there are gangs roaming the streets, beating up poor people (‘Clockwork Orange’ style). Rather, what is being targeted is systematic injustice that is being perpetrated through the government and through the economy!

This practice of ‘selling the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals’ refers to a business practice whereby poor people were being ripped of and further impoverished though an unfair system of trade. While the exact details are not known, we know today that people are still being ‘sold for a pair of sandals’ ,or running shoes, at any rate (made in the third world factories belonging to Nike etc).

And along with these unfair trade practices go high interest rates from the banks and money-lenders, that make it almost impossible for the poor to get ahead. They “lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge, and in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.”

It says in the Torah that if you if a poor man gives you his coat as a acuity for a loan, you have to give that garment back to him at nightfall so he has something to sleep on. What we see here though is that the money-lenders are charging exorbitant interest rates from these poor people, taking their garments, yet have the gall to take them to the temple and sit on them while they drink!

The temple-worship of these businessmen strikes Amos as blatant hypocrisy, and he’ll come back to that again. Let’s note though first that Amos also launches an indictment here against ‘a man and his father who go into the same maiden’.

We assume that this is more than just a particular incident of promiscuity. Most likely cult prostitution is on view, or young slave-girls forced into the sex industry. Exploitation takes many forms and, Amos says, God will not excuse any of it!

The aspect I most want to draw attention to in this opening volley from Amos, is that he is not just attacking some nasty people who are doing some obviously nasty things. The crimes that he has on view are ones that are embedded in the system.

The men of violence that he targets are not street thugs. They are businessmen! These money-lenders are not wanted men. They are acting within the law. And even these father and son teams who are getting up to mischief out the back of the boardroom are probably not doing anything technically illegal. What we have here is a corrupt system that is enriching one section of the community at the expense of another. The business leaders are working with the courts, and they’re getting their blessing from the priests, and it’s all entirely kosher (pardon the expression).

What Amos is telling the people is that their God does not consider the fact that it’s legal to be an excuse! You can‘t say, “sorry mate, but business is business” and “it’s not my fault. I‘ve got to operate in the real world”, any more than those Ammonites can say, “We were only following orders” or those young boys can say, “but raping young girls is an acceptable part of the culture where we come from”.

“Garbage!”, says the prophet. It doesn’t matter what standards your culture sets any more than it matters what your mates were doing. It doesn’t matter what your orders were. It doesn’t matter whether it’s legal or illegal. It’s wrong, it’s violent, it’s demeaning of other human beings and God will not overlook it, even if everybody else was doing it!

In chapter 5, Amos highlights the way in which the powerful are working with the courts. He speaks there about ‘the gate’, and the gate of the city is where they held their court, so when it says ‘the gate’, it’s a reference to the legal system.

“They hate him who reproves in the gate (ie. an honest judge) and they abhor him who speaks the truth (ie. an honest witness). Therefore because you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.” (Amos 5:10-11)

Again, it’s not because anyone in particular is beating up on poor people, but because there is a corrupt legal system in place that is generating injustice. A similar point is made in Amos’ well-known attack on the upper-class women of Israel in chapter 4, where he refers to these ladies as ‘cows’!

“Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, ‘Bring, that we may drink!’“ (Amos 4:1)

Again, these women are not out on the streets, oppressing the poor. They probably rarely ever see poor people. Those sorts of persons probably don’t get up to ‘Bashan Heights’ very often – the place where these women were ‘grazing’.

No, their sin is in their involvement in an unjust system. They say to their husbands, “bring that we may drink” and they are probably only half-aware of the fact that their fine wine and their gorgeous parties are only possible because of the injustice and virtual enslavement of the poorer section of their population.

Chapter 5:21-24 has Amos’ most focused attack on the people’s worship:

“I hate, I despise your feasts, 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 peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

This was a favourite passage of Martin Luther King’s and of Latin American scholar, Hose Miranda, who said (in ‘Marx and the Bible’) that this passage illustrates how the God of the Bible does not really care about prayer and worship. I think this is an exaggeration. The practices being referred to were God-ordained, and there is no doubt, I think, that God delights in the prayer and worship of His people, but NOT when those who are worshipping are simultaneously profiting from injustice, from the systematic oppression of the poor.

