URC Daily Devotion 10th January

Amos clearly knew a thing or two about political protest; but for the ancient Jews there wasn’t an easy divide between personal morality and political ideas.  The Jews saw God as their King bound to the People by the Covenant.  Of course the Jews insisted on having a king like the surrounding nations but Kings proved to be a mixed blessing – and were often removed by the prophets acting in the name of God if they strayed too far from the Covenant.  In this passage oppression of the poor is condemned alongside sexual immorality – I wonder if the prophet had in mind the poor woman who had to satisfy both father and son with her body.  
Amos reminded the people of all that God had done for them in the past in the hope that this reminiscence would bring them back to a fruitful relationship with God but, again and again, Amos is driven to remind the people where they have gone wrong – and the coming consequence of that neglect.  

Prophets are in short supply in our own age.  Political might is happier for the Church to talk about personal morality – then it can portray as out of touch, insular, and old fashioned – than it is when we make political statements.  This isn’t new.  In the 1980s the Brazilian bishop Dom Helder Camara famously noted that when he gave food to the poor they called him a saint but when he asked why the poor had no food they called him a communist.  I suspect he was happier with the latter rather than the former description.