Amos 5

The Explanation

Imagine a market square in Israel. It is a feast day. The smell of roasting meat hangs in the air. Harps are playing. People are singing loudly, and everyone looks happy.

But at the edge of the square stands a man nobody invited. His name is Amos. He is a farmer, a keeper of sheep and trees. God has given him words to say, and they are heavy words.

Amos does not sing along. He sings a different kind of song. It is the song people sing when someone has died. "The virgin of Israel has fallen," he says. "She shall rise no more."

The music stops. People stare at him. Who is this man, spoiling the party?

Then Amos tells them why. He points past the singing crowd to the city gate. That is where judges sat and decided who was right and who was wrong. And there, Amos says, something rotten is happening. Rich people slip coins to the judge. The judge then says they are right, even when they are not. A poor farmer comes with his complaint, and they send him away.

"You trample on the poor," Amos says. "You take his wheat." And the rich men build beautiful houses of cut stone with that money. They plant vineyards on the hillside.

But God says something frightening. "You have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them." The houses will stand empty. The grapes will hang there, and someone else will drink the wine.

The people were angry at Amos. They hated anyone who told them the truth at the gate. Would you have dared to keep speaking? Amos kept speaking.

And then he said the strangest thing of all. God says: "I hate, I despise your feasts." God says: "Take away from me the noise of your songs!"

Noise. All that beautiful harp music was noise to God, because out at the gate the poor man was being cheated.

What Does This Mean?

God is not fooled by beautiful singing. He looks past the songs, straight to the gate where the poor man stands crying.

That is hard to hear. But God does not only say hard things. Right in the middle Amos says the loveliest words of the whole chapter: "Seek me, and you will live." And again: "Seek Yahweh, and you will live."

Seek means look for Him, like you look for someone you love and miss.

Amos even shows them who God is. He made the Pleiades and Orion, those clusters of stars you can see on a clear winter night. He turns the darkest hour into morning. He calls the sea water up and pours it out as rain. That great God says: come and find Me, and you will live.

And He tells them how to live. "Hate evil, love good." And then this picture: "let justice roll on like rivers, and righteousness like a mighty stream." Not a little trickle you can step over. A river that keeps rolling, day and night, that nobody can stop.

The Common Thread

Hundreds of years later Someone else came who cared about people at the gate. Jesus saw the ones others pushed aside, the beggar, the sick woman, the child. He touched them. He said the poor were blessed.

Jesus is God's answer to Amos's cry. He is the One who makes wrong things right, and He says the same thing God said through Amos: come to Me, and you will live.

For You

You have a gate too. It is the playground, or your classroom, or your own kitchen table.

Look for the one who gets left out this week. Sit next to that child. Or when your little brother is blamed for something he did not do, say out loud, "That is not true. He didn't do it." That is a small stream of justice starting to roll.

Talk About It

Why do you think God called their beautiful singing "noise"?

Who at your school stands a bit alone at the gate, and what could you do this week?

Praying Together

Lord God, You made the stars and You see the smallest person. Help us to seek You. Help us to love what is good and to speak up when something is wrong. Amen.