This passage is yet another heart-wrenching section of a book bathed in human sorrow. If you came to this blog expecting a devotional on the five simple ways to be happy all the time, you may want to check your search engine. This is not it. The opening of this chapter is a lament cry from the depths of Amos. As Amos sees all that is supposed to happen, a gutteral cry burst out of him that basically says "Israel is doomed forever!" And in the midst of all this pain, God comforts Amos. And God does not comfort with simple platitudes like "it will be all right" and "just don't worry, it'll all work out in the end." No, God's comfort is a tetanus booster full of grace in a needle made of reality. Sure, it still hurts, but there is healing there.
"Seek me and live" says God in Amos 5:4 and "Seek good, not evil, that you may live" in Amos 5:14. I wish I could wake up to those words every morning. Now, God's reality is not that I would seek God and be guaranteed a long life. God's meaning of life in light of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is far more than that- life in eternity. But that is not to ignore what God says about the here and now. There are things in our lives that give life and things that take life away. Israel has been caught up in a lot of life-denying activity. They oppress people to make their houses. They make and take bribes in order to get their way in the courts. In that way, the words justice and righteousness are trampled until they are hardly recognizable for what they are.
But when we are seeking God, trampling the poor to build our stone mansions (Amos 5:11) does not seem to be an option. In fact, when we seek God, we seek the restoration and life for all people. Not just the ones who can give us some kind of benefit, all people. The words of Amos, although harsh, do not sound all too different from the words of Jesus, Paul and James at times when they remind us that following God has a horizontal and a vertical component. So let us go in God's grace to live just and God-seeking lives. Amen.
God's compassion for all those who suffer and need help is so evident in these passages and as I reflect on the rest of scripture, so evident through out His Word.... May God give us His heart to be part of that "mighty flood of justice, a river of righteous living that will never run dry". Amos 5:24
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