A Famine of the Word
Text: Amos 8:1-12
We have a habit of presuming that the prophets really don’t have a lot to say to us. Even when we see them as foretelling the coming of Christ, it’s still a “way back then” kind of approach, and that it really doesn’t mean much for us today. Yet the irony is, if we take that angle, we miss all of the subtleties, all the genuine power of what they have to say. As a prophet, Amos rarely seems to have anything good to say about Israel’s spiritual life. We started exploring him last week, and it reflected the times in which he lived. As I mentioned last week, Amos arrived on the scene, after the great empire of David and Solomon had broken into two smaller kingdoms, Judah to the south, and Israel to the north. While Amos lived on the border of these two states, his attention and anger was directed at the north kingdom of Israel.
Yet the time in which Amos lived was not a time in which one would expect these kinds of rants. By any standard or measure, it would seem that Israel was doing well. It was a time of economic prosperity and growth; it was a time of peace and political stability. Nations were at peace with each other, Egypt had no designs on the region, and the Assyrians hadn’t been a threat in more than a generation. By most measures, including today’s standards, the people didn’t have anything to complain about. Things were going well!
It was into this time of economic prosperity and optimism that Amos comes crashing in, and spoiling the party. Of all the prophets, Amos is the least hopeful. His words of nearly unmitigated doom land unceremoniously in a time of unprecedented wealth. It’s hard to say if anybody at the time actually took him seriously. If someone says the sky is falling when everyone else says the sky’s the limit… how would that come across? Would anybody actually pay any attention to him at all?
But Amos perseveres… because Amos sees something that others don’t. He sees people left behind, and abandoned in the midst of this economic boom. He sees the underlying structure of the society rotting away, because there is not a sense of justice and fairness in how they deal with one another.
Amos compares this to a basket of summer fruit. He uses an image that was likely popular at the time, that everyone could get their head around. Although unfortunately for us, it’s a pun that gets lost in translation. A basket of summer fruit… or rather a basket of fruit that comes at the end of the season. That’s it… there is no more… It’s otherwise all gone. “The end has come upon my people Israel…” It may look good on the surface, but that’s it, the season is over!
When Amos looked at the prosperity and wealth that was around him, he saw something else: hypocrisy. On the surface, people were faithful, paying lip service to their religious traditions, and yet none of it was sinking in. Not only that, it was so bad that eventually Israel’s society would collapse under its own self-indulgent bulk. Political corruption and greed had permeated society to such a degree, that sooner or later, something had to give.
The example that Amos gives is the sale of wheat… the foundational staple for making bread… for feeding a nation. Amos spoke of their impatience with observing holy days, so they could get about the business of defrauding the people of a basic food. It was like they were sitting in the midst of the sermon, looking at their watch… come on… hurry up… I’ve got a sales meeting to get to!
Yet as Amos points out, they would make the containers artificially small, and then have the gall to overcharge for them… the most corrupt practices would be to fill the containers with the sweepings of the wheat… basically the last dregs, the stuff swept up off the dusty and dirty floor. If anyone was to honestly eat anything made with that stuff would have some serious health issues. The population would become sick and malnourished, and eventually there wouldn’t be enough healthy people to work the land and provide the food that is needed. It may provide a healthy profit in the meantime, but the long-term health of the nation would eventually crumble and decay because the people had forgotten what justice and fairness truly was. Amos simply calls a spade a shovel…
When Amos points out that there is a time coming that all of this will fall apart, he’s not making some esoteric prediction. He’s not psychic… he’s simply able to see the long-term consequences of a society’s lack of responsibility for their people. It will all come crashing down, and only then will people realize what they’ve lost. Amos calls this “a famine of the word” –that people will have so completely forgotten their roots and relationship with God that no amount of searching will reveal it.
It’s not a pleasant picture… especially for us who have been trained to listen for the happy ending. Most of the time we want to hear scripture readings end on a positive note, but Amos is not the one to give it.
As listeners some twenty-seven centuries later, it leaves us rather confused. If anything, it’s a bit depressing, because there’s no glimmer of hope that we can take away with us to help us in our faith throughout the week. There is also a real temptation to read Amos as some sort of far-future prediction… yet neither approach all that helpful.
