In Our Image
Amos 4:6-13
If you want people to change their ways, do you threaten them?
Photo by redcharlie on Unsplash
I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me, says the Lord. And I also withheld the rain from you when there were still three months to the harvest; I would send rain on one city, and send no rain on another city; one field would be rained upon, and the field on which it did not rain withered; so two or three towns wandered to one town to drink water, and were not satisfied; yet you did not return to me, says the Lord. I struck you with blight and mildew; I laid waste your gardens and your vineyards; the locust devoured your fig trees and your olive trees; yet you did not return to me, says the Lord. I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword; I carried away your horses; and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils; yet you did not return to me, says the Lord. I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a brand snatched from the fire; yet you did not return to me, says the Lord. Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel! For lo, the one who forms the mountains, creates the wind, reveals his thoughts to mortals, makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth-- the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name! - Amos 4:6-13
I can picture Jesus saying something like this, “Dad, you tried to win people over with plagues and droughts, to make them see the light, but that didn’t work, so let me try something different.”
We in the West tend to think that the world doesn’t work on threats and torture, because that is not how our society works, but they exist.
People are frightened into following the leader.
If you don’t obey me, I will destroy you.
It sounds like the plot of a sci-fi movie, a long, long time ago, in a place far away.
Maybe that’s the point. This is the way people saw the world and saw God. God was an all-powerful being or force that demanded obedience or else.
Has our image of God changed, and which is correct?
Jesus told us his yoke is light. He will help us carry the load in this life and bring us to our eternal home in the next. No threats, no worries.
But he did warn us that there will be a judgment, and he did tell parables of the lost being more of a source of joy than the righteous. So, maybe the message is the same, but the delivery is different.
Our modern view of how God works is a little different from ancient days. They believed God caused the drought, the storms, the floods, and the famine, while we believe those things happen in nature, and maybe God can help us through them.
That’s a big difference. And maybe that, as nice as that is, is the problem.
We no longer fear God.
We have even redefined “Fear of God” to mean everything from love to respect. We see God as a wishy-washy parent, looking to comfort us when we do something wrong rather than give us a smack upside the head and send us to our room.
We have refashioned God in our likeness, and that is playing with fire.
Maybe we should listen to Amos.
More to come...