Don’t Tell Us What To Do

Amos 7:1-8:3

Ann and I usually clean our house about mid-morning on Saturday’s. She’ll do the bathrooms, upstairs vacuuming, and downstairs mopping while I wash clothes and do the downstairs vacuuming. It’s the fairest way we’ve found to divide the duties.

Once we get started we don’t usually like to stop until the work is done. So we try to stay out of each other’s way while at the same time support what the other is doing. So, when things come up, such as I’ve been waiting for a response to an email I sent earlier and my phone alerts me to a message which came in, sometimes I have to ask her to get my phone for me because she’s closer. Sometimes it puts an unwanted pause or interruption in our rhythm.

Because we like to help each other, though, she’ll stop what she’s doing and get the phone. On rare occasions the interruptions become more frequent. She asks me to get a new soap dispenser for the Swiffer, I ask her to take a sheet to the washer, she asks me to make sure I wash the couch covers, I ask her to grab me a drink of water.

It’s on those occasions one of us will eventually say, “Stop telling me what to do.” We don’t mean it, because we’re just good to each other that way, but it is our way of saying I’m busy too.

It’s also our own little way of saying, “You can do these things yourself, so go do it.”

The truth is that sometimes it’s just easier to ask someone else to do it. I know I can get my own glass of water, I just choose to let the other things I’m doing become more important. The other truth is that sometimes I just don’t like being told what to do, or what not to do, if I think it’s going to disrupt my life.

To a certain degree I think we’re all that way. Sometimes we just don’t like being told what to do.

As followers of Christ, though, we recognize that there are times when we’ll be told what to do by the still, small voice of God. As much as we might want to choose not to do that which we are being called to do, when God wants us to do something chances are we’re going to do it.

This is where Amos finds himself in today’s passage.

The Book of Amos is told from a narrator’s point-of-view. But here, in chapter 7, we suddenly see the use of a first person writing style when Amos says, “This is what the Lord God showed me.” Nobody has figured out why the writing style has changed, but when something like this happens it’s usually because the original writings were edited in some way. There is no scholarly consensus that this is the case here in Amos, but if you went home and read Amos, completely skipping chapter 7 up until chapter 8 verse 3 you would find that Amos has a much better flow and makes a lot more sense as far as the message this book is trying to get across.

Then again, because Amos is believed to be written around 765 BCE, with no existence of any other writings for us to compare to, we are left to find an understanding as to why Amos changed his voice, the voice with which he tells his story. Why does Amos insert a more personal way in which to get this point across?

Maybe it’s because Amos is trying to tell us that the reason he is prophesying is because God told him to and to him that’s a very personal thing.

The vision of the plumb line is the 3rd in a string of 4 visions. The 2 before this have to do with the destruction of Israel through locusts and fire. Amos pleads with God to not let those visions come true, and God listens. However, it’s obvious that God feels God needs to do something about Israel, so God shows the vision of the plumb line to Amos, highlighting the fact that Israel does not measure up to their covenantal duties; Israel has become a place where people are more interested in their personal successes and lives that they no longer remember to take care of the poor, the orphan, or the widow.

If there is one thing we can learn from the prophets, any of them, it is that God expects us to provide for a world where all are taken care of and nobody is forgotten. Peace through justice is what the prophets’ messages are.

Amos has no response to God in this vision. Instead we’re invited to listen as Amaziah, Priest of Bethel in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, bemoans to the King of Israel how Amos is making it difficult for him to do his job. For, you see, Amos’ words are most likely scaring away those who would come to the temple; at least I know if I wanted to go to church and someone was ranting about my destruction I probably wouldn’t want to go in.

It’s at this point Amos says that he’s not prophesying for his own benefit. After all he had a happy life as a herdsman and caretaker of sycamore trees. His was a simple life where he spent all his time outdoors, enjoying God’s creation in peace. But, as it is with prophets, God had other plans for this man, and so off he was sent to a place outside of his comfort zone where he was to talk about death and destruction.

If we read past today’s passage we’ll see that Amos is given a fourth vision, one of the fruit basket which sounds good and yummy, but in the interpretation of what Amos saw we are told it was a basket of rotting summer fruit. This is God’s way of making God’s decision to destroy Israel final, saying to Amos, “The end has come upon my people Israel.”

It’s here, at the end of this 4^th vision I want us to pay special attention. So far we’ve been introduced to the book of Amos as being written in the third person, except for chapter 7 until chapter 8 verse 3. During chapter 7 we are invited into a more personal view point of Amos’ reason for being a prophet, the intimate relationship he has with God. We’re also given a snippet of priests and kings trying to stop Amos, trying to tell Amos what he can or cannot do.