These issues of injustice, corruption and hypocrisy all come together in the reading we had this morning, from Amos chapter 8:

Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?” and keep our thumbs on the scales, and outsource all our manual labour to Gabon, and take control of those oil-fields in Iraq, and make a killing on the stock exchange while we‘re at it! (nb. I am ad-libbing a bit) The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.” (Amos 8:5-7)

Sisters and brothers, some people says to me, “Dave, as a Christian I am not interested in politics”, and I can say to them in all honesty, “neither am I”.

If by ‘politics’ you mean the way governments work and way bureaucracies function, I agree, I find the whole science of these things entirely boring, and I suspect that Amos did too. But what I am interested in, and what I think Amos was interested in, and what we all must be interested in, is people.

And when people are being destroyed – whether it be by acts of individual violence, through the drug trade, through relationship breakdown, or through the legalised violence of an unjust political or economic system, none of us can turn a blind eye.

Saying, ‘that’s just the way things are’ is no excuse. Hiding behind company policy or blaming the system will not cut it with the Almighty, says the prophet Amos.

The people of Northern Israel ultimately had to learn this lesson the hard way when their Assyrian neighbours came down and crushed their system and destroyed their nation about 30 years after Amos came and warned them. Let us hope and pray that in our case we can come up with a less brutal solution for bringing life and health and humanity back into our economic and political systems.

Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?” The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.” (Amos 8:1-12)

I sorta promised someone in the parish that I’d choose a more cheery passage next time I preached. “Come unto me all ye who labour and are heavy laden” was suggested – a message of encouragement and hope. This is not that sermon.

Inspired by our set lectionary readings, for better or worse, I have found myself irresistibly drawn again to the figure of Amos – one of the fieriest or the fiery prophets of the Old Testament. So … my apologies, but strap yourselves in!

Amos is actually an old friend of mine. Indeed, we became friends a long time ago. During my crazy early Christian days, when I was busy preaching on street corners, trying to convert all my old friends, doing my best to share all my possessions, set up shared bank accounts with the other members of the youth fellowship, and turn my flat into a de-facto shelter for local alcoholic persons, Amos was my inspiration.

I preached my first ever sermon at my home church – the Chinese Presbyterian Church in Surry Hills – on Amos, at the first service of the day, and I got so carried away that I just couldn’t be stopped. I preached for 25, 30, 35, 40 minutes, and as people arrived for next service and started knocking on the door, I was still going! You have been warned! Strap yourself in (and pour yourself a cup of coffee).

Why was I so drawn to the figure of Amos? Because nobody in the Bible, I think, more clearly reflects the Biblical passion for social justice as does the prophet Amos

Amos was an 8th century prophet, meaning that he preached in the 8th century B.C., before the destruction of Northern Israel.

If you know the history of ancient Israel, you know that after the reigns of King David and his son Solomon, there was a civil war of sorts in Israel, after which the country was split into north and south. The southern state of Judah remained loyal to the line of David and maintained Jerusalem as their capital, while the much larger state of northern Israel set up their capital city in Samaria, and built there an alternate temple, which, according to the books of Chronicles, was the beginning of the end.

The importance of this with regards to Amos is that Amos was a southerner, from the southern state of Judah, but was preaching in the north! This was a point of tension for Amos, and when he comes into conflict with the northern religious authorities he’s told to go back home and mind his own business, and I’m sure that his southern drawl would have made it difficult for him to get a unbiased hearing.

Amos was no professional preacher either, with a clever, polished style. He tells us quite frankly that he was a farmer who felt called one day to go and preach to the people of the north. So he closed the farm door, got on his donkey, rode all the way to Samaria, the capital of the north, set up a soap-box, and started preaching:

Thus says the LORD: “For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment” (Amos 1:3)

I’m in Amos chapter one, where we read of Amos giving a series of prophecies of doom to a variety of middle-eastern nations – Damascus, Moab, Edom, etc. – and he speaks of the terrible judgement that God is going to bring upon these peoples for the crimes of violence that they have committed.

We’re told that the people of Damascus “threshed Gilead with sledges of iron”, and that the Edomites hunted down their Israelite relatives “and showed no pity”. We’re told that the Ammonites even “ripped open pregnant women in Gilead”!

