Let Justice Roll (Amos 5:18-27)
Notes
Transcript
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.
19 It will be as though a man fled from a lion
only to meet a bear,
as though he entered his house
and rested his hand on the wall
only to have a snake bite him.
20 Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light—
pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?
21 “I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies are a stench to me.
22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
23 Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24 But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!
25 “Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings
forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel?
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.
27 Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,”
says the Lord, whose name is God Almighty.
Background
Background
Amos 5 is a funeral dirge
That is, it is a song of lament and mourning - such as would be common at a funeral.
The question during these laments is, “Who has died?”
Well, Amos gives the answer quickly = ISRAEL.
1 Hear this word, Israel, this lament I take up concerning you:
2 “Fallen is Virgin Israel,
never to rise again,
deserted in her own land,
with no one to lift her up.”
A little more background
Amos is from the southern kingdom of Judah, but he was called by God to prophesy against what was happening in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. I am CERTAIN Israel appreciated the message of doom and gloom spoken to them by an outsider! They probably received that message just as comfortably as someone from Montana would receive a message from California...
Now that it was established that Israel is dead (or at least dying) the next question is - WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF DEATH. What does the autopsy say?
Israel is dead/dying because she has perverted what it means to be just and righteous before God!
Israel is dead/dying because she has perverted what it means to be just and righteous before God!
They have turned to other nations for help, but worse yet, they have modeled what it means to act rightly towards each other from those other nations.
4 This is what the Lord says to Israel:
“Seek me and live;
They have NOT sought the Lord - they have gone to other nations that the Lord will call account for their misdeads.
The case is levied against Israel that
7 There are those who turn justice into bitterness
and cast righteousness to the ground.
And again
10 There are those who hate the one who upholds justice in court
and detest the one who tells the truth.
And
11 You levy a straw tax on the poor
and impose a tax on their 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.
12 For I know how many are your offenses
and how great your sins.
There are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes
and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
13 Therefore the prudent keep quiet in such times,
for the times are evil.
The Charge is that there is NO JUSTICE and NO RIGHTEOUSNESS!
The Charge is that there is NO JUSTICE and NO RIGHTEOUSNESS!
24 But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!
THE THEME OF AMOS!!!
For Amos, justice and righteousness are synonymous. They go together like Burt and Ernie, Peanut Butter and Jelly, Sonny and Cherr, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, Pastor and Jamie (we were once called MatthewJamie). Where there is one, the other is present. And, where one is missing, the other is missing as well.
Justice - seeking the correct, ethical, proper resolution to court cases, civil suits and all the upside down and backwards ways of humanity.
Righteousness - living rightly before God and humanity.
Amos speaks that these are lacking.
Because they are lacking, God is coming. But, He is NOT coming to redeem and bring peace - God is coming to JUDGE!
Because they are lacking, God is coming. But, He is NOT coming to redeem and bring peace - God is coming to JUDGE!
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.
19 It will be as though a man fled from a lion
only to meet a bear,
as though he entered his house
and rested his hand on the wall
only to have a snake bite him.
20 Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light—
pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?
Amos plays on irony!
There are those who BELIEVE that they are behaving rightly. They believe they are correct and doing things with righteousness and justice.
They are however VERY mistaken!
They are PROFANING what it means to act justly and what it means to live righteously. THEREFORE they are not PREPARED for God to visit them! They are not participating in righting all that is wrong - they are NOT on God’s side in these circumsatances.
It is so bad that God is not pleased with their religious pomp and circumstance. They really ARE NOT worshipping God - even though they go through the ritual of worship.
21 “I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies are a stench to me.
22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
23 Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24 But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!
Their worship does not change who they are!
Their worship does not change who they are!
The case is that the people go through their religious ACTS of worship - their Acts of Piety so to speak. BUT, it does not CHANGE them.
And, God does not seem upset that it doesn’t change how they relate to Him. God’s concern is that the people’s worship of YHWH has not changed how they RELATE TO ONE ANOTHER!!
