What makes worship God-honouring?
Amos 4:4-13
In the mid-2010s a new trend took off, especially among Asian women, to organise wedding ceremonies where they were ‘marrying themselves’. The wedding industry jumped in with packages complete with wedding dress, a vow, reception and honeymoon. There was no groom, just the bride making a commitment to herself to love and give herself the happiness she ‘deserved’. When interviewed, some of these women said that they wanted to express their sense of worth without reference to a man, others wished to experience wearing a beautiful dress and having a celebration of themselves. While one can sympathise with these women over the pressure they felt from society to be married, but sologamy (as it came to be called) is one of those bizarre expressions of our current self-indulgent age.
The problem with Israel’s worship
This phenomenon reminds me of Israel’s worship, which our reading condemns even as Israelites are sarcastically egged on to do more. True worship means our response to the loving relationship with God through praise, gratitude and acts of service. Israel, however, cares little about what God wishes. Instead of worshipping in the place God designated (Deut 12:11, 13-14, i.e. Jerusalem), they use local shrines (Bethel, Gilgal; Amos 4:4), which is more convenient but where pagan customs and even idolatry may have seeped into worship. Neither do they understand that using yeast in their sacrifices is unacceptable to God (Lev 2:11; Amos 4:5).[1] Israelites want to worship Him on their own terms. They are also overzealous in offering sacrifices ‘every morning’ and bringing their tithes ‘every three days’ (v.4), instead of collecting it yearly (Deut 14:11). The constant ‘thank offerings’ and ‘freewill offerings’, also suggest self-indulgence, since the meat of these was shared between worshippers and the priest.[2] People only ate meat on special occasions, so this was an opportunity for feasting and Israelites seemed to do it constantly! In other words, the purpose was no longer about the worship of God but satisfying their appetites.
God calls His people back
What follows is a summary of God’s repeated attempts to bring His people to their senses and remind them of the covenant relationship with Him. They were not a bride married to herself but to the Lord! The disasters happening overtime would have reminded the people of the covenant curses, the consequences of their turning away from the relationship with God (e.g. Deut 28:20-37). These included famine and drought (Amos 4:6-7), agricultural pests (insects and plant disease, Amos 4:9), and enemy invasion (Amos 4:10).[3] Despite the warnings they received, the people refused to return to God (repeated five times).[4] Setting Israel parallel with Egypt and Sodom and Gomorrah (Amos 4:10-11) was symbolic of how God saw His people now. Egypt was an oppressive power who earlier enslaved Israel and refused to acknowledge God (Exod 1:13-14; 5:2). Sodom and Gomorrah were the epitome of morally corrupt societies (Gen 18:20). Now God’s people have become like these. The Lord, the Creator of all, is coming to act (Amos 4:12-13), though the action is left ominously unspoken.
Our deficiencies and making our worship God-honouring
Looking at Israel’s worship, we can appreciate our deficiencies. So much in Christian services express ignorance about what God requires of us. The teaching of God’s Word is increasingly reduced to a limited collection of texts (a few gospel stories and parables), a thought-for-the-day approach, rather than a faithful exposition of what God requires of us. Our musical worship can be overzealous in the sense of carrying people on emotions and making them say inflated words of love and commitment that are not lived out in the real world. In many churches, self-indulgence drives what is happening in Sunday services. Like the Israelites’ sacrifices, the worship of God can become a doorway to feed our own selves, to satisfy our need for encouragement and self-worth, irrespective of how our relationship with God is going. True God-honouring worship, on the other hand, cares for what matters to God and seeks to live for Him. It does not make great promises knowing that true commitment is a hard struggle against our self-seeking nature and is only possible by God’s enabling grace. When we truly honour God, we are not purely focused on what we can gain from the relationship, but how we can please the God we love.
[1] A thanksgiving offering included leavened bread that was given to the officiating priest (as a payment for their service), but any grain offering given to God on the altar had to be without leaven/yeast (Lev 7:11-14). Leaven came to symbolise evil because of the way it puffs up and permeates the dough. Through such down-to-earth practices, Israel was taught about the spiritual realities of what God requires. What we give to God must be pure, not motivated by pride or be mixed with selfish intentions.
[2] Thank offerings and freewill offerings were a subcategory of peace/fellowship offerings. Unlike burnt, guilt and sin offerings, this type had no atoning function. Its purpose was an expression of fellowship with God and each other in a banquet. God would receive the fat as He did from all sacrifices (Lev 3:16-17; considered the richest portion, i.e. God gets the best), the officiating priest would get certain portions of the meat (Lev 7:28-34) and the rest was for the worshippers to eat (Lev 7:15-18).
[3] Although the verse says that God slew them, this is to stress that He made it happen, not that He directly killed the people. The Old Testament focuses on God’s sovereignty as the primary mover even if the actual means of destruction is a foreign nation.
[4] Ancient cultures attributed most events, whether good or bad, to the direct involvement of the gods, to their approval or displeasure. However, even in the OT, suffering is not automatically punishment from God (see the story of Job or the persecution of David by Saul). Although the passage does not elaborate, these disasters would have come with interpretation from the prophets who would have condemned the people’s behaviour and have made it clear to them that God was not pleased.
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