We are not unfamiliar with this sort of violence. Crimes such as these continue to happen. Indeed, for some of our parishioners, who have come to us seeking refuge from their own war-torn homelands, these reports may sound all too close to home!

They were crimes took place, of course, in the context of war, but so far as Amos in concerned, this is no excuse. Don’t bother pleading, “I was only following orders”. God will not overlook such terrible acts of inhumanity.

In terms of Amos’ overall message, it’s worth recognising that in this opening spiel, Amos is railing exclusively against Israel‘s enemies. Indeed, if you take a map of the area and pinpoint the nations that Amos targets in these prophecies, you‘ll see that they encircle Israel, and that crimes of violence were all perpetrated on Israelites.

This was probably Amos‘ attempt to get his audience on-side by whipping them into a patriotic frenzy. “Woe to the you violent Iranians”, he cries. “woe to the Syrians, woe to you Hezbollah Muslim fanatics”, … and all the people say, “Amen!”

In chapter 2 though, Amos adjusts his sights, extending his message of doom firstly to Southern Judah (his home country) and then finally to the people of the north, and again it’s for crimes of violence, though this time of a more subtle nature:

Thus 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 – those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted; a man and his father go in to the same maiden, so that my holy name is profaned; they lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge, and in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.” (Amos 2:6-8)

Amos’ basic charge is one of violence against the poor, but it’s not because there are gangs roaming the streets, beating up poor people (‘Clockwork Orange’ style). Rather, what is being targeted is systematic injustice that is being perpetrated through the government and through the economy!

This practice of ‘selling the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals’ refers to a business practice whereby poor people were being ripped of and further impoverished though an unfair system of trade. While the exact details are not known, we know today that people are still being ‘sold for a pair of sandals’ ,or running shoes, at any rate (made in the third world factories belonging to Nike etc).

And along with these unfair trade practices go high interest rates from the banks and money-lenders, that make it almost impossible for the poor to get ahead. They “lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge, and in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.”

It says in the Torah that if you if a poor man gives you his coat as a acuity for a loan, you have to give that garment back to him at nightfall so he has something to sleep on. What we see here though is that the money-lenders are charging exorbitant interest rates from these poor people, taking their garments, yet have the gall to take them to the temple and sit on them while they drink!

The temple-worship of these businessmen strikes Amos as blatant hypocrisy, and he’ll come back to that again. Let’s note though first that Amos also launches an indictment here against ‘a man and his father who go into the same maiden’.

We assume that this is more than just a particular incident of promiscuity. Most likely cult prostitution is on view, or young slave-girls forced into the sex industry. Exploitation takes many forms and, Amos says, God will not excuse any of it!

The aspect I most want to draw attention to in this opening volley from Amos, is that he is not just attacking some nasty people who are doing some obviously nasty things. The crimes that he has on view are ones that are embedded in the system.

The men of violence that he targets are not street thugs. They are businessmen! These money-lenders are not wanted men. They are acting within the law. And even these father and son teams who are getting up to mischief out the back of the boardroom are probably not doing anything technically illegal. What we have here is a corrupt system that is enriching one section of the community at the expense of another. The business leaders are working with the courts, and they’re getting their blessing from the priests, and it’s all entirely kosher (pardon the expression).

What Amos is telling the people is that their God does not consider the fact that it’s legal to be an excuse! You can‘t say, “sorry mate, but business is business” and “it’s not my fault. I‘ve got to operate in the real world”, any more than those Ammonites can say, “We were only following orders” or those young boys can say, “but raping young girls is an acceptable part of the culture where we come from”.

“Garbage!”, says the prophet. It doesn’t matter what standards your culture sets any more than it matters what your mates were doing. It doesn’t matter what your orders were. It doesn’t matter whether it’s legal or illegal. It’s wrong, it’s violent, it’s demeaning of other human beings and God will not overlook it, even if everybody else was doing it!

In chapter 5, Amos highlights the way in which the powerful are working with the courts. He speaks there about ‘the gate’, and the gate of the city is where they held their court, so when it says ‘the gate’, it’s a reference to the legal system.

