Day of the Church Year: 7th Sunday after Pentecost
Scripture Passages: Amos 7:7-15, Mark 6:14-29
I think the average Christian is pretty familiar with the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the narratives of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. We are also aware of the basic stories of Genesis and Exodus: God’s creation of heaven and earth, Adam and Eve, Noah and the flood, Sarah and Abraham, Jacob, Leah, and Rachel, and then Moses, the burning bush, the plagues, let my people go, the Red Sea crossing, and the Ten Commandments. We each likely have a favorite verse, psalm, or story from years of coming to worship, reading the Bible at home, attending Bible study, or going to camp, confirmation, or prayer retreat. Beyond that, except for those of us who have done concentrated Bible study or Bible reading, the Bible is somewhat shrouded in mystery. Today’s Old Testament story is from one of those short books at the end of the Old Testament, one of those books we can’t find unless we turn first to the Table of Contents in our Bibles. Amos is between Joel and Obadiah, near the beginning of the minor prophet section of the Old Testament. The minor prophets are minor not because they lack importance but because their writing is short—compared to Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel whose writing is much longer.
Amos writes and prophecies in the 700s before the common era, before the Babylonian exile, during a time of relative peace and security in Judah and Israel. Amos writes after the time of the united kingdom of Israel, after King Saul, King David, and King Solomon, writes after Israel is divided into two kingdoms: the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Amos writes from Israel, the northern kingdom, where Jeroboam reigns as king. For the record, in today’s prophetic passage, Amos declares that he is no prophet but instead an ordinary person, a shepherd, a gardener, but nonetheless a person chosen by God at this particular time to share a message with the nations and more specifically the leaders of Israel.
Notice the heading at the beginning of Amos chapter 1: Judgment on Israel’s Neighbors, neighbors like Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, the Ammonites, and Moab. And then, notice the next heading: Judgment on Judah and then, Judgment on Israel. Amos writes short speeches of punishment to the neighbors of Israel and Judah. For these neighbors betray kinship and fail to show grace and bring violence onto enemy nations. Per Amos’ prophecy, God judges Judah because they reject the law of God. But God’s judgment of Israel, God’s declaration against Amos’ own people and especially the leaders of Israel, is most severe and continues throughout the rest of the book of Amos. The leaders of Israel “sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals,” meaning they thoughtlessly exploit others in order to obtain silver and footwear. They “oppress the poor” and “crush the needy.” The nation of Israel had created systems of injustice, widening the gap between those who are wealthy and those who are poor. By the time we get to Amos chapter 7, today’s reading, the priest in Bethel named Amaziah warns King Jeroboam of this fiesty prophet Amos and tells Amos: Leave! Go to Judah. I don’t want to hear what you have to say! For what Amos has to tell the leaders of Israel is very difficult. The priest Amaziah assumes that the words Amos shares are his own, not God’s word, but Amos tells him differently: “The Lord said to me: Go, prophecy to my people Israel.” And the prophecy is judgment because of injustice. Indeed, Amos 5:24, the central message of his prophecy reads: But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
No nation is perfect as has been made crystal clear in the prophecy of Amos where he shares a running list of other nations’ sins, but the judgment on a nation that practices systemic, socio-economic injustice is most severe. And both the priest Amaziah and the king Jeroboam don’t want to hear it. Nearly to the end, Amos shares the hard truth of God, news of destruction that is a consequence of the systemic injustice they practice. Only in the last chapter does God remember all that God has done for the people, the ways God had rescued them time and again, and God promises to do so again one day. Then, the word of the Lord comes to Amos, a word of repair, rebuilding, restoration to the nation of Israel.
In today’s gospel, we hear the story of John the Baptist’s murder by King Herod. And the gospel writer Mark makes clear that Jesus’ ministry is so similar to John’s that a consequence akin to John’s murder will result. Both John and Jesus come in the line of the Old Testament prophets. They question systemic injustice, and Jesus teaches and preaches more about wealth and poverty in the gospels than any other topic including the kingdom of God. Both John and Jesus build community with people hurt by injustice and blatantly identify not with those who hold power but with those most vulnerable.
I hardly need describe the ways Amos, John the Baptist, and Jesus’ urgent concern about socio-economic injustice remains relevant to us in Phoenix, Arizona in July 2021. Lack of affordable housing, sky-rocketing rent and home prices, and the ways our criminal justice system impacts a person’s socio-economic viability after conviction or imprisonment are just the beginning of a long list of current problems. I am not an economist and do not claim to understand the full complexity of how socio-economic inequality has developed in our nation, but we all know that, in the United States, we have long privileged some over others, suppressed, enslaved, compelled into indentured servitude, and straight up killed people of particular groups. As a nation, we have practiced legal discrimination in countless ways, ways that add up to systems that continue to favor white, well-educated people from economically privileged backgrounds. Even as our leaders pass legislation that tries to repair our broken system, even as progress is made, even as we the people of the United States more fully engage in the democratic process and work to end discrimination and inequality in all its forms.
Today, the stories of Amos, John, and Jesus compel us, simply, to hear the hard truth of socio-economic inequality, to not avoid it, and to hear also God’s urgent desire for justice. God sends Amos to the leaders of Israel, to king Jeroboam, to the priest Amaziah because they have the capacity to change a broken system. Amos and those who truly hear him and act on the word of the Lord are part of God’s response to the cries of those who hunger and thirst in that age. And we, when we hear both the hard truth of injustice in our world and God’s urgent desire for justice for all people, we too become part of God’s response to the cries of the world. People of God, let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Prior to the sharing of this sermon, I invited our community to put our faith in motion by signing up for the Lutheran Advocacy Ministry of Arizona newsletter (Lutheran Advocacy Ministry Arizona (lamaz.org)) and ELCA Advocacy Action Alerts (Advocacy - Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (elca.org)) which help us communicate with our state and federal lawmakers about particular legislation and matters of public policy on issues we value as people of faith, in particular caring for those most vulnerable in our society. We get to be part of God’s response to the cries of the world.