“I will never forget anything they have done.”

Good morning. I want to talk about something today that I’ve kind of understood for some time now, but have never really had to put it into words. This is kind of uncharted territory for me. Frankly, this is a sermon that I’ve really had to struggle with. Martin Luther used to use a profound Latin phrase, “Oratio, meditation, tentatio faciunt theologum.” Translated, it means, “Prayer, meditation, and struggle make one a theologian.” By that he means that the more a pastor prays over the text, the more he meditates over the text, and the more he agonizes over the meaning and application of the text, the more a pastor really wrestles with the text, the more the theology of God sinks deep, deep into the fiber of his being. That’s true for me, and it’s true for you. Prayer, meditation, and struggle make us theologians.
It’s that struggling part that’s really gotten a hold of me this week. I’ve wrestled with this text, questioning every possible angle I thought I might take on preaching it. It’s been the sort of thing that has caused me to question so many things that I’ve previously taken for granted. It’s not been easy! But I hope and pray that my struggles may result in good fruit for you, something for you to take home and ponder over. Something to sink deep, deep into the fiber of your being.
I guess part of my struggle with developing this sermon is because I’ve had to refine my understanding of what God truly cares about. I mean, the things He’s truly passionate over . . . the things that just get His heart racing. The things that are immensely pleasing to Him and the things that just make Him furious.
What’s the number one thing that God is just incredibly passionate about? It’s about people getting saved, right? It’s about the Gospel. And for the longest time I just kind of naively assumed that if the Gospel was getting out there, that if people were getting saved, then no matter what else happened God was cool with that. I guess that I just kind of assumed that if the Gospel was the thing that God cared about the most, the thing that topped His list, then that’s the only thing we really needed to be worried about. But I was wrong.
Now, it’s still true that God’s first and foremost concern is about getting people saved through the work of Jesus Christ. But just because that’s His biggest concern it doesn’t mean it’s His only concern. He’s also concerned about justice . . . about fair play. He’s concerned about the poor.
You can hear God’s heart, His passion, His driving concern for the poor of the land in these words from the Old Testament reading: Amos 8:4-7, “4 Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, 5 saying, "When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?"-- skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, 6 buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat.”
The rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. And it wasn’t just due to circumstances, but it was because the rich were getting richer by exploiting the poor. Everything they could do to put a little more back into their own pockets, that’s what they were doing. Scales that measured out just a little bit less than they said they did. Prices that were inflated because they knew people couldn’t get their goods anywhere else. Shoddy products: mixing the dry husk—the useless chaff—back in with the good wheat. Treating people like cattle . . . no, not like cattle . . . like property, like things. Lowering the value of human beings to the cost of a cheap pair of cruddy sandals.
This is what they were doing. Why? Because they thought they could get away with it. Because greed had taken over their lives. Because they thought that all God really cared about was their sacrifice at the Temple and their offerings that they made. They had remade God in their own image, but they forgot that God isn’t like us. They forgot that He doesn’t care about things at all, but what He truly cares about is people. They forgot that God wants us to use things and love people . . . and instead they loved things and used people.
And this using of people, this trampling of the poor and needy, this infuriates God so much that He says something so harsh that I can’t find the equivalent of it anywhere else in Scripture. This God that is a God of love and mercy and grace and second chances is so offended by the way that the rich are treating the poor that He swears—God swears—“I will never forget anything they have done.”

Now why is this so troubling? I mean, it’s not as though we’re an incredibly wealthy congregation. If anything we probably lean a little more towards the “poor” side of the spectrum. We’re mostly working class folks, and if anyone’s getting exploited around here it’s us. Corporate America exploits the working class. We’re the ones who deserve a break, right?
That’s what I used to think . . . until one day that I ate a chocolate bar.
Now in my house we love chocolate! When someone’s feeling down or they get a scraped knee, what do I say? “Chocolate fixes everything.” I love chocolate so much that I scoured the internet to figure out how to eat more of it and still be healthy. And I found out that the darker the chocolate the better it is for your brain. But if you don’t like the dark chocolate I also found out that the regular milk chocolate can also be good for you, too! You just have to take your chocolate bar and break it in half and shake all the calories out. Or if you don’t want to do that, all you have to do is put your chocolate on top of the refrigerator. Calories don’t like height, so they’ll jump off before your chocolate bar gets up there. In our house we strictly adhere to the two main food groups: chocolate and cheesecake . . . and if you put them both together you’ve got a complete meal!