They worship God - but ABUSE the other people around them.
They worship God and charge exorbitant taxes
They worship God and force people to work with little pay
They worship God and execute judgments at the city gate that are loaded with bribes and lobby for the rich at the expense of the poor.
They worship God but abuse those “below them”
God even declares that it is NOT about the rites of worship - the sacrifices and burnt offerings. It is ALL ABOUT THE WAY THOSE LESS FORTUNATE THAN THEM ARE TREATED!
25 “Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings
forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel?
The correct, historical answer to this question was YES, they did bring sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness. But, it was also during that time that they took care of each other and LIVED OUT THEIR RELIGIOUS WORSHIP EVERY DAY!
Amos is NOT the only Prophet who highlights this two faced approach to God.
Amos is NOT the only Prophet who highlights this two faced approach to God.
6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
6 With what shall I come before the Lord
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
6 For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.
1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Stand at the gate of the Lord’s house and there proclaim this message:
“ ‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the Lord. 3 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. 4 Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” 5 If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, 6 if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. 8 But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.
9 “ ‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? 11 Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord.
Even James, in the New Testament, declares
27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
So, what’s the big deal?
So, what’s the big deal?
People were being treated as commodities - not as human beings who are created in the image of God!
Here is some of God’s concern for people...
Care for Widows and Orphans
22 “Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless.
28 At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, 29 so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.
17 Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.
Care for Foreigners
34 The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.
16 Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. 17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. 18 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. 19 And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.
Care for workers (SABBATH LAWS)
12 “Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. 15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.
27 Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
Sabbath was NOT ONLY for people - it was also for the fields! They were to receive A WHOLE YEAR OF REST EVERY 7 YEARS!
1 The Lord said to Moses at Mount Sinai, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the Lord. 3 For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. 4 But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. 5 Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest. 6 Whatever the land yields during the sabbath year will be food for you—for yourself, your male and female servants, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you, 7 as well as for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. Whatever the land produces may be eaten.
But then, there was the YEAR OF JUBILEE!
8 “ ‘Count off seven sabbath years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years. 9 Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. 10 Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan. 11 The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. 12 For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields.
13 “ ‘In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to their own property.
14 “ ‘If you sell land to any of your own people or buy land from them, do not take advantage of each other. 15 You are to buy from your own people on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee. And they are to sell to you on the basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops. 16 When the years are many, you are to increase the price, and when the years are few, you are to decrease the price, because what is really being sold to you is the number of crops. 17 Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the Lord your God.
But, these events never really happened.
But, Jesus, quoting from Isaiah declares that He has brought the year of jubilee!
16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Let’s look at ourselves through the Prophet’s eyes. How do we measure up to justice and righteousness...
Let’s look at ourselves through the Prophet’s eyes. How do we measure up to justice and righteousness...
You are going to LOVE this!!
Let’s look at how we treat each other.
Do we observe sabbath?
The thing about sabbath is that it is a day to UNPLUG from the desire and pull to “be productive.” It is a day to jump off the wheel of consumerism and to rely on God who provides. It is a day to NOT be a capitalist and assess our personal value by how we measure up to the system and how much we contribute. It is a day to simply BE! How are we with that? How are we with encouraging OTHERS to do that?
Do we care for the alien/foreigner in our midst? Do we care for those who are down and out (even if their wounds are self inflicted!?)
I do not think we do...
We measure success by how busy we are! We say we have NO TIME for anything or any sort of enjoyment, BUT GOD HAS BLESSED US.
And, ultimately, we are only concerned with ourselves.
Let me give you an example of minimum wage...
In Montana the minimum wage is currently $10.30 per hour. Now, I might know what you are thinking, “Pastor - don’t go there! Don’t talk about what minimum wage is/should be… That’s not a good idea.”
Well, if God is concerned about the poor, then maybe we should be too!