“They hate him who reproves in the gate (ie. an honest judge) and they abhor him who speaks the truth (ie. an honest witness). Therefore because you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.” (Amos 5:10-11)

Again, it’s not because anyone in particular is beating up on poor people, but because there is a corrupt legal system in place that is generating injustice. A similar point is made in Amos’ well-known attack on the upper-class women of Israel in chapter 4, where he refers to these ladies as ‘cows’!

“Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, ‘Bring, that we may drink!’“ (Amos 4:1)

Again, these women are not out on the streets, oppressing the poor. They probably rarely ever see poor people. Those sorts of persons probably don’t get up to ‘Bashan Heights’ very often – the place where these women were ‘grazing’.

No, their sin is in their involvement in an unjust system. They say to their husbands, “bring that we may drink” and they are probably only half-aware of the fact that their fine wine and their gorgeous parties are only possible because of the injustice and virtual enslavement of the poorer section of their population.

Chapter 5:21-24 has Amos’ most focused attack on the people’s worship:

“I hate, I despise your feasts, 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 peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

This was a favourite passage of Martin Luther King’s and of Latin American scholar, Hose Miranda, who said (in ‘Marx and the Bible’) that this passage illustrates how the God of the Bible does not really care about prayer and worship. I think this is an exaggeration. The practices being referred to were God-ordained, and there is no doubt, I think, that God delights in the prayer and worship of His people, but NOT when those who are worshipping are simultaneously profiting from injustice, from the systematic oppression of the poor.

These issues of injustice, corruption and hypocrisy all come together in the reading we had this morning, from Amos chapter 8:

Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?” and keep our thumbs on the scales, and outsource all our manual labour to Gabon, and take control of those oil-fields in Iraq, and make a killing on the stock exchange while we‘re at it! (nb. I am ad-libbing a bit) The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.” (Amos 8:5-7)

Sisters and brothers, some people says to me, “Dave, as a Christian I am not interested in politics”, and I can say to them in all honesty, “neither am I”.

If by ‘politics’ you mean the way governments work and way bureaucracies function, I agree, I find the whole science of these things entirely boring, and I suspect that Amos did too. But what I am interested in, and what I think Amos was interested in, and what we all must be interested in, is people.

And when people are being destroyed – whether it be by acts of individual violence, through the drug trade, through relationship breakdown, or through the legalised violence of an unjust political or economic system, none of us can turn a blind eye.

Saying, ‘that’s just the way things are’ is no excuse. Hiding behind company policy or blaming the system will not cut it with the Almighty, says the prophet Amos.

The people of Northern Israel ultimately had to learn this lesson the hard way when their Assyrian neighbours came down and crushed their system and destroyed their nation about 30 years after Amos came and warned them. Let us hope and pray that in our case we can come up with a less brutal solution for bringing life and health and humanity back into our economic and political systems.

Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?” The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.” (Amos 8:1-12)

I sorta promised someone in the parish that I’d choose a more cheery passage next time I preached. “Come unto me all ye who labour and are heavy laden” was suggested – a message of encouragement and hope. This is not that sermon.

Inspired by our set lectionary readings, for better or worse, I have found myself irresistibly drawn again to the figure of Amos – one of the fieriest or the fiery prophets of the Old Testament. So … my apologies, but strap yourselves in!

Amos is actually an old friend of mine. Indeed, we became friends a long time ago. During my crazy early Christian days, when I was busy preaching on street corners, trying to convert all my old friends, doing my best to share all my possessions, set up shared bank accounts with the other members of the youth fellowship, and turn my flat into a de-facto shelter for local alcoholic persons, Amos was my inspiration.

I preached my first ever sermon at my home church – the Chinese Presbyterian Church in Surry Hills – on Amos, at the first service of the day, and I got so carried away that I just couldn’t be stopped. I preached for 25, 30, 35, 40 minutes, and as people arrived for next service and started knocking on the door, I was still going! You have been warned! Strap yourself in (and pour yourself a cup of coffee).

Why was I so drawn to the figure of Amos? Because nobody in the Bible, I think, more clearly reflects the Biblical passion for social justice as does the prophet Amos

Amos was an 8th century prophet, meaning that he preached in the 8th century B.C., before the destruction of Northern Israel.

