Reading about God’s wrath in the Book of Amos, it might be easy to ask, ‘How can a loving God show so much anger?’, or ‘How can a God of mercy be willing to destroy towns and cities?’ Where is this forgiveness God asks us to give one another, ‘70 x 7’? What about love and mercy? What questions run through your thoughts?
For now, I invite you to put these questions aside and revisit
Amos from a different perspective. Remember the Gospel scene where Jesus overturns the table in
the Temple because people are desecrating the Sabbath for the sake of
profit? It’s clear that Jesus is enraged
in this story.
Intense anger, wrath, rage or whatever we choose to name
this measure of confrontation usually comes from one of two sources…and
sometime from both: either pain or deep fear, or perhaps a sense of ‘just righteousness’. In Amos, as in the Gospels, I believe God’s
wrath expresses God’s pain and ‘just righteousness’, rather than just
destruction. While this means of expression is not shown in ways you and I
would desire ‘love and grace’ to be shown, at the chore of this wrath might
there be a deep love?
Sound strange? How can wrath and love be spoken of in the same context? In these passages, I hear God saying, “Look at how you are living out your lives without care for others or this land, after all I have given you? Were you not created and freed to be stewards?” Perhaps Gods expression of wrath speaks to people destroying themselves and their towns by their actions and disregard for life.
Sound strange? How can wrath and love be spoken of in the same context? In these passages, I hear God saying, “Look at how you are living out your lives without care for others or this land, after all I have given you? Were you not created and freed to be stewards?” Perhaps Gods expression of wrath speaks to people destroying themselves and their towns by their actions and disregard for life.
I am convinced that God is a God of relationships. (Genesis).
The close of Amos describes God’s desire to restore all that has been
destroyed.
Herein lays mercy and love.
In my own life, how often do I fall short of
God’s righteousness. It’s a process, a
journey. So I prefer to read Amos as God prodding me to
live more mindfully with gratitude and prayer.
I believe Grace lives in the journey.
What about you?
Shalom,
Susan Moss
p.s. What do you
think about the powerful messages in Amos being conveyed through a field worker?
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