Devotion - Wednesday, December 11

I continue to read from Amos.  I am continually impressed with what Amos has to say.

Conversations at last night's Exam Meal lead me to think I might ought to offer a bit of an introduction to this book of the Bible.

Amos is in the section called the "Minor Prophets."  These books are short, their messages are rather simple, and we know less about them than we know about the major prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel).

As noted yesterday, Amos was not a professional prophet.  He did not come from a family history of prophets.  He was a day laborer, a common joe, one whom no one would have expected to become God's spokesperson.  This may be part of the reason why his prophetic words endure - they speak of the world and the world's separation from God's vision in terms which matter to the masses.

Amos' message is mostly about economic justice.  He speaks of God's displeasure when God sees that God's own chosen people "trample on the needy."  Read Amos 8.

This morning what struck me was Amos' reference to "a famine."  He warns "not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD."

In my prayers this morning I worried whether we might be in such a famine.  I wondered if our society has become like the one he experienced where "we make the ephah small and the sheckel great"? (i.e. pay workers a low wage and then jack up the price of what we are trying to sell.)

Amos suggests that such a society emerges when there is a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.

I invite you to join me in praying for an end to famines:  to the kind that cause physical deaths in sub-Sahara Africa and to the kinds which allow us to ignore the plight of the poor.