But did you know that according to Lutheran World Relief that ninety percent—ninety percent—of the world’s cocoa is grown by families. Families that own small farms of twelve acres or less. West African countries in particular are critically dependent on cocoa for money.
And these families that grow cocoa for my chocolate bar don’t sell directly to Hershey. Instead, they are often forced to sell to a middleman who makes the real money. The farmers oftentimes have to sell their crops for less than it cost to produce them. If they make a profit at all it will be minimal. And somehow they still have to feed their families on next to no money at all.
The result is that these families live in poverty. As a matter of fact, in a recent sermon by pastor Rob Bell he reported that eighty percent of the people of the world live in sub-standard housing. Half of all the people in the world live on less than two dollars per day. 1 billion children live in poverty. And one billion people don’t have decent drinking water. In West Africa the prices for the cocoa crops are so low that it has resulted in severe poverty and even child slavery . . . all so that I can enjoy a chocolate bar for less than a dollar. Add in a soda with that and I’ve just spent more on a snack than half the people in the world have to live on every day.
Suddenly chocolate doesn’t taste so good. It tastes like starving children. It tastes like exploitation.
And this isn’t just true of chocolate, but of coffee and crafts and a thousand other things! Everywhere we go we are faced with choices of where to spend our money, and the fact is that very often the money you and I spend is on little comforts that come from the back-breaking toil and exploitation of the poor. We get richer . . . they get poorer . . . and God swears, “I will never forget what you have done.”
Amos prophesied against the ancient Israelites for their contemptible treatment of the poor. He spoke against them, and I think it’s more than fair to say that he speaks against us. God cares about the poor . . . He is passionate about the people of the world who live in poverty. And all too often we fail to use the blessings He gives us to bring them out of poverty.
The Old Testament prophets frequently use judicial language to describe the distance sin caused between God and His people. The message was clear: Israel had broken God’s covenant. They had failed to do what God commanded; they had failed to worship Him and Him alone. They had failed to speak on behalf of those who could not speak for themselves: the widow . . . the orphan . . . the poor. Israel had broken God’s covenant, and so God divorced Himself from them. In His anger, they were ripped from their homes in the Promised Land and cast from His presence into exile. No longer were they His people.
No one could deny God that right . . . because He was absolutely justified in His actions. They deserved it and, in many ways, should have expected God’s justice. But what they didn’t expect was God’s mercy.
As the book of Amos closes we hear something amazing. After the destruction of Israel that was brought about by their own sin, the Lord says in Amos 9:13-15, “13 "The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills. 14 I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. 15 I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them," says the LORD your God.”
Did you hear those amazing words? They came right at the end . . . “the Lord your God.” He’s still their God. In spite of their sin . . . He’s still their God. He’s still the God of mercy . . . of love . . . and of second chances. And God does not change.
God doesn’t change! That means despite our sin, He’s still our God, as well! He looks at us and knows that we’re just as guilty as Israel, and yet He says, “I’m going to go the cross and bring you back from exile . . . I’m going to rebuild your lives and make you whole once again. I’m going to redeem you . . . because I am your God . . . and you are my people.” Jesus Christ is our God, and His blood gives us forgiveness . . . even when we’ve eaten a chocolate bar.
And in this forgiveness that Jesus offers us, He also guides into a new life! He gives us the power to leave our old lives behind. He gives us new eyes to see things as He sees them! He opens our eyes to the needs of the poor and He gives us hearts of compassion and hands that willingly work not only to bring justice and equity back into the world, but to carry His offer of salvation to those who are not only poor in life, but poor in spirit.
Proverbs 14:31 says, “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.” You and I live in a state of unprecedented wealth. God has seen fit to bless us with wealth that is unimaginable to half of the world. Not only do we have physical blessings that others do not have, but we also have the spiritual blessing of forgiveness and eternal life in Christ. He has blessed us beyond imagination, and in that blessing He grants that we may use our wealth to honor God by showing kindness to the needy.