Amos [Proper 10B - Amos 7:7-15]

 The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Amos 7:7-15

 

Amos

 

Cows and trees: that is what Amos did.  Perhaps not terribly glamorous, but it was a living.  He, by his own admission, was a simple herdsman.  He patrolled the Judean fields, looked after his cattle.  He dressed his sycamore trees, ensured the fruit was healthy and the predatory wasps kept at bay.  And finally, he had a flock; a flock that he followed.  Amos doesn’t specify in today’s text what type of flock he followed but I suspect it was not a flock of birds; because bird are pretty fast and it would be extremely difficult to follow them.  So more likely we’re talking about some sheep or goats, in addition to his herd of cattle.  The man was a farmer, a rancher, an agriculturalist.  He was, no doubt, a busy man, an honest, hard-working man.  And, though this is a little surprising since this book is the called the book of the prophet Amos, what he was not, was a prophet – I mean, if you take his word for it.

 

Up north, in the nation of Israel, there was another man, a man called Amaziah. Amaziah was a priest.  But not just any priest, he was a very important priest.  One way or another, he had worked his way to the top of his vocation.  He ministered in the sanctuary of the king.  He was the official priest of the royal shrine at Bethel.  It was, I’m sure, an enviable appointment.  Now that said, it probably wasn’t all fine wine and royal banquets.  After all, he had congregational responsibilities.  He still had to, you know, produce the bulletins and write sermons, prepare Torah study and sort the sacrifices.  And, someone had to fret about the budget and chair the committee meetings.  Like Amos, Amaziah was a busy man.  And, like Amos, he was no prophet.

 

Given his stated profession, Amos likely had a pretty good idea of what each day would look like when he rolled out of bed, before the sun came up.  There would be cow stuff, and sheep stuff, and tree stuff.  As the sun fell behind the rolling hills, Amos would return home, exhausted from a hard day’s work, and collapse into his bed.  Rinse and repeat.  Day after day.

 

That is, until, one day, a cosmic voice interrupted that reliable routine.  And Amos took a hard right and ended up right in the middle of the nation of Israel.  Covered in dust, sweat, and sycamore fruit juice, Amos probably looked quite out of place offering an unrequested homily at the royal shrine.  And what a homily it was…

 

This is another thing Amaziah had to deal with: crazy doomsday prophets looking to garner some quick fame on his campus.  Those prophets looking for an audience tend not to visit the rural synagogue; they crash the shrine at the very centre of the house of Israel.  This is probably not the first time Amaziah was pulled out of a pastoral counselling session to shoo away a noisy loiterer. 

 

Clearly history vindicates Amos, affirms his prophetic message.  But it is important to remember that Amaziah did not have the luxury of that perspective.  Amos, to the priest’s eye, was a foreign agent calling for the death of the king and the destruction of the nation.  And so, we might understand why Amaziah isn’t particularly welcoming.  He is, after all, the king’s personal priest; the king was a member of his congregation.  I would not look favorably on anyone calling for your death. 

 

It is a little difficult to know what Amaziah makes of Amos.  There is a sense that the priest thinks this prophet is a charlatan, a nobody hoping to build a following with his scorching hot takes and radical rhetoric.  Amaziah basically tells Amos to go home and swindle the citizens of his own nation – earn your bread in Judah. 

 

On the other hand, Amaziah seems to at least entertain the possibility that this Judean could actually be a prophet.  As a guardian of the royal and religious institutions firmly in Amos’ crosshairs, the fulfillment of this oracle would be Amaziah’s worst case scenario.  That Amos’ words, as devastating and nullifying as they were, might actually prove true was the most terrifying possibility of all.  If Amos was a prophet, then his words put everything Amaziah loved in jeopardy. 

 

Amaziah is obviously not kind to Amos.  In the today’s biblical text the priest is portrayed as a villain just about on par with King Herod.  But I don’t think Amaziah’s beef with Amos was necessarily personal.  Maybe under different circumstances they would have been friends.  Maybe Amaziah would have ordered his leather goods from the herdsman. 

 

But like Herod in today’s Gospel, Amaziah cannot ultimately bear the message.  It hit him right in the sensitive nooks of his soul.  It revealed that areas he refused to place under God’s sovereignty.  Every audience of the prophetic message finds it interesting or entertaining or even just dismisses it as background noise until it threatens the things we love, until it disrupts our comfort or exposes our flaws and foibles.  A prophetic message is great when the prophet speaks from our side; when we agree with it; when it flattens our opposition.  But when the message implicates us or challenges our biases, we try to send it back to Judah or silence it with a guillotine.

 

The prophets in today’s readings are not particularly well-received – at least not in their own time.  They became popular, later, once the historical record elevated them to canonical status.  But it is important to remember that prophets are rarely popular in their own time.  Because their words are difficult to hear, because nations and religious intuitions and humans are rarely in line with the expectations God sets.

 

No one person, no institution, no political system is perfect.  And that is why God sends us prophets.  The prophets are not simply predictors of gloom and doom.  They call us to repentance, to amend our ways, be better, before gloom and doom become our destiny.

 

The prophets are not there to reinforce our political views or partisan ideologies – which is why they sometimes lose their heads or are sent packing.  They are there to remind us to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God.  They are there to remind us to love people more than stuff.  They are there to show us how to be good stewards of God’s creation.  They are there to challenge us to live holier lives, to be more like Jesus. 

 

It is easy to tune out the voices we don’t want to hear.  The Bible is filled with folks who dismissed the prophets – some quite understandably, all without our benefit of hindsight.  But our biblical texts this morning challenge us to be a bit less rash, a bit less sure.  Our job, as those seeking divine guidance, is to listen with humble and discerning hearts, to recognize that, while not every grating voice, not every challenging word, is of God (there are false prophets and charlatans out there), sometimes the voice of God does come to us in unexpected packaging – sometimes wrapped in the dusty duds of a Judean herdsman or the camel skins of a locust-eater.   Sometimes God speaks to us in that still, small voice; but sometimes a rousing wakeup call is required.  Sometimes we need God’s tender embrace; sometimes we need God to shake the Hell out of us.

 

What we know is that God loves us, absolutely and unconditionally; the scriptures tell us that God is love; love is the standard by which we judge words and deeds. But it is important to remember that love isn’t always meek and gentle.  Sometimes, some of the more stubborn among us, require love to be a little tougher.  And so, when that is the case, God sends in the prophets – whether we like them or (more likely) not.