Dark Devotion (Ray Patchett and Steve Messer)
I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, and carried away your horses, and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils; yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. “I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning; yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. “Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!”
In the late 1700’s just before the French Revolution in the midst of severe poverty, Queen of France – Marie Antoinette is widely reported to have arrogantly uttered these words- ‘If the peasants can’t eat bread why don’t they eat cake?’
In verse 1 of Amos 4, 2500 years before Marie Antoinette amidst great hardship some awful Israelite women were lying on their luxurious couches sponging off the backs of the poor and commanding their husbands ‘bring us some more wine.’ These Israelite women are politely referred to as the ‘cows of Bashan’, which essentially means the fat cows who live off the best pasture.
They were lazy, arrogant women who demanded luxury in spite of the poverty that surrounded them. Their concern was only for themselves, not the desperate state of the covenant nation. Not too many years after Marie Antoinette allegedly uttered her infamous words she was publicly executed by guillotine in what was to be a bloody revolution against the oppressive aristocracy.
In verse 2-3 we see God’s response to these cows of Bashan. They will be led away squirming like fish on a hook from their wining and dining into humiliating exile. Of course it wasn’t just these women, their particular sins were representative of the state of Israel generally.
Bring me some more wine. Bring me some more video games, bring me some more real estate, give me a bigger car, buy me a new dress, take me on an expensive holiday, why do I have to pay so much tax to support lazy dole bludgers?
Things haven’t changed. Throughout all cultures and eras people fail to be concerned about the bigger issues of justice and mercy through the advance of God’s kingdom and continue to be primarily concerned about personal comfort and luxury here and now.
Israel were particularly accountable for this because they had direct revelation from God concerning how to live according to the covenant as merciful and just people.
In this legal trial like narrative, Israel’s defence is described in verses 4-5. Basically they are represented as saying. ‘but we have kept the covenant you made with us. We have offered sacrifices and given our tithe,’ in fact these verses indicate that they were doing them more frequently than the law required. But they completely failed to understand the heart of the law, which is about grateful love to God and love for their fellow Israelite’s.
In verses 6-11, it seems that the Israelite defence is so pathetic that God doesn’t even bother to answer it directly. Instead he refers to the hardship that has come upon them and how they have refused to see that this hardship is judgement for covenant unfaithfulness. He clearly specified at the making of the covenant (eg Deuteronomy 28) that these things will happen if you defile the land with idolatry, injustice and other breaches of ‘your covenant with me.’ And in spite of these hardships they did not return to the LORD. They refused to turn away from their unfaithfulness. They are described as burning sticks removed from a fire before being consumed.
So, in a sense the LORD has shown restraint by not bringing all these things upon them at once and given them opportunity over centuries to turn back. But, then comes the message of verse 12 which is quite frightening. It simply says ‘this is what I will do to you 0 Israel, prepare to meet your God.’
There’s a positive and negative sense in which people can meet God. People can meet God with joy and delight or with horror and shame. This is clearly describing the latter. The Bible doesn’t mince words when it talks about these alternatives.
And just in case Israel were tempted to think that God was unable to carry this out they are reminded in verse 13 of who this God they are about to meet in judgement is. This is not some old bloke with a wig on. He is the one who creates the mountains and wind and penetrates the recesses of the human mind.