Amos, For Our Times

I received the following text in an email. I am not the author, there is a lot in here that I am wrestling with. So I thought I'd give you the same opportunity to wrestle with this.

Reading the book of Amos, specifically 5:18-27, inspired the followingpiece. I wondered what God might say to the contemporary AmericanChurch.

This is one suggestion:_____God, Speaking To the American Church:

You spend too much time thinking about and wishing for the end of theworld. Why are you so anxious to bring about God's judgment? And whatkinds of people have you become, thinking the world will end tomorrow?In your arrogance and laziness you have forgotten why I placed you here.You have endless conferences and seminars on how to do church, but youhave forgotten to be the church, a people who faithfully live as analternative community, pointing all people toward Me through loving service.You have grown rich exploiting the poor. You bring a tiny pittance ofthat money back to Me and say, "God, you have been so good to us." Butyour money smells like crap in My nostrils. It sickens Me and I don'twant it. Give it back to the poor from which it came.You grow more food than you need by destroying the very soil I gave youto tend. You sit down to a sumptuous buffet and say, "Look how God hasblessed us." I have not blessed you. I have left you to your owndestruction.

There will come a day when the womb of the earth will no longer produceand the poor will rise up and pledge never to sew a cheap garment again.You will grow hungry and your shopping malls will close. Then you willturn to Me and cry, "God, why have you rejected us?" And I will say, "Ihave not rejected you. I have been here all along, waiting for yourreturn."

So turn your face toward Me now. Seek after Me. Live out My commands. D oyou want to be people after My own heart? Then care for the poor, theneedy, the marginalized, those for whom My heart has always beat loudly.Cease your endless Bible studies, searching for the answer to righteousliving. Commit yourselves to following what I already told you to do.Don't believe you are pursuing Me if you are not seeking to do justice.Care for the planet. You have become so worried about who might alsoadvocate this course of action that you forgot it was one of My first commandments to you. Tend well what I have given you.Seek the welfare of your community. As people in exile, your future andthe future of the place you live are one and the same. So make yourworld more whole, that you might be more holy.And live in love. I had hoped you would get that message when My Sonjoined humanity and demonstrated sacrificial love in action. But you areso worried about His return that you forget why He came.

Be a people shaped by the model of Jesus, not just the prospect of escaping theworld I have asked you to help heal.