The Real Deal
“Let justice surge like water, and goodness like an unfailing stream.” Amos 5: 24
Amos spent days in solitude, watching over sheep and pruning sycamores to nurture their figs. In the quiet, God’s words stung like angry bees. Complacency had enveloped the community. Festivals and feasts were their pride while awareness of God’s presence dwindled. Rituals were performed smugly. “How righteous we are! How triumphant our harps! We are the chosen ones. Hooray for us.”
A people bloated on being exceptional no longer dwelt on higher ground. Amos is blunt. Destruction awaits a community consumed with externals. God’s love never wavers but it is tinged with disgust. Appearances always conceal to some degree what lies beneath. Amos probes the hearts of his neighbors and finds little substance. They are running on empty.
Amos admonishes us to seek good and avoid evil. Directions are not always clear. In the United States, as we celebrate our nation’s founding, what appears exceptional is entwined with injustice. We are a remarkable nation settled by immigrants and dedicated to freedom. We are a nation that enslaved Africans to grow prosperous and decimated native people by taking their land. Our achievements fill us with pride; what underlies the hoopla unsettles us. Both matter. Like our ancestors, we cannot be complacent. There is work to be done.
In the gospel, two persons are ravaged by destructive spirits. Their rage and violence make travel near the tombs dangerous. How do we determine what is good? Jesus shows mercy to both the men and spirits. He heals those afflicted with madness and heeds the pleas of the spirits to enter the swine. Pigs were seen by Jewish people as unclean. The townspeople, however, view the herd’s demise differently.
Amos urges us to seek the good. What do we know about goodness? The good is not noisy. It doesn’t set off fireworks or hide from flaws. With God’s help we learn to distinguish what is authentic from pretense.
Jeanne Schuler
We live in the city near the university with our three children, so work and family form almost a whole…but not a seamless whole. Family, faith, work, old neighborhoods, leftist (leftover) politics, and enough community are my measures of reality. Also, a good dog named Sid.
Scripture has depths missing from other forms of wisdom. This is closer to the ground we walk on.
