He wasn't a rich man, and he wasn't a learned scholar. He was probably uncomfortable with the message he was saying--and one thing's for sure: the people he was talking to didn't want to hear a word of it:

"People hate this kind of talk. Raw truth is never popular. But here it is, bluntly spoken..."

Was anyone even listening to him?

"...Because you run roughshod over the poor and take the bread right out of their mouths, you're never going to move into the luxury homes you have built..."

That sure wasn't the feel-good Sunday-morning message his audience wanted to hear.

"You bully right-living people, taking bribes right and left and kicking the poor when they're down."

His name was Amos, and he was talking to the holiest people in the world. The chosen people of God, who knew all the rules by heart, who considered their hefty profits and their fancy houses to be rewards for their own holiness... who tried not to think much about the poor single mother down the street, who quickly changed the subject anytime the topic of poverty or hunger came up.

Amos looked around him, at the pious people running their businesses and going to church on Sunday, and said: "Justice is a lost cause."

"Justice" is a word that you don't hear very much from preachers and priests and theologians today. For most of us, the word conjures up lofty images of Greek-columned government buildings, of imperious judges and impartial juries. We think of courts and jails and prisons as the places where "justice" gets done. "Justice" is the nebulous thing that superheroes fight for, right?

But Amos has a different spin on "justice." According to Amos, the justice God wants doesn't simply involve putting criminals in jail and believing in "innocent before proven guilty." God's style of justice doesn't need to involve courts or judges--it's about caring for people who don't have it as easy as you do.

It's about not looking the other way and trying to ignore the poor people in your town. It's about looking at your own lifestyle and asking how your business and purchasing decisions impact people with less food and money than you. It's about remembering that nobody, not even the holiest person alive, is exempt from the simple requirement to treat our neighbors with respect, honesty, and love.

But all that is easier said than done, especially in our modern age--where the hurting and downtrodden can be found in every city, but where it's often hard to know where our money goes and what we can do to help. Take a look at the links on the right for some ideas about how you can make a difference in your own neighborhood or town.

"I can't stand your religious meetings. I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals... Do you know what I want? I want justice--oceans of it. I want fairness--oceans of it."

That's Amos'--and God's--challenge to us today. Amos' audience was too busy with their own lives to listen to his message. Are we?