From the Cornell School of Law
The national minimum wage was created by Congress under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in 1938. Congress enacted this legislation under its authority in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution: “The Congress shall have power to . . . regulate commerce . . . among the several states.” FLSA was a comprehensive federal scheme which provided for minimum wages, overtime pay, record keeping requirements, and child labor regulations. The purpose of the minimum wage was to stabilize the post-depression economy and protect the workers in the labor force. The minimum wage was designed to create a minimum standard of living to protect the health and well-being of employees. Others have argued that the primary purpose was to aid the lowest paid of the nation's working population, those who lacked sufficient bargaining power to secure for themselves a minimum subsistence wage. FLSA specifically provided for a minimum wage for full time and part time, public and private sector workers. Specifically, workers who are “engaged in” or “in the production of goods for” interstate (commerce between the states) and foreign commerce.
Did you catch that phrase “minimum standard of living?”
This law was created to protect our nation’s work force and to provide an income people could actually LIVE off of.
In 1933 President Franklin Roosevelt stated, “It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”
Yet, we overlook this bit of history about the minimum wage. I hear people declare that certain jobs are not “Vocation, career jobs - they do not need to provide for a family. They are for high schoolers looking for summer money.” What we endorse with that idea is injustice and neglecting a labor force for the benefit of the elite classes in our midst.
If the standard is a mininum LIVABLE wage we have a LONG WAY TO GO!
Let’s look at Lake County, Montana
Per the living wage calculator through MIT, a single-person household requires a LIVING WAGE of $20.34 PER HOUR! (we’re only $10 per hour shy of the intended target).
But, what if it is a family consisting of a mom and a dad and 2 children? For that family, with BOTH parents working, the LIVING WAGE STANDARD would be $24.93 per hour provided by EACH ADULT! Let justice roll!
But when people discuss the possibility of raising the minimum wage we recognize the challenge. Robots will replace the workforce and/or the cost of goods will go up. Why? Because raising the minimum wage cuts into the profit at the top. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
And, don’t get me started on trying to assist those at the bottom with some way of canceling their school debt that people took upon themselves to educate our children, police our communities, pastor our churches - Through a system where the government BACKED the school loans creating the opportunity for colleges and universities to charge whatever they wanted because if the students default on the loan UNCLE SAM said he would pay for it. So, the cost of education has gone higher because their is MORE profit in it since UNCLE SAM is willing to pay for it.
Yet, we scold the working poor who have to work 2 or more jobs to pay the exorbitant rent that is being charged, put food on the table, buy their children clothes (or, heaven forbid they ask for help). And we say, it is the poor who are causing the downgrade of society. It is the poor who aren’t parenting their kids. These families just need to be more involved in their communities and in their children’s lives.
HOW CAN THEY? They are too busy working on SUNDAY (or every day) in order to survive the crazy inflation we have caused.
I say it is time for us to hear Amos’ cry!
I say it is time for us to hear Amos’ cry!
24 But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!
That justice and righteousness NEED to fall from heaven. That unlike a wash, or wadi that has water in it for a brief time in the year, justice and righteousness must flow PERPETUALLY.
And if the world cannot find justice and righteousness cannot be experienced in the systems of the world where the rich get fatter off the slavery of the poor, then By GOD people should experience that way of living through us.
We gather for worship and sing our songs - but do we celebrate the justice and righteousness we are exhorted to live by?
Do we encourage better treatment of those in our world?
Do we lobby for THEIR help?
Or, are we concerned with our own bottom line?
For Amos, the goal of the prophet is to remind the people to repent. And, if they do, the MIGHT receive grace from the Lord...
14 Seek good, not evil,
that you may live.
Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you,
just as you say he is.
15 Hate evil, love good;
maintain justice in the courts.
Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy
on the remnant of Joseph.
May we hear the call to repent of our complacency!
May we hear the call to turn from our involvement in systems that build us up at the expense of others.
May we take the example of Christ who set the prisoner free, restored what was broken, and live our lives doing the same all the while yearning for the ultimate day when God will restore all things.
May we live our lives today in light of the day that is coming!