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Changing the world Amos 5: 1 – 27 Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 30 Apr, 2006
OUR WORLD desperately needs change. For it to change, we must change. The Bible directs us about what kind of change we need, so that our society will become just once more. Amos wrote to a nation like our own. It was a nation where the poor were downtrodden and the rich couldn’t care. It was a nation that even had its own wheat scandal. And it was a nation which rested on its past glories even while it destroyed everything that it had once stood for. Does that sound familiar? We celebrate ANZAC Day. Once Australians fought for ideals, for freedom, for a fair go. Can we betray them? It is time for Christian people to stand against the tide.
Pastors used to preach, “‘Come out from among them and be separate,’ says the Lord.” Maybe they were talking about not joining the Pub set or not going to dances. Their vision was small. But the truth remains: how can we sit by complacently and accept — how can we passively participate in — what our world, what our nation, dishes out to the poor, to the marginalised? Amos says in Chapter 6, Woe to those who are at ease in Zion. It’s still true today.
Amos 5 is a chapter of misery and destruction for those who refuse to hear from God. It is a lament. AMOS 5:1 Hear this word, O house of Israel, this lament I take up concerning you: 5:2 “Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to rise again, deserted in her own land, with no one to lift her up.” 3 This is what the Sovereign LORD says: “The city that marches out a thousand strong for Israel will have only a hundred left; the town that marches out a hundred strong will have only ten left.” What a sad tale! To the ancient Israelite, for a woman never to have children was a great failure. Her identity, her purpose, was bound up in being a wife and mother. Amos depicts Israel as a virgin, a young woman who dies before she ever has a chance to be fruitful and multiply. This is God’s people. Israel is never a symbol of the world. God talks to his very own people, saying, “You have perished before you bore fruit for me.” Then, before anyone has a chance to lose his point, he changes focus: Israel shall become a shadow of its former self. Nine out of ten gone, only one out of ten remaining.
The sad thing is, it need not be that way. God never rejoices in the destruction of a sinner. He longs for repentance and for restoration. AM 5:4 This is what the LORD says to the house of Israel: “Seek me and live; AM 5:5 do not seek Bethel, do not go to Gilgal, do not journey to Beersheba. For Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will be reduced to nothing. “ AM 5:6 Seek the LORD and live, or he will sweep through the house of Joseph like a fire; it will devour, and Bethel will have no one to quench it. If we truly come to God, he can still change the situation; if we hold back, we will be lost. Bethel was the old site of the temple tent which had stood by Israel as they travelled through the desert. But going to Bethel will not save anyone. Gilgal was where Israel renewed its covenant with God as the nation entered the promised land. But there is no point in looking back to the place of former repentance. Beersheba was where God made his promises to Abram, but ancestral blessings are no substitute for today’s obedience. In other words, going to church doesn’t solve the problem of turning away from God. Having a great history with God doesn’t solve the problem of turning away from God. Having grandparents who were keen believers doesn’t make a sound believer of you. Each of us has to begin again, personally, in a right relationship with God.
DEFINING THE PROBLEM But what was really wrong with Israel? God says, AMOS 5:7 You who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground... AM 5:10 you hate the one who reproves in court and despise him who tells the truth. AM 5:11 You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine. AM 5:12 For I know how many are your offences and how great your sins. You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts. AM 5:13 Therefore the prudent man keeps quiet in such times, for the times are evil. There are quite a few issues. At their base is a refusal to act justly or to do rightly.
This basic evil is compounded by refusal to hear any reproof or criticism. It’s the kind of reaction of those bullying Pakistani rapists who have been in the news lately. It is also increasingly the attitude of our elected representatives. They refuse to give answer, they ban public servants from serving the public with the truth. AM 5:10 you hate the one who reproves in court and despise him who tells the truth. They unashamedly use their power to get away with whatever they can get away with. It applied to Israel; it applies to Australia today.
Don’t try to excuse it by saying, “It has always been this way.” All that means is that evil and rebellion has always existed and always opposes God. But there come seasons in human history when these things become accepted, when they become the norm, and then good people must stand up and be counted.
POVERTY And Israel comes under judgment because there is no compassion for the poor and the powerless. AM 5:11 You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain. says Amos; and again, You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
Jim Wallis, who recently spoke around Australia in company with Tim Costello, is an evangelical Christian who speaks out against injustice and unrighteousness. It has led to his arrest on several occasions, but he goes on. Wallis says that the basic political issue raised in the Bible is poverty. Maybe he has too narrow a focus here, but there is truth in what he says. The Bible never thinks of poverty as mere lack of resources. It has to do with being powerless.