Then here at the end of this trail of visions we hear God say to Amos, “Be silent!” And for the rest of the book Amos once again tells his story in the third person, narrating the interactions and conversations between God and God’s people.

It’s almost to say that Amos recognizes that it is God who has put him there and it is God who guides him. Amos, in this unusual way of writing, unusual to today’s standards anyway, is in my opinion making it very clear who is allowed to tell him what to do.

Which gets me thinking; who tells us what to do?

Sure, sometimes I let my wife tell me what to do; okay, more than sometimes. But as far as making life decisions, as far as how I present myself in the world, as far as the words I choose to use and the actions I choose to perform, it’s God, through the teachings of Jesus Christ I let tell me what to do.

Amos might have been a mere herdsman, but God saw in him someone who could speak on God’s behalf. Amos might have been a simple caretaker of sycamore trees, but God knew that he could be more. God knows what we’re capable of, God gives us the gifts we need to do God’s work, and God puts us on the path to helping make this world a better place for all – especially the downtrodden, especially the outcasts, especially those who live on the fringes.

To me it is very clear what we are called to do; what God is telling us to do: Take care of each other and this world in the same way God takes care of us. As Jesus so eloquently puts it – love God with everything you are, and love each other and yourselves in the same way.

Ewa Community Church is in a unique place at this point in our history. We are a church that has endured many changes. Some of these changes were good ones such as the combining of the ethnic churches into one, and some of them not so good like the closing of the plantation. But somehow we’ve found a way to keep moving forward.

As we continue to move forward, together facing whatever challenges are ahead, I want you to remember who has brought you here. I don’t mean your uncle and aunty or parents. I’m not talking about a friend or colleague. I don’t even mean a website or social media page. I want you to know that it is God who has led us all to stand in this place, in this time, with one another.

It is God who has brought us here and it is God who is trying to tell us what to do and it’s in God we need to put our trust. You’ve heard me say that we all have gifts given to us by God. Our gifts vary as much as there are people sitting in these pews. What we need to be willing to do now is find that voice which says, “Yes, I’m living a life that’s more or less in my comfort zone, but what if I could do more? What if God is expecting me to do more?

In 2011 a small group of teachers from our school made plans to go to Fukushima, Japan during spring recess. On the night before they were to fly that part of the country was hit by one of their worst natural disasters; a 9.0 earthquake followed by a deadly tsunami. The combination of those 2 events resulted in almost 16,000 deaths and the nuclear meltdown of one of their power plants, the latter of which is still affecting life in Fukushima.

When we came back from the recess one of the teachers told us of how she felt about what almost happened to them. If the earthquake had happened just a day and a half later her and the other teachers might have been among the almost 16,000 who lost their lives.

As she talked about how her life was almost changed, it struck her that the lives of those living in Northeast Japan did change. I watched tears form in her eyes as she said, “I wish there was something I could do for them.”

The next day she rushed into the office and proclaimed she had the best idea in the world about how to help the people in Japan; she would collect money from teachers and students and donate it to the Red Cross. We gave her a look, telling her she’d be lucky to get a couple hundred dollars, but her goal was to raise one dollar from every student and teacher in our school, about 2200.

She promoted the fund drive as “Hearts for Japan”, and the dollars which were donated were folded into origami-style hearts by students in our academy as well as others. Students would come by and drop off hearts they collected in their classes. Some gave $15, some gave $150. The administrators even got involved, challenging each of them to give no less than $10, which some did, and some didn’t.

It was amazing to watch as the folded hearts kept coming. She was adamant that each bill collected be a dollar, so she would go to the bank and change some of the 5’s and 10’s and 20’s that came in. She took the coins and put them in her bag, replacing them with dollar bills. By the end of the drive, which lasted 2 weeks, she had collected close to $2300 in folded hearts to donate towards the rescue efforts in Fukushima.

When all was said and done I had a private moment with her, congratulating her for how she brought the Kapolei community together for a great cause. She only smiled and said thank you, which I saw as a very humble response to what she just achieved. The following words are some that will stay with me for a while.

I remember asking her if what she did was so that she felt better about what happened in Japan. She said to me that what she did, she did because there was a little voice which told her to do so. When she heard that voice she immediately knew it was the right thing to do and it didn’t matter if she had the abilities to do it, somehow she knew everything would work out.

Now is not the time to doubt your gifts, or to think there’s possibly nothing you can do for the church that you haven’t already done, or to speculate on how much easier a life it is taking care of sycamore trees. Now is the time to dig deep, to find the thing God is telling you to do, and to go out and do it.

God is with us all.   Amen.