In today’s world you are often described as an amateur at something if you cannot make a living at what you are doing. An amateur is someone who does something, but is not a professional. They often don’t have the training that they would need to be a professional. An amateur golfer is someone who enjoys going out and teeing off but doesn’t expect to be playing in the next PGA tour. An amateur astronomer is someone who enjoys the sky, probably has a telescope that they use, but astronomy is their hobby and not something that they do for a living.
There are many hobbies that people can have and many things that you can be an amateur at. The actual definition of amateur has nothing to do with how professional you are at what you are doing but rather talks about whether you enjoy what it is you are doing. Someone who does something because they love doing itis technically an amateur. Now that is the technical definition, and it has much going for it. But the best way to really understand amateur verses professional is to see whether someone is making a living at what they are doing. Some industries, some areas have this line very distinctly marked. The Olympics have traditionally been only for amateurs. Even though athletes spend so much energy preparing for their Olympic events, in many areas, professionals are not allowed to compete. And so, many of these sports have the idea of professional defined very clearly so that we know who is eligible to be in the Olympics.
But then you get to ministry and you don’t really want to use the term amateur. Is someone who teaches Sunday School an amateur in ministry? They aren’t making any money with what they are doing. Hopefully they are doing what they are not because they’ve been guilted into it, but because of the love for those they are teaching. And most who teach Sunday School haven’t really had a seminary education. But still, we don’t want to really call them amateurs.
But today’s scripture, about the prophet Amos, tells us of what we would probably refer to as an amateur prophet: someone who didn’t have the proper training or pedigree to be a prophet. But he followed where God led and found himself speaking God’s word to God’s people very powerfully. And we discover that when you’re called by God to minister, it doesn’t matter what kind of training you have, it doesn’t matter what your pedigree is, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a professional or an amateur, you follow where God leads and God uses you.
I. Minor Prophets
We are going to be spending the next few weeks looking at a section of the Bible that is often overlooked. We are going to look at some of the prophets that are found at the end of the Old Testament. In biblical circles these last books found in the Old Testament are referred to as the minor prophets. We aren’t talking about their age and we don’t think they lived down in caves, prophesying in mines. No, this term is in relation to the major prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah. The only real distinction between the major prophets and the minor prophets is the size of their writings. Because the minor prophets have fairly short books, they are often thought of as less important. The other problem with them is that as we look at them we see God prescribing judgment on many groups of people and so we skip right over them to get to the New Testament and some good news. I think we do this to our own detriment.
These minor prophets do speak to the people for God. The let the people of their time know about what God is going to do. More than that, they tell the people of their time what it is that God desires from them. And through this, we are able to catch a glimpse of the mind of God. Mind you, it is only a glimpse. It is not a complete picture. But by looking at these prophets and how they responded to their world we can learn how, as God’s followers, to respond to the world around us.
And so, today we look at a prophet named Amos. Before we get into his message, we need to look a bit at who he was as well as the world he lived in. You see, prophecy back then was a job, a profession, and often it became a family career. This might strike you as odd, but it is much the same today with ministry opportunities. You discover that many people continue in the family business. As Billy Graham grew older, we watched both his son and his daughter carry on his message. The biggest church in America today is pastored by Joel Osteen, a 39 year old who took over the ministry of his father when he passed away. John Osteen was a Baptist minister who founded a church and watched it grow into a community of 10,000. But then he suddenly died. His wife took over for a while, then his son did, and after a few false starts, learned some great things and now the church has over 30,000 members and reaches hundreds of thousands on television. My mentor in Chicago, the pastor who I did my internship under was also the son of a pastor. Sometimes, when ministry is in your blood it is hard to turn away from it. And the same was true in ancient Israel. And yet this has its good and its bad side. For the danger is that ministry might just become a family business. Some may get into the business because it is what is expected of them, because they saw their parents make it, so they will do the same. This can lead to ministers, or prophets who are more in it for themselves than they are for God. This was a problem in the time of Amos. And so God felt that he needed to use a not so normal means to bring his message to his people. So he found a sheep herder and sycamore tree gardener from a neighboring nation and sent him to the people of Israel to prophecy to them. This shepherd/gardener seemed to be good at what he did, even though he didn’t go to the prophet schools (you know, like seminary) and he didn’t come from a family of prophets. And the priests and prophets in Israel, who did keep the family business going, who did go to school, weren’t very happy with him for horning in on their territory, and worse, he was often contradicting them. They wanted to keep their jobs so they gave good words from God, Amos spoke the truth and it didn’t sound nearly as good as what they spoke, but people heard the truth in it.
So lets look at this country bumpkin, Amos and see what message he had to share with the people of Israel and see what we can learn about God from him.
