You know how you can be halfway through a really good meal, and then somebody says something that makes you put your fork down? Amos would’ve been that guy.
Amos 1:1 introduces him as one of the shepherds of Tekoa. I like that we learn what he did for a living before we hear what he had to say. Later, when a priest tells him to go preach somewhere else, Amos tells him where God found him in the first place. He was out with the flock.
I imagine there is a lot to learn out there. Lessons about which sheep need your attention the most. Noticing the needs of an entire flock.
A few chapters later, Amos talks about people stretched out on couches, eating lamb and drinking wine. And I keep thinking about the lamb.
Somebody raised it. Somebody like Amos got up and went out to check on it even at the most inconvenient times.
That's what shepherds do.
I wonder how much of that kind of work ever crossed anybody’s mind over dinner.
What gets Amos going is how easy it is for them to enjoy all that while people around them are hurting. And when he gets to the marketplace, he sees that some of the people doing well are the same ones cheating poor people out of grain. So, somebody’s going home with less so somebody else can keep having more.
Nothing new under the sun, right?
Now, I can be critical and angry at the merchants both then and now. I should be, but that’s the easy part. It’s harder to look around at the things I’ve gotten used to having and ask who’s doing the work that makes them possible.
I’m glad God called a shepherd because I've still got some lessons to learn about caring for the whole flock.
Stay blessed...john
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