Like many of the Old Testament prophets, Amos does an effective job at creating a word picture of doom and gloom. This same talent is perhaps also part of why a good number of Christians -- just like a good number of the prophets' contemporaries -- prefer to ignore these messages. In this passage, directed originally at the Northern Kingdom of Israel, we are presented a vivid picture of a people wandering about in search not of food and drink, but of something even more necessary and elusive. They are seeking God's own word. My first thought is the Garden of Eden, where in losing innocence through disobedience, Adam and Eve are left in a situation worse than hunger or thirst. They have lost the very companionship of God. He is still there, he still communicates with them, but they have lost their intimacy with him. The picture in my imagination is one of despair and anguish, a palpable, almost physical, pain. Such is the pain the people of Israel are undergoing in this prophecy of Amos.
And just as in the Garden of Eden, it is a pain they could have avoided. The irony is that the very words they are ignoring -- the words given to them by the prophet -- are the same kind of words they will yearn to hear when the word-famine begins. Why? It is easy to ignore God when he is present and speaking; it is hard to bear it when he instead turns his back on us. When God's patience with Israel would run out, when he would allow it to be overrun by its enemies, then the people would indeed recognize that any word from God is better than silence. They would run from north to east, from sea to sea, but they would no longer find it. Because they have not looked for God's word in the one place it was most easily found -- their very own hearts.
Reading this portion from Amos brings to mind Jesus' encounter with a Samaritan woman at a well, as told in John 4. Jesus asks the Samaritan woman to draw water for him, and she expresses surprise that he would even speak to her, considering their ethnic differences. Jesus replies with, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” And then, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman, intrigued, rightly answers, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
What is the tie to Amos? Think about it: who are the Samaritans? They are the descendants of Israelites left after the Northern Kingdom was taken into captivity, along with gentiles who moved into the area. The Samaritans, indeed, represent [I think] those who were left without God's word, going to and fro in search of God's word but instead suffering a long famine. That is, until Jesus comes along and offers up living water, the living word, to end the famine and drought in the land for good.
Today, we still have a lesson to learn from this passage. The New Interpreter's Bible puts it better than I could:
Does the church recognize that its health and vigor, its very life, depends on one thing only -- not on efficiency of organization, not on breadth of programs, not on attractiveness of sanctuaries, services, and clergy -- but solely on the clear and faithful preaching of the Word of God as found in Scripture? If it does, there is abundant evidence the church as a whole is not doing enough about it. (Vol. VII, p. 419, Donald Gowan)It is a simple fact: where scripture is read, preached, taught, and respected, the church is growing; where it is challenged, distorted, or simply ignored, the church is dying. Twenty-seven centuries separate us from Amos, but the same truth holds true. Thankfully, we have access to living water; all we need to do is ask for it.
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