October 10, 2021 Text: Amos 5:6-7, 10-15
Dear Friends in Christ,
Picture the scene. You are at home in the middle of the afternoon. You go to the laundry room or your workbench. You arrive safely but you can’t remember what you were looking for. Was it a shirt to be ironed or were you looking for a hanger? Did you go to the workbench for a crescent wrench or a tube of caulk? What are you looking for?
That is a good question to ask this morning as we look at the Book of Amos. It is a question for emotionally and spiritually restless people.
“WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?”
In the large scheme of things we might answer that question with happiness or love or excitement. We might be looking for a purpose in life or excitement. If we eventually find some of these things they never seem to last for any length of time. Looking for our source of life apart from God is not what we were created for.
The Lord’s people during the time of Amos knew a thing or two about looking for things apart from God. Amos writes in a time of relative political stability in the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. This external stability is covering up spiritual problems. The people have calf idols and false gods. Ultimately they adopt the great false god – they are worshipping self.
The well to do and connected people start defrauding the common folk. People are charged unfair taxes and they would pay off judges to maintain their enterprise. Any of this sound familiar? Something we might know about as Illinoins in the same state as a large city?
Even God’s tolerance goes only so far. He sends Amos to warn them that their time is coming. You have a nice house but you will not live there. You have a wonderful vineyard but you shall not drink the vintage. Within a generation of this writing Israel would be destroyed by the Assyrians.
As we look for the good life we can step on people. When we look for pleasure we use people. When we look for power we manipulate. We are good at worshipping our own self-interests.
The Lord wants so much more from us. “Seek the Lord and live.” (v. 6a) “Seek good, and not evil, that you may live.” (v. 14) We look for a thousand good things in life when only one can give us the life we need. “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (Jn. 10:10)
We didn’t go looking for God. He came looking for us. He didn’t stand in the pantry going: now what was I looking for? He knew. He knew He had created us. He knew that through acts of love and mercy, Jesus bore witness of the life He came to give us. He knew that Jesus would be given over to die on a cross. He knew that Son of His would destroy the power of death and that He lives forever to be our life. He is looking for us to be strengthened in Absolution and Gospel and Sacrament.
Firm in our Christian faith and then looking outside ourselves, God allows us to see people rightly, as objects of His love and our love. We care for neighbor because the Lord cared for us. With Jesus as our source of life we seek to bless those around us instead of using them for our own ends.
The prophet Amos had words of hope for his wayward countrymen. God would look for and seek His people. God would save His people. Continuing to follow the story the Lord would bring them home to a land where they would build and dwell and plant vineyards and enjoy the wine. They would dwell in His presence forever.
It’s a picture of the new creation for us. We don’t need to look outside ourselves for fulfillment. We have an eternal hope through Jesus Christ. We may not always know what we are looking for but our Savior Jesus does. We pray that others, especially all the lookers and seekers of our world, will find through the Holy Spirit the Lord being near and dear to them. This is where true life is found.
Amen.