Sermon for November 12

The Reading

Amos 1:1-2; 5:14-15, 21-24

1:1 The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of King Uzziah of Judah and in the days of King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel, two years before the earthquake. 2 And he said: The Lord roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds wither, and the top of Carmel dries up.

5:14 Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, just as you have said. 15 Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the 

Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

5:21 I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. 22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. 23 Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. 24 But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

The messsage

Today, we start a series of readings on the prophets that will take us from now until Christmas Eve when we start the Gospel of John.  We have completed about 2 months with the Old Testament books of the Torah or law and history.  We have heard the stories of God calling people like Abraham, Moses, Samuel and King David.  We ended this series with the story of King Solomon, given a time of peace and building the first temple in Jerusalem and the Prophet Elijah defeating the prophets of Baal, a god worshipped by many of the tribes that surrounded Israel. During all of these years, political, social and religious life for the people of Israel is one  of chaos, there are moments of great victory and depressing defeat, years of peace and joy and years of war and anxiety. They are helped by faithful and efficient leaders and set back by downright terrible, faithless or ineffective leaders. Throughout all this time, the covenant that God made with Abraham, the agreement that if you keep my commandments I will be your God and you will be my people, is always part of decisions, religious and social life.   

The work of the prophets stretches over a few hundred years, from around 800 years before the birth of Jesus to about 400 years before Jesus birth.  Their recorded books include the works of 3 major prophets and 12 minor prophets. This division is not based on importance, simply on the length of the books, Prophets like Ezekiel, Jeremiah and the group or school known as Isaiah left long works of 30 plus chapters, while prophets like Amos, Jonah and Habakkuk left only a few pages.   There are also the recorded words and actions of prophets like Elijah and Elisha in the historical books.   

The word Prophet simply means God’s messenger or someone who speaks God’s word to the world.  Each one shared condemning words on the ways of the community, addressed the growing level of compliancy or going through the motions in worship and faith,  dire warnings about things to come and joyful news of restoration in the midst of great suffering, confusion or anxiety. They spoke at difficult times, as the temple was destroyed by the Babylonians,, as God left the city, as the people were exiled and their faith forgotten, as they lost wars to powerful enemies, lost lands and lived in self-inflicted inequality that went against God’s law and God’s vision for a diverse and equal world.

The prophets, as diverse and different as they were shared 2 great promises, 1: God has not forgotten God’s people or God’s promises and 2: God would do something extraordinary to restore the world. (a promise fulfilled in the birth of Jesus centuries later)  There are no promises that bad things will never happen to good people in the world. Instead there are warnings acknowledging that they will and that God will be present in that suffering. There are no preoccupations with the end of the world.  Instead, the prophets are very concerned with how people lived here and now.  It is also important to realize the prophets did not share their opinions, their well-researched observations or the ideas of their favorite teacher, they share a word from God, news that came in visions, unexpected encounters with the Lord and callings they did not seek. These are inspired words.    

For context today, to help understand what the prophet’s work was like, we can ask and wonder things like what will Pastor Frank Pomeroy of First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs Texas say this morning as they gather, if they gather, for worship in the place where almost 30 people were killed at church service last week.  What will God’s word to that community be, will anyone show up to hear it.  What news can be shared with a community that has lost so much. What about the 10s of millions of other people gathered at church right now, who feel a little less safe, who are looking at strangers or new visitors with great suspicion, who are locking doors that were never locked before.  I have my opinions on what should be said and done and I think they are really awesome and brilliant but prophesy is not about opinions. Instead of sharing them, I will simply promise to pray about it and wait to see what I hear.     

No one should look forward to hearing from the prophets.  No one should leave church feeling good about how things are going on in the world after a Sunday with them.  Even the prophets of ancient Israel, whose work was an accepted and understood part of religious life and government, end up hated, ignored, dismissed as liars, angry, killed, hungry, isolated, tired, exiled, hanging out in a whale, too depressed to move or crying under a small tree. 

Today, we meet Amos:  He was one of the few prophets who worked during a time of relative  peace.  He shared the word of God during the very long reign of King Jeroboam II ( 788-747). This was a time of peace during which the Northern Kingdom of Israel gained a lot of land and great prosperity.  A few elites in Israel had accumulated great wealth and personal empires as they captured and maintained control over huge amounts of the things God had given to the community.  This led to great injustice and inequality.  By manipulating debt and credit systems, and abusive loan practices wealthy landowners virtually enslaved a great number of their neighbors.   

Amos, an outsider from a small village in the Southern Kingdom, a shepherd doing work no one else wants to do, is give the word to speak out against this system.  Amos’ words are not nice.  They are violent and nasty.  He warns people living in great comfort and peace that they will be defeated and thrown into exile, he tells the religious leaders in the temple that God hates their practices and rejects their offerings, he condemns the nation of Israel for allowing such great inequality to persist and for being so greedy with the gifts of God .    There is a famous encounter between Amos and Amaziah, the high priest at the temple in Bethel. Amaziah is angered by Amos’ words (as was anyone in power or wealth). Amaziah tells on Amos to the king, accusing Amos of being a false prophet and speaking for himself.  He tries to rid the kingdom of this annoying voice of judgment and change, saying  “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there;  but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom”.  To this Amos shares a series of curses even Martin Luther would be proud of  “Therefore thus says the Lord: ‘Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword,  and your land shall be parceled out by line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.’ Standing in the way of prophesy, trying to stop God’s word from being heard, is a dangerous business. 

Today, we hear Amos’ words a lot.  Every time someone says “our thoughts and prayers” are with the victims of a tragedy or disaster and then does nothing to change the things that lead to it or do anything to help with relief efforts, we think of Amos’ words.  Every time someone urges us to say thank you to veterans or sings a special song for them but does nothing to help those who are having a hard time returning from service and war, we think of Amos words.   I have not said too much about our actual texts this morning, we hear it all the time. We sit with it all the time. Amos’ words on inequality, meaningless worship and the justice of God have not changed, they would be just as rejected and poorly received in our world as they were in his.  We would assume he was pointing at other people, at other groups, nations or churches, we would yeah that’s right and assume this word was meant for someone else. We would make posters that proudly declared Let justice roll like water, without thinking about what we do and participate in and stand quietly by and watch or considering what that Justice would do to our lives.   Prophesy is about listening and then doing.   The meaning and power in today’s reading is not about this 10 minute message or hour worship, it’s what we do after it, its about what we do because of it.