For example, at one church we attended, there were two millionaires. One was a member, one was a fairly regular attender. The wife of one of them regularly borrowed money from Chris. There were times when that woman was poor in out conventional English sense of the word. She lacked ready cash. The family fortune was tied up in business deals and sometimes they just had nothing readily available. Next week, they would have thousands in the household account. Life was like that. And how many of us know elderly people who have perhaps a million in house and property, but can’t realise on it, can’t raise the money to do more than get by, day by day?
There’s poverty and there’s poverty.
So many people are disempowerd by their poverty. If you are an unemployed single person, you are obliged to go to job interviews and to get proof that you attended. But you get less income support than a single pensioner gets, and you still have to pay full fare on the trains. By the time some have paid their rent, they have to choose between attending job interviews or eating. And the Government says it is doing that so that people will be under pressure to look for work, and won't just lie back and enjoy the pension! That is wicked. That is oppression of the poor. People who live in fine houses and drive their tax–deductible BMWs do that to the poor!
An unemployed person who misses a Centrelink appointment can be docked even up to a full fortnight’s income; if that person missed the appointment because a Centrelink clerk stuffed up the dates, or incorrectly addressed a notification, the clerk doesn’t get docked. There is poverty in our nation. I have known people from all walks of life who are effectively homeless. Some of them even work, picking up a day here and a day there, but they can’t afford rents.
We don’t get many sleeping in old refrigerator boxes in parks, but we get people sleeping in a friend’s living room, or on the back verandah. We get people living under bushes and in caves. We get people who sleep in railway stations and bus shelters. Yes, many of them just don’t know how to manage their money. But that is another aspect of poverty.
IDOLATRY At the heart of the evil in our world is idolatry. AM 5:26 You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god-- which you made for yourselves It can be idolatry of those in power; it can be idolatry of some aspect of ourselves. Think about our own nation. We have an image of ourselves — it has to do with mateship and fair play. It has to do with sporting ability and with being people of the land. When we set these things up as idols, we begin to worship our own image. Then whatever we choose to do becomes OK by us, because it is what our idols do. Unlike true faith, idolatry always leads us downwards, away from justice, away from righteousness, away from a humble walk with out God. That’s the nature of idolatry. What are the solutions? Once again, Amos encourages us to get our focus and priorities right. AM 5:16 Therefore this is what the Lord, the LORD God Almighty, says: “There will be wailing in all the streets and cries of anguish in every public square. The farmers will be summoned to weep and the mourners to wail. AM 5:17 There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst,” says the LORD. AM 5:18 Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD! Why do you long for the day of the LORD? That day will be darkness, not light.
The first great truth is that the battle is not ours. God is the one who will take action. It is he who hates and despises the offerings of a people who give him lip–service, but fail to honour him in their lives. I have often said that judgment must come upon our nation unless we repent. Think about the scandals upon scandals which our nation has been through. Think about the Wheat Board thing. We sent soldiers to Iraq to bring down Saddam Hussein — the same Saddam Hussein to whom we were paying millions in kickbacks, millions in bribes. We were giving him the money to arm for the fight to which we sent our soldiers. And why? So that Americans can keep buying fuel for their Hummers and their SUVs at nearly 70c a litre, Look at how money is being syphoned away from the majority of Australians who don’t have health care cover in order to prop up the big health insurance companies and the few who do have health cover. The rich get richer and the poor get children. What will happen when the national card comes in? Think of people like George who used to come here who now lives on the streets. How will people like him access basic services?
But it is God who will ultimately deal with this. That is why as Christians we do not usually use violence against our leaders. “Vengeance is mine: I will repay,” says the Lord.
However, it is not our task to sit idly by, waiting for judgment day. What does the prophet say? AM 5:14 Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is. 5:15 Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph. and again, 5:24 But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! We have a responsibility. We have a duty before God — to do what is right, to seek justice, to seek good, to pursue justice in the courts and in the other places where justice should be upheld. To do any less is to betray the Lord who ...was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. ISA 53:8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? Doesn’t Jesus himself say, In as much as you did it not to one of these, the least of my brothers, you did it not to me?
Our calling is to cause justice to roll on like a river, righteousness like a never–failing stream. Otherwise we deprive the Lord Jesus of justice and make him the victim of our unrighteousness. Let that never be! AMEN
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© Peter R. Green 2006. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.) |
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