If you know the history of ancient Israel, you know that after the reigns of King David and his son Solomon, there was a civil war of sorts in Israel, after which the country was split into north and south. The southern state of Judah remained loyal to the line of David and maintained Jerusalem as their capital, while the much larger state of northern Israel set up their capital city in Samaria, and built there an alternate temple, which, according to the books of Chronicles, was the beginning of the end.

The importance of this with regards to Amos is that Amos was a southerner, from the southern state of Judah, but was preaching in the north! This was a point of tension for Amos, and when he comes into conflict with the northern religious authorities he’s told to go back home and mind his own business, and I’m sure that his southern drawl would have made it difficult for him to get a unbiased hearing.

Amos was no professional preacher either, with a clever, polished style. He tells us quite frankly that he was a farmer who felt called one day to go and preach to the people of the north. So he closed the farm door, got on his donkey, rode all the way to Samaria, the capital of the north, set up a soap-box, and started preaching:

Thus says the LORD: “For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment” (Amos 1:3)

I’m in Amos chapter one, where we read of Amos giving a series of prophecies of doom to a variety of middle-eastern nations – Damascus, Moab, Edom, etc. – and he speaks of the terrible judgement that God is going to bring upon these peoples for the crimes of violence that they have committed.

We’re told that the people of Damascus “threshed Gilead with sledges of iron”, and that the Edomites hunted down their Israelite relatives “and showed no pity”. We’re told that the Ammonites even “ripped open pregnant women in Gilead”!

We are not unfamiliar with this sort of violence. Crimes such as these continue to happen. Indeed, for some of our parishioners, who have come to us seeking refuge from their own war-torn homelands, these reports may sound all too close to home!

They were crimes took place, of course, in the context of war, but so far as Amos in concerned, this is no excuse. Don’t bother pleading, “I was only following orders”. God will not overlook such terrible acts of inhumanity.

In terms of Amos’ overall message, it’s worth recognising that in this opening spiel, Amos is railing exclusively against Israel‘s enemies. Indeed, if you take a map of the area and pinpoint the nations that Amos targets in these prophecies, you‘ll see that they encircle Israel, and that crimes of violence were all perpetrated on Israelites.

This was probably Amos‘ attempt to get his audience on-side by whipping them into a patriotic frenzy. “Woe to the you violent Iranians”, he cries. “woe to the Syrians, woe to you Hezbollah Muslim fanatics”, … and all the people say, “Amen!”

In chapter 2 though, Amos adjusts his sights, extending his message of doom firstly to Southern Judah (his home country) and then finally to the people of the north, and again it’s for crimes of violence, though this time of a more subtle nature:

Thus 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 – those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted; a man and his father go in to the same maiden, so that my holy name is profaned; they lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge, and in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.” (Amos 2:6-8)

Amos’ basic charge is one of violence against the poor, but it’s not because there are gangs roaming the streets, beating up poor people (‘Clockwork Orange’ style). Rather, what is being targeted is systematic injustice that is being perpetrated through the government and through the economy!

This practice of ‘selling the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals’ refers to a business practice whereby poor people were being ripped of and further impoverished though an unfair system of trade. While the exact details are not known, we know today that people are still being ‘sold for a pair of sandals’ ,or running shoes, at any rate (made in the third world factories belonging to Nike etc).

And along with these unfair trade practices go high interest rates from the banks and money-lenders, that make it almost impossible for the poor to get ahead. They “lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge, and in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.”

It says in the Torah that if you if a poor man gives you his coat as a acuity for a loan, you have to give that garment back to him at nightfall so he has something to sleep on. What we see here though is that the money-lenders are charging exorbitant interest rates from these poor people, taking their garments, yet have the gall to take them to the temple and sit on them while they drink!

The temple-worship of these businessmen strikes Amos as blatant hypocrisy, and he’ll come back to that again. Let’s note though first that Amos also launches an indictment here against ‘a man and his father who go into the same maiden’.

We assume that this is more than just a particular incident of promiscuity. Most likely cult prostitution is on view, or young slave-girls forced into the sex industry. Exploitation takes many forms and, Amos says, God will not excuse any of it!

