Prophetic Accusation

Amos 8:1-12

July 22, 2007

J.W. McNeill

When I was a child. Perhaps I was about 10 years old. And I had done something wrong. I don’t remember all the details of how this all happened, but I do remember that my mother told me to go see my father, so I was a little nervous. This was not normal disciplinary procedure in my household.

On the other hand, my father was the parent in my family who was less likely to lose his temper, so maybe this would be okay. There wasn’t much conversation between us, and all I can remember was that he said, "I’m speechless."

I left and went back to my mother. She asked me what my father said. I told her it seemed to me that he didn’t care that much. She sent me back and he explained to me that "I’m speechless," doesn’t mean, "I don’t care."

I’m speechless meant that this is so disheartening to me that I don’t have words to express how hurt I am.

Amos speaks to us this morning of a time coming when God is so disheartened that God becomes speechless.

This is a very serious famine indeed.

Prophets are to proclaim God’s word to reclaim God’s people. So Amos speaks in a time when there may still be hope that God’s people may change their ways so that their lives may remain open to God.

In our passage this morning, Amos sees a vision. A vision of summer fruit. We might see this as kind of cornopcopia. A vision of bounteous harvest. Evidence of God’s blessing of a good harvest. Ripe and ready to eat.

But God has not granted Amos this vision as a sign of God’s pleasure in a large harvest. Instead it is a play on words because the word for ripe summer fruit sounds like the word for end.

Israel thought that it was blessed by God, but that blessing was about to pass away.

Amos says that if things don’t change the songs of praise that they sing in church will no longer be praise songs, they will be songs of grieving and only the sounds of crying and mourning will be heard. It will be too late.

The catastrophe will lead to many dead. Stop singing these praise songs, stop lifting your voices to me and listen. Be quiet. You have lost your way and even your worship is wrong-headed and is actually leading you in the wrong direction because you have forgotten what I have told you to do.

The word God wants Amos to proclaim is a word of warning. It is a warning to those who are taking advantage of the needy.

Amos talks about those who cannot wait for the day of sabbath rest to be over, or the festival of the new moon to be over so that they can get back to work and cheat their customers to enrich themselves. Take advantage of those who cannot defend themselves.

As God set up the rules under which the people of Israel were to live together, it was woven into the fabric of their life together, that the poor would not be oppressed and the rich were to make sure that they did not use their wealth unjustly.

God wanted justice and mercy to be fundamental in the life of the nation. Rules that enforced sharing and insuring that there would be periodic forgiveness of debt to prevent an endless progression of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

As Israel began to ignore these laws and the sense of community cohesion broke down, the country became weakened to the point that it was easy prey for more powerful neighbors. Israel would never be able to survive based on wealth and military power. I would thrive on the basis of community solidarity.

Amos points ahead to the catastrophe of Israel being conquered by Assyria and its people killed or captured.

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This was God’s difficult word that Amos delivered to the rich in his day to attempt to reclaim.

I can tell you that Amos was not successful. The folks in charge did not pay attention. The catastrophe came.

What word of God does Amos proclaim to reclaim us today?

Don’t cheat people! Especially if you are one with many resources, don’t take advantage of people who have very few resources. God does not like that.

I think we already know that. And I am not sure that anyone here who is clearly aware of taking advantage of those with few resources would give it up just because I say so, Amos says so, or God says so. But just in case:

Any of you who are taking advantage of the poor, stop it. Seriously. God will not forget such deeds.

Why is that not likely to be effective?

Part of the reason is that it is difficult to know for sure whether we are taking advantage of the poor and how not to.

In a very global economy, it is not obvious whether I am taking advantage of the poor if I buy a pair of running shoes that are made in a factory whose workers make less than a dollar a day in very difficult working conditions with no job security whatsoever.

Yes, those conditions are terrible, but what if we all stopped buying the shoes and the factory closed down?

Even if I think the answer is obvious one way or the other, I’m pretty sure we won’t all come to agreement quickly.

And even so, most of us prefer not to take pains to understand the complexities of international trade and economic development.

Or take another topic: It is also difficult to understand or agree about the consequences of all the fossil fuel we use. There are certainly those who are convinced that the extensive use of oil by the relatively well-off United States is jeopardizing the global climate. And there is some reason to think that the consequences of climate change will more seriously disadvantage those who are already poor. So it may be that our decisions to drive instead of walk or use public transportation is taking advantage of the poor.

Again, even if I think the answer is obvious one way or the other, I’m pretty sure we won’t all come to agreement quickly. There are many dimensions to this question.

Or one more topic: The US subsidizes grain production. This keeps the price of grain gown in the US lower than it would be otherwise. These subsidies are one of the reasons that US corn can be cheaper in Mexico than corn grown locally. US corn farmers make more money and poor Mexican farmers lose their land because they cannot compete with US growers.

Does this oppress the poor in Mexico? On the other hand, corn is now sometimes cheaper in Mexico than it would have been without the US subsidies. Isn’t less expensive corn a good thing over all?

Again, even if I think the answer is obvious one way or the other, I’m pretty sure we won’t all come to agreement quickly. There are many dimensions to this question and there are probably a variety of ways to make changes.

And again, most of us prefer not to take pains to understand the complexities of international trade, economic development, and the technical details of climate change.

I suspect that economic and social life in Amos’s day was simpler. Perhaps what is most important was that for most people, economic relationships were face to face and took place within relatively stable communities in which people knew one another.

I suspect that the lines among rich and poor, powerful and weak were more visible. The "middle class" of our culture is able to sometimes obscure economic relations. False or rigged scales are clearly wrong.

So perhaps in the time of Amos, there was a clearer setting in which clearer proclamations could be delivered.

What scares me when I read the prophets, especially Amos: It gets to be too late for the nation to turn back. Finally understands and then it is too late and God is silent. God has become speechless. Despair.

Four suggestions. I could be wrong (Just ask my family or colleagues.) Experiment.

A word about sermons: not the final word. Conversation starters. Not to save you the trouble of thinking these things through.

You don’t want to make God speechless. Please: stay engaged in the conversation.

Next week we’ll talk about prayer and how to stay engaged with God.