Daily Scripture: Amos 5: What the Lord Demands
21 I, the Lord, hate and despise
your religious celebrations
and your times of worship.
22 I won’t accept your offerings
or animal sacrifices—
not even your very best.
23 No more of your noisy songs!
I won’t listen
when you play your harps.
24 But let justice and fairness
flow like a river
that never runs dry.
Reflection Questions:Amos the prophet lived in a time when conspicuous religion and "conspicuous consumption" went on side-by-side in Israel. Amos (like Isaiah, another prophet—cf. Isaiah 1:11-13) saw that many people's outward religiosity made no difference to how they lived. On God's behalf, he urged those who profited by exploiting others to change course, to "let justice roll down like waters."
- What opportunities do you have every day to carry out your regular work, leisure activities, shopping and other pursuits in ways that bring about righteousness and justice? What risks or costs would you face to make those choices? To what extent are you willing to act consistently for justice and righteousness?
- Amos itemized God's charges against Israel: "they have sold the innocent for silver, and those in need for a pair of sandals. They crush the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way." (Amos 2:6-7). If Amos wrote today, rather than in 700 B.C., what failures of our culture might he list? How can you be an active agent, moving our culture toward God's ideal by your words and actions?
Lord Jesus, from Kansas and Missouri to Malawi and beyond, there are still hungry children and hopeless people suffering injustice. They are your children, your people—help me to care about them as much as you do. Amen.
Our GPS Insights blog shares reflections each day from our pastors, staff and congregants.
Read today's reflection from Rev. Glen Shoup online. Rev. Glen is the Executive Pastor of Worship and a Congregational Care Pastor.Insight from Rev. Glen Shoup
Faith without works is dead. That rather unobscure punch in the mouth comes from James (chapter 2 if you want to read it), who is a New Testament author some don’t really appreciate very much because he tends to have a rather bare-knuckled approach to naming the fact that believing without doing is totally and utterly worthless…faith has to be put work…or it isn’t faith. And about now, you might be wondering why I’m talking about James when you’ve just read a passage from Amos.
Here’s why: Amos makes James look like a mealy-mouthed wimp. If you think I’m overstating, just read chapter 5 in its entirety. But here’s why I like Amos (and James)—and more to the point—here’s why I need Amos and James:
- Not because I’ve got it all figured out and I like listening to people scream a perspective I already agree with—we have cable news for that.
- Not because I already practice everything they’re preaching and I love the affirmation they give me—far from it.
- I need them because in a politically correct world like ours, where people are seemingly schooled in the art of saying nothing while using a lot of words and speaking truth is only broached when every possible preamble so as not to cause any offense has been exhaustively covered–I need the kind of blunt-force reminder that folks like James and Amos provide.
- Because in the suburbanite/urbanite world of privilege that most of us traffic in, the notion that our my comfort and gratification may not be of highest priority is an essential regular reminder—and I, along with you would readily admit we believe this—but when I look at what consumes most of my thoughts and most of my planning and pursuits…well I come face-to-face with the fact that I apparently believe something I don’t put into practice very well.
- We need (at least I need and maybe you do too ) someone who rattles our cage—somebody who serves as the sandpaper in our life roughing off the edges and calling us to put our faith to work…not just in writing checks…not just for an hour on Sunday (or Saturday) but as people who actually look daily at the world for those in need of mercy and justice—looking at our daily world for the widow, the orphan, the alien—the people who we have to leverage justice and mercy for in order for God’s Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.
- I need James and Amos (and Jesus—who if we really pay attention—doesn’t mince words either) so that I don’t settle for comfort as my highest pursuit—but rather, I pursue mercy and justice—by putting faith to work.
- The issue isn’t whether I have those opportunities in my relatively padded and affluent context; the issue is whether I want to ask God to daily show me those opportunities and then whether I choose to do anything about it when He does show them to me…as much as I may not like it, I really need the likes of James and Amos…maybe you do too.
Church of the Resurrection
The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection
13720 Roe Avenue
Leawood, Kansas 66224 United States
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