Wednesday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 379

Seek good and not evil,
that you may live;
Then truly will the LORD, the God of hosts,
be with you as you claim!
Hate evil and love good,
and let justice prevail at the gate;
Then it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts,
will have pity on the remnant of Joseph.

The Prophet Amos offers simple, straightforward device to the Israelites, “Seek good and not evil.”

Don’t we do that all the time? Doesn’t everyone do that? Or most everyone?

Sure, there are some “bad people” but they’re not many. Only children, their doting parents, and puerile politicians use silly phrases like “bad people.” Life and truth are far more complicated than that; we figured that out in high school.

“Let justice prevail at the gate!” Amos urged. The scriptures describe the elders of a village meeting daily – or whenever the weather was fair enough – to watch passersby, gossip, and listen to local complaints. People came to them with their disputes and disagreements and the old men, who knew them and their histories, pronounced judgement. They became the arbiters of justice in those small places; their opinions were final.

When Amos urged the Israelites to “seek good and not evil,” he had to remind them that the Lord’s enemies and their enemies were not necessarily the same people. As Jesus, almost a thousand years later, would say, “His sun shines on the just and the unjust; his rain falls on the wicked and the good.”

Seeking good and not evil is not as easy as it sounds. Pontius Pilate realized that as the mobs demanded that he crucify Jesus. “What is truth?” he sneered. His answer was expedience. It was simpler to satisfy the mob and crucify Jesus than to explain to the Roman authorities why Jerusalem had erupted in bloody rebellion. His own head might be on the line, and for what? For another pseudo-messiah from Galilee? I don’t think so. Even when his wife warned him Pilate pursued the easiest path because he could not be bothered with truth or justice.

Our religious tradition teaches us to take time every day, and to gather frequently as God’s people, to ponder the Truth and to renew our vows to live in the Truth. Whatever it is, we know it is bigger and far more important than us. I have my own interest, worries, and concerns but they pale before the bright sunshine of Truth. I should love the Truth with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength.

Our religion teaches us to pause and consider whether our immediate concerns are truly important. Are my feelings, fears, resentments, grudges, anxieties, and expectations clouding my knowledge of the Truth? I sin when I let my self block the sunshine of Truth, when I prefer the expedience of immediate gain to divine obedience.

The Lord warned the Israelites through Amos,

I hate, I spurn your feasts, says the LORD,
I take no pleasure in your solemnities;
Your cereal offerings I will not accept,
nor consider your stall-fed peace offerings.
Away with your noisy songs!

Their hypocrisy was transparent; their religion was like that of every other nation, nothing more than patriotic bombast. Later Jewish historians would conclude that Israel had utterly failed to turn back to the Lord. When the Assyrians invaded, the kingdom disappeared and the people were thrown out and trampled underfoot.