II. Destruction on your enemies
Amos may not have had the training of the seminaries of the day, but he knew how to get people’s attention. Amos begins by rattling off the sins of Israel’s neighbors. He talks about how unhappy God is with those around Israel. How they have been unfaithful to God and God will bring judgment on them. Good stuff. The people would have eaten this up. It is like me sitting here telling you about how God is displeased with Iraq. In Iraq they worship a false prophet, in Iraq the strong have lorded it over the weak much too long, freedom is not available to those who cannot pay for it. God will punish Iraq. Then Amos moves on to another country, that the people of Israel also aren’t happy with. God is displeased with Sudan. Those in charge don’t step in to protect the weak from genocide. God will punish Sudan. You can imagine the people of Israel beginning to cheer Amos. Amos continues, moving a bit closer. The people of Europe have turned away from God. Christianity flourished throughout Europe, but now they have turned away and forsaken God. God will forsake them. Amos’ message was a simple one, one that I could give: God is going to bring judgment on our enemies. God is going to punish them for their evil ways. And boy do they deserve it.
But then Amos, having got their attention, delivers the message that he really has to bring. God is displeased with Israel. You can sit there and cheer at the justice of God when it is directed at others, but what about when that justice is pointed towards you? How will you stand up to God’s holy and just gaze?
Amos, and God, had legitimate claims against the nations around Israel. Damascus threshed Gilead with sledges having iron teeth. Gaza took whole communities captive and sold them into slavery. Tyre also took communities captive and sold them to Edom. Edom pursued those around it with a sword, stifling all compassion. Ammon attacked Gilead, graphically tearing open pregnant women. Moab burned the bones of Edom’s king. Judah rejected the law of the Lord, they have been led astray by false gods.
We see in the sins of these nations much warmongering and destruction of enemies, attacks on innocents, but we also see in Judah a people being punished for ignoring their God. Either way, the people of Israel hear this and cheer.
But then we get to the home turf. Then we get to the sins of the very people Amos is talking to. And Amos has a list of ways that they have angered God as well: they sell the righteous for money, they trample on the poor, they deny justice to the oppressed. Father and son would sleep with the same woman and they worshipped other gods. Amos also mentions that God sent prophets to the people, but they found ways to corrupt these prophets, convinced them to speak what the people wanted to hear instead of what God had to say.
This takes us back to where we started with Amos, because we see that the people had corrupted God’s prophets, the people had turned them away from the message that God had for them to give. And since God wasn’t able to talk through his prophets, he raised up Amos, a shepherd and a gardener, and spoke through him.
III. God wants Justice and Righteousness
So what does this tell us about God? It tells us that God will get his message through. Sometimes we choose to ignore what it is that God has to say. Sometimes we put as much as we can between ourselves and God’s word. But God finds a way to speak to us anyway. God couldn’t speak to his people through the normal prophets because they had been corrupted, so he grabbed someone else to deliver his message. Are we going to put him through the same thing? Are we going to put up all these distractions to keep us from hearing God’s word or are we going to listen so that he can speak his message to us. I’ve talked to people who have heard very clearly the word of God, almost like a voice in their head. I have had one experience where my thoughts were so obviously not my own that I can only believe that God was speaking to me. But I also believe that God does not choose to speak this way that often. Perhaps, he doesn’t do so unless he cannot get to us any other way. Perhaps God speaks to us quietly, through the Bible, through preaching, through our time together as his people and God then hopes that we hear this message. But when we choose to ignore what it is that he has to say to us, he then decides to speak a bit more clearly. And if we continue to ignore him he then pulls out the hammer and hits us over the head with the truth. This is what he did through Amos. And the fact is that it is sad when he has to get to this point, so let us endeavor to hear him when he is being subtle.
But the book of Amos teaches us something else as well. It also tells us that God doesn’t play favorites. It tells us that you cannot get away with things by claiming that you are God’s follower. God doesn’t give us as his followers, as Christians a free pass to act however we like and walk on whoever we want. God’s justice is universal, his righteousness is absolute. We cannot use our salvation as an excuse to act however we want. The people of Israel were ready to see God’s justice go out against those around them. They were ready to see the wicked punished for their wrongdoings, they just weren’t ready to admit where they had been wicked. We are guilty of this very same thing. We are the first to point out the wrongs of our neighbors. We gossip about those who live near us but live horrible lives. We desire punishment and even revenge for those who have hurt us. But we forget that we have wronged others ourselves. We ignore those things we have done that we shouldn’t have and those things that we should have done that we didn’t.
As Christ’s followers, does this mean that we aren’t going to be held accountable for what we have done wrong? Or perhaps, might it mean that we are going to be held more accountable, for we know what it is that we are supposed to be doing, but we don’t. Now I’m not talking about our salvation. I’m not trying to prescribe some works righteousness that allows us to earn our way into heaven. But Amos does have something important to say to us. Our God is a God of justice and righteousness. And our God expects us to live with this same justice and with this same righteousness in our own lives.
So let us hear the words of Amos. Let us listen to the words that he has for God’s followers: “Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is.” Amen.
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