Do you enjoy being told “a thing or two” by some angry, critical person? Of course, you don’t, and neither do I. To make matters worse, what if their negative judgment of us is true?! That really makes us squirm, doesn’t it?

So I think it is only fair to warn you that today we are going to listen to a very angry, critical man. The fact that what he had to say is true doesn’t make his message any easier to hear. Indeed, I suspect our response to him may be the same response as people in his own time: we will try to excuse ourselves, deny the truth of what he is saying, or simply ignore him.

The angry, critical man I am speaking about was a prophet in Israel about eight centuries before Christ. Various men and a few women – most of them lay people, not clergy – became absolutely convinced that God wanted them to speak words of criticism, even condemnation, to the Hebrew people. At that time the united kingdom of David and Solomon had broken apart into two small countries, the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. The prophets played no favorites. Both countries came in for their share of harsh judgment.

So what was “bugging” the prophets? They were outraged that the Hebrew people had substituted false religion for vital faith, religious ritual for righteous living. Today I want us to listen to the message of the prophet Amos, the most angry of all the prophets.

Before I tell you something about his message, let me tell you a bit about the man. It won’t take long because we don’t know that much about him. Amos was – to all outward appearances – a rather ordinary man. He earned his living as a shepherd and tender of sycamore trees in the southern kingdom of Judah about 750 years before Christ. He lived in the country but it is very obvious that he was an astute observer of city life. What he saw shocked and infuriated him. He saw callous, overfed and overdressed, plutocrats at ease in their expensive homes thinking only of how they could amuse themselves. He saw poor people overburdened with debts who were sometimes sold into slavery to pay what they owed. Amos saw religious sanctuaries crowded with confident worshippers rejoicing in their good fortune with little or no concern for their needy neighbors. Amos also saw religious professionals whose greatest concern was to tell the people what they wanted to hear and not what they needed to hear.

Why Amos thought he was the one to speak God’s word of judgment to such people we don’t know. When he was asked he simply said that God told him to do it and he did.

But Amos had two strikes against him. He was a layman not an ordained religious leader. What right did he have to presume to speak for God?! That’s the job of religious professionals!

Amos had another strike against him: he was a southerner from Judah speaking in the most important religious shrine of the northern kingdom of Israel. That’s right: Amos was one of those famous “outside agitators” you and I have heard about in our lifetime. What right does someone have to come from another part of the country or from another country altogether and dare to criticize us?!

Layman or not, foreigner or not, Amos had the conviction and courage to deliver his sermon at Bethel. Even now nearly 3,000 years later, it is still regarded as a masterpiece. We don’t know exactly when he delivered his sermon but it seems to have been during an important religious festival. The sanctuary was filled with an enormous crowd. At first, when Amos began shouting out his message, people could not have been more pleased. Amos began by denouncing every one of Israel’s enemies – Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab. In each case, Amos gave a blistering indictment of the cruelty and injustice of those nations. As Amos went on, I can imagine the worshippers nudging each other and saying, “The fellow’s a southern redneck but he sure knows what’s what. Go for it, fellah!” Then Amos really gave them something to cheer about. He began a harsh criticism of his own country, Judah! There was no love lost between these two kindred nations. How wonderful to hear someone from Judah denouncing their neglect of God’s commandments and calling down judgment upon them!

Then he has their undivided attention, Amos begins an absolutely scathing denunciation of Israel itself. Amos tells the worshippers that God is outraged by their behavior. They are callously indifferent to the poor. Worse than that, they defraud the poor so they can live in luxury. Their personal morals are despicable. Their religiosity is a fraud. Amos imagines God holding a plumb line to measure the nation and seeing that things in Israel are way “out of line.”

You can imagine how upset the people were to hear this criticism. Soon enough one of the religious professionals stepped in to restore order and decorum. The high priest, Amaziah interrupted Amos and told him to go home to Judah and preach his sermons there. Bethel was the official religious sanctuary of the nation. It was not proper to be so negative and critical in that place. That is not what people came to worship to hear. Get out of here!

When Amaziah says that, Amos really “loses it.” He pronounces awful disaster for the nation in general and Amaziah and his family in particular. I imagine that after Amos was gone, Amaziah calmed the people with a few well-chosen words about the need to ignore religious fanatics. Then it was back to business as usual and the entire incident was forgotten.

It would have been forgotten for all time except for two things. First, Amos went home and wrote down everything that happened together with some concluding words of judgment. Today we call this the Book of Amos. The second thing that happened was that Amos’ prediction of doom for Israel came true.

But let’s leave the past and talk about the present – our present. What would Amos say to us if he could speak to us today?

A few years ago I thought I heard Amos when I read an excellent article in Time. Harvard psychologist, Steven Burgles has made something of a career as a therapist to the rich and successful. He believes that many people today are suffering from what he calls the four A’s – arrogance, a sense of aloneness, the need to seek adventure, and adultery. Wealthy and influential people may appear to be quite successful, but in fact they are seriously disturbed. Their values are “out of line.” They hurt others through deceit and fraud, and end up by destroying themselves and other people.

When we think only or primarily about ourselves – our needs, our pleasures, our concerns – we are on the road to self-destruction. Oh, to be sure, we can mask our problem in many ways. Wealth is a wonderful anesthetic. We can buy lovely toys, take great vacations, live in beautiful homes but sooner or later we will be destroyed from within. We will become the hollow men and women that T. S. Eliot described.

To mask that hollowness some people turn to religion. We will search for a religion that will make us feel good rather than challenging us to be good. We will want to listen to preachers who will tell us nice things and entertain us with pleasant stories but who will never confront us with the hurt and pain and need in our world. We will seek a religion that is full of talk about spirituality and personal growth and positive possibilities, but which will leave untouched the dark side of our lives that is destroying us from within. We will prefer a false religion to a vital faith. As time goes on we will not even know the difference.

If our religion does not challenge us to sacrifice, even suffer, for what we say we believe, there will be no spiritual cure for us. I believe many people today inside and outside churches want to escape that challenge. We also hear people say, “I’m not religious, I’m spiritual.” That’s nonsense. We can’t be spiritual without being religious. Religion – true religion – is the way we learn how to show real love to God and neighbor. When we do that, then we are being spiritual.

I believe our world today is full of false religions. Many have large numbers of supporters. False religions always do. People of false religions don’t like to be reminded by prophets like Amos that the primary task of any religion is not to bless us to take care of ourselves, but to challenge us to take care of others. When we believe that God is there to take care of us and not the rest of humanity, then the critics of religion will be right: Religion is false, empty and selfish.

Would you like some examples? True religion is willing to raise $750,000 to aid the poor. False religion uses the money to erect hug crosses by the side of the highway to prove they are God’s chosen people. True religion welcomes, accepts and affirms that all people are God’s children and deserve our respect. False religion drives people out of church because they or their family are gay or lesbian. True religion accepts our God-given responsibility to care for our earth, more and more affected by global warming. True religion is not willing to elect or re-elect politicians who are so in the pockets of big oil and big business that they could care less about the polluted legacy we are leaving to our children and grandchildren. False religion just wants to read the Bible and pray for the second coming of Christ, so why worry about the environment? All this and much more is the difference between true religion and false religion. God help us if we cannot see the difference. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to Amos again.

“I hate, I despise your religious festivals,

and I take no delight in your solemn religious assemblies.

Even though you bring me offerings . . . I will not

accept them.

Take away from me the noise of your hymns;

I will not listen to the melody of your organs and

pianos, your choirs and praise bands.

But let justice roll down like waters,

and righteousness like an ever flowing stream”

Amos 5:21-24 Selected and Adapted

Amen.