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More than a Maybe
Amos 5: 6-7. 10-15
(IC Chapel: 10/16/12)
Imagine being privy to the following conversation between a pastor and
his troubled parishioner:
Pastor: Good morning,
Frank. What’s on your mind this morning?
Frank: For some reason, pastor,
my conscience has really been bothering me lately. All I can think about is what a rotten,
selfish person I’ve been for most of my life.
If I tell God I’m really, really sorry,
do you think he will forgive me?
Pastor: Hmmm, maybe.
Frank: I just look at myself
in the mirror these days and pretty much hate myself for the person I’ve
become. Do you really think that God
could love and use a miserable sinner like me?
Pastor: Hmmm, maybe.
Frank: Frankly, pastor, I’ve
never spent too much time thinking about heaven and hell—I’ve been obsessed
with making money, getting ahead, moving up the corporate ladder. But I’ve been going to a lot of funerals
lately, and I don’t like to think about what’s going to happen to me when I
die. Do you think there’s any hope that
I might make it to heaven, in spite of everything I’ve done?
Pastor: Hmmm, maybe.
Frank: Pastor, I know you must
be very busy and have lots of important things to do—but do you think I could
come back next week and talk to you again?
Pastor: Hmmm, maybe. Check with my secretary—I don’t want to make
any promises I can’t keep.
Frank: Um, OK, thanks,
pastor. See you next week—maybe?
On a scale of zero to ten, how would you rate this pastor’s ability to
proclaim and apply the comforting, saving, healing Gospel of Jesus Christ?
At first glance (or maybe even at second or third glance), you might be
tempted to rate the Prophet Amos about the same way. The first words out of the mouth of this
shepherd-turned-preacher are these: “The
Lord roars from Zion… the pastures of the shepherds mourn, and the top of Mount
Carmel withers.” Amos begins by all of Israel’s neighbors one
by one, pronouncing God’s unsparing judgment on them all. And just when Judah and Israel start smirking
self-righteously, look out! The Lion of
Judah thunders against his own people:
“For three transgressions and for four,” says the Lord through Amos, “I
will not revoke the punishment, because my own people have rejected the law of
the Lord. They have not kept his
statutes, but their lies have led them astray.”
Martin Luther called Amos a “violent” prophet. No prophet, says Luther, “has so little in
the way of promises and so much in the way of denunciations and threats.” Amos,
says Luther, is aptly named, since “Amos” means “burden,” and this prophet does
almost nothing but burden people with the guilt of their sin and the threat of
God’s sure and certain punishment.
There is, to be sure, a little Gospel in Amos, but so scarce and guarded
is that Gospel that it almost comes across as Law. The first real hint of the Gospel in Amos
comes at the end of today’s Scripture reading, where Amos says: “Seek good, and not evil, that you may live;
then the Lord God of hosts will be with you, as you have said…It may be that
the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”
The word “maybe,” as our poor, troubled parishioner knows, is not
exactly a powerful, calming, soothing Gospel word. But, frankly, it’s the best Amos has to offer
after five straight chapters of fire and brimstone: “Maybe, just maybe, God will have mercy on
you if you repent. Maybe, just maybe,
God will stay his fearsome hand of judgment and spare you, for the sake of his
grace alone. “
What I’m about to say probably borders on heresy, but as the Christian
apologist G. K. Chesterton liked to say, every real and radical truth of the
Christian faith borders on
heresy. What we learn from Amos,
perhaps, is that even a little Gospel is better than no Gospel. If you’re drowning in the ocean and the icy
waves are engulfing you, even the faintest sound of the rescue helicopter’s
wings is better than no sound at all. If
you’re lost in the woods in the black of the night with the mercury falling and
the wild creatures howling, even the tiniest flicker of a search party’s
flashlight is better than no flicker at all.
If you’re dying of inoperable cancer, even a whisper of a rumor of a
possible new treatment is better than no whisper at all. And when you’re knocking desperately, almost
hopelessly, on heaven’s door, even the slightest crack, however narrow, is
better than having the door slammed in your face and hearing it bolted shut
from the other side.
Maybe, says Amos, just maybe there is some hope even now for you
miserable, proud, smug, self-righteous, hypocritical sinners who oppress the
poor and stomp on the needy and disregard God’s law and commands. That’s how patient and merciful your God is;
as rotten as you are, he may not have written you off completely yet. Seek good, not evil; repent and seek the
living God. He has shown mercy in the
past, when no mercy was deserved. Cast
yourselves and your sins on Him, and hope against all hope, that He will be
merciful yet again.
What Amos teaches us, it seems to me, is the true and Biblical meaning
of faith. Faith is hoping against all
hope, trusting in a God who should by all rights damn us to hell, clinging to a
God who sometimes looks to us like the devil, hanging on to God’s “maybe” as if
it were the surest word we have ever heard—because in Jesus Christ, it is the
surest Word we have ever heard.
The Gospel itself, of course, is never a “maybe.” As Paul says, all God’s promises find their sure
and certain “Yes!” in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 1:20). But God, in his wisdom, knowing our human
condition, knowing the way our twisted hearts and minds work, sometimes
delivers those promises to us in ways that test and challenge our faith
precisely in order to elicit a cry of faith and a confession of faith. If you think about it, Jesus himself says
some pretty strange-sounding things to seeker-sinners in the Gospels: to the Syro-Phoenician woman, to the rich
young man, to the woman at the well. He
sometimes preaches a strange-sounding Gospel.
But even a strange-sounding Gospel, as long as it is true Gospel, is
better than no Gospel at all. And if
you’re desperate enough to keep on listening, even to someone like Amos, that
Gospel gets louder and clearer the more you listen.
Amos begins with God roaring like a lion out of Zion. This is how Amos ends: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the
Lord,…when the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with
it. I will restore the fortunes of my
people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they
shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, they shall make gardens and eat
their fruit. I will plant them on their
land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the Land that I have given
them, says the Lord your God.” No
maybe’s there. No maybe’s anywhere when
we put our trust only and completely in Jesus Christ. Jesus turns this roaring Lion into a
Lamb. Jesus is the Lion who became a
Lamb, the Lamb of God who was slain for the sins of the whole world, and that
includes all of your sins, every single one.
To Him be the glory forever and ever.
Amen.
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