The aspect I most want to draw attention to in this opening volley from Amos, is that he is not just attacking some nasty people who are doing some obviously nasty things. The crimes that he has on view are ones that are embedded in the system.

The men of violence that he targets are not street thugs. They are businessmen! These money-lenders are not wanted men. They are acting within the law. And even these father and son teams who are getting up to mischief out the back of the boardroom are probably not doing anything technically illegal. What we have here is a corrupt system that is enriching one section of the community at the expense of another. The business leaders are working with the courts, and they’re getting their blessing from the priests, and it’s all entirely kosher (pardon the expression).

What Amos is telling the people is that their God does not consider the fact that it’s legal to be an excuse! You can‘t say, “sorry mate, but business is business” and “it’s not my fault. I‘ve got to operate in the real world”, any more than those Ammonites can say, “We were only following orders” or those young boys can say, “but raping young girls is an acceptable part of the culture where we come from”.

“Garbage!”, says the prophet. It doesn’t matter what standards your culture sets any more than it matters what your mates were doing. It doesn’t matter what your orders were. It doesn’t matter whether it’s legal or illegal. It’s wrong, it’s violent, it’s demeaning of other human beings and God will not overlook it, even if everybody else was doing it!

In chapter 5, Amos highlights the way in which the powerful are working with the courts. He speaks there about ‘the gate’, and the gate of the city is where they held their court, so when it says ‘the gate’, it’s a reference to the legal system.

“They hate him who reproves in the gate (ie. an honest judge) and they abhor him who speaks the truth (ie. an honest witness). Therefore because you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.” (Amos 5:10-11)

Again, it’s not because anyone in particular is beating up on poor people, but because there is a corrupt legal system in place that is generating injustice. A similar point is made in Amos’ well-known attack on the upper-class women of Israel in chapter 4, where he refers to these ladies as ‘cows’!

“Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, ‘Bring, that we may drink!’“ (Amos 4:1)

Again, these women are not out on the streets, oppressing the poor. They probably rarely ever see poor people. Those sorts of persons probably don’t get up to ‘Bashan Heights’ very often – the place where these women were ‘grazing’.

No, their sin is in their involvement in an unjust system. They say to their husbands, “bring that we may drink” and they are probably only half-aware of the fact that their fine wine and their gorgeous parties are only possible because of the injustice and virtual enslavement of the poorer section of their population.

Chapter 5:21-24 has Amos’ most focused attack on the people’s worship:

“I hate, I despise your feasts, 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 peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

This was a favourite passage of Martin Luther King’s and of Latin American scholar, Hose Miranda, who said (in ‘Marx and the Bible’) that this passage illustrates how the God of the Bible does not really care about prayer and worship. I think this is an exaggeration. The practices being referred to were God-ordained, and there is no doubt, I think, that God delights in the prayer and worship of His people, but NOT when those who are worshipping are simultaneously profiting from injustice, from the systematic oppression of the poor.

These issues of injustice, corruption and hypocrisy all come together in the reading we had this morning, from Amos chapter 8:

Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?” and keep our thumbs on the scales, and outsource all our manual labour to Gabon, and take control of those oil-fields in Iraq, and make a killing on the stock exchange while we‘re at it! (nb. I am ad-libbing a bit) The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.” (Amos 8:5-7)

Sisters and brothers, some people says to me, “Dave, as a Christian I am not interested in politics”, and I can say to them in all honesty, “neither am I”.

If by ‘politics’ you mean the way governments work and way bureaucracies function, I agree, I find the whole science of these things entirely boring, and I suspect that Amos did too. But what I am interested in, and what I think Amos was interested in, and what we all must be interested in, is people.

And when people are being destroyed – whether it be by acts of individual violence, through the drug trade, through relationship breakdown, or through the legalised violence of an unjust political or economic system, none of us can turn a blind eye.

Saying, ‘that’s just the way things are’ is no excuse. Hiding behind company policy or blaming the system will not cut it with the Almighty, says the prophet Amos.

The people of Northern Israel ultimately had to learn this lesson the hard way when their Assyrian neighbours came down and crushed their system and destroyed their nation about 30 years after Amos came and warned them. Let us hope and pray that in our case we can come up with a less brutal solution for bringing life and health and humanity back into our economic and political systems.