A Lion, A Bear, and a Snake
The first of a few reflections on Amos, one of my favorite biblical prophets
If you’ve followed this blog for a while (or, honestly, ever asked me for my opinion on Christianity), you might have heard me complain about things like:
A church culture focused purely on “talking about God” while ignoring (and occasionally actively denouncing) equally important parts of the faith like “justice for the poor and marginalized”
The elevation of “Christian” political leaders known for mistreating immigrants, cruelty to the poor, and in at least one case failing to pay his workers (let the reader understand)
A weird “us vs them dynamic” that lets us assume God is on our nation’s side and against all our enemies, along with a violent and angry backlash when anybody points out that maybe our country’s history and present state is not quite so pristine.
But anyways, this is the start of a series of posts about a book of the bible, so I don’t get to pick the topics we’ll be talking about. We’ll have to look at the old-fashioned problems the prophet Amos preached against in eighth century BCE Israel, which include:
A church culture focused purely on “talking about God” while ignoring (and occasionally actively denouncing) equally important parts of the faith like “justice for the poor and marginalized”
The elevation of religiously-approved community leaders known for mistreating immigrants, cruelty to the poor, and failing to pay their workers.
A weird “us vs them dynamic” that let them assume God was on their side and against all their enemies, along with a violent and angry backlash when Amos pointed out that maybe their consciences were not quite so clean.
I’m not quite sure what the plan for the whole series is yet — we’ll have play it by ear. But for now I’d just like to share two of my favorite images from the book, which surprisingly come back-to-back.
In Chapter 5, a very angry Amos is on a beautiful tirade against the Israelites, who he says do not actually worship God because they are way too comfortable with the economic injustice they see and participate in. He sees them longing for “the day of the Lord”, when God would return, and laughs at them:
Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord!
Why do you want the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, not light;
as if someone fled from a lion,
and was met by a bear;
or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall,
and was bitten by a snake.
Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light,
and gloom with no brightness in it?
The meaning is obvious — you’re looking forwards to the end of days because of [whatever their equivalent of heaven at the time was], but if you don’t care for the marginalized you aren’t a part of the people of God no matter how much you believe. It’s both vindicating and terrifying depending on who you read “you” as.
But what I love about Amos is that his imagery is just so over-the-top that you can just feel his anger and his indignance pouring out.
He doesn’t say “it’ll be a bad day.” He says it’ll be like you were running from a lion when suddenly BEAR. It’ll be like you walked into your house and put your hand on a wall and BAM! SNAKE! The metaphors are jarring and confusing and I get the distinct sense that Amos’s God is making fun of the listener.
The next section is again terrifying:
I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
I think about this passage all the time these days. Every time somebody tells me that preaching “the gospel” is the only thing the church should be doing. Every time I read about kids dying one day and get asked to donate to a building fund the next. Every time I go on twitter and see Christian pastors defending slavery and silencing abuse victims.
And also every time I think about how much I could be doing to make the world a better place and just … don’t.
And maybe that’s the hardest thing for me. Because as much as I complain about the American church and as far as I think its priorities have drifted from God’s, I’m still definitely a part of it. And what does that mean for me?
We’ll see in the next few posts, I guess.
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