Amos didn’t preach and proclaim in a vacuum. He saw the very real consequences of corruption and injustice within his own society… within a generation of his rants, the empire of Assyria had risen in power again, and began to dominate the landscape. The corruption and injustice that pervaded the kingdom undermined their society so much that they were in no condition to be able to resist the political and military pressure from the east. The northern kingdom of Israel would fall in 722 BC, and be swept away into the dustbin of history permanently. Survivors saw this as God’s judgment, and preserved the writings of Amos, whose often ignored rants were vindicated by the events of history.
If there is any good news to hold onto from this text is a reminder of how important fairness and justice is to human society. We often forget that as far as God is concerned, any relationship we have with God is truly reflected in how we treat one another. Amos was livid at the hypocrisy he saw. People said all the right words, did all the right actions as far as their faith was concerned, and yet when it came to caring for others in society it was everyone for themselves! As Amos proclaims, faith that looks at the clock, waiting for the Sabbath to be over is no faith at all.
All the piety in the world means nothing if we ignore fairness and justice in how we deal with one another… If anything, the doom and gloom that Amos proclaims can be taken in the same way as some of the letters of Paul… it’s an example of what not to do! The good news, if there is any to be had, is to realize that our relationship with God is intrinsically tied to our relationship with one another. Fairness and justice are a part of what it means to live together as human beings. Amos proclaimed that to deaf ears, and was ultimately vindicated by history itself. Our challenge is to make sure that we don’t lose sight of God’s call to justice and fairness in the midst of our everyday lives.
Our faith is not something that we pick up on the way in and leave on the way out of church. It must pervade all of our relationships, all of our dealings with one another, in every part of our lives. It is to have an everyday faith, and as Christians this should form the foundation of our relationships with everyone we encounter.
There is a growing movement in the United States of those within evangelical church traditions who have become disaffected by the myopic views of the Religious Right. Where abortion and sexuality seem to be the only issues driving the agenda, there are many who are standing up and saying “what about justice? What about fairness? What about feeding the poor? Called the Emerging Church, it is seeking to strike a balance between faithful expression and faithful action. It is concerned less with a moralistic lifestyle, and is more concerned with a life that is committed to living out Christ’s love in a way that is practical and hands on. I could go on, but there is something genuinely refreshing, and optimistic, because it’s not tied to any one particular denomination.
It shows that somewhere, someone is listening to what Amos has to say… that in our faith, justice and fairness isn’t just something that happens inside the church. Each one of us can have a tremendous impact and influence on the people around us, that we encounter each day. As Amos points out, if that sense of genuine response to God in our lives isn’t there… if we only pay lip service to our faith, and it does not carry over into our relationships with one another in our society, then the future isn’t very bright. I would hope that we can learn from that experience, and not make the same mistake again.
Amen.
We have a habit of presuming that the prophets really don’t have a lot to say to us. Even when we see them as foretelling the coming of Christ, it’s still a “way back then” kind of approach, and that it really doesn’t mean much for us today. Yet the irony is, if we take that angle, we miss all of the subtleties, all the genuine power of what they have to say. As a prophet, Amos rarely seems to have anything good to say about Israel’s spiritual life. We started exploring him last week, and it reflected the times in which he lived. As I mentioned last week, Amos arrived on the scene, after the great empire of David and Solomon had broken into two smaller kingdoms, Judah to the south, and Israel to the north. While Amos lived on the border of these two states, his attention and anger was directed at the north kingdom of Israel.
Yet the time in which Amos lived was not a time in which one would expect these kinds of rants. By any standard or measure, it would seem that Israel was doing well. It was a time of economic prosperity and growth; it was a time of peace and political stability. Nations were at peace with each other, Egypt had no designs on the region, and the Assyrians hadn’t been a threat in more than a generation. By most measures, including today’s standards, the people didn’t have anything to complain about. Things were going well!
It was into this time of economic prosperity and optimism that Amos comes crashing in, and spoiling the party. Of all the prophets, Amos is the least hopeful. His words of nearly unmitigated doom land unceremoniously in a time of unprecedented wealth. It’s hard to say if anybody at the time actually took him seriously. If someone says the sky is falling when everyone else says the sky’s the limit… how would that come across? Would anybody actually pay any attention to him at all?
But Amos perseveres… because Amos sees something that others don’t. He sees people left behind, and abandoned in the midst of this economic boom. He sees the underlying structure of the society rotting away, because there is not a sense of justice and fairness in how they deal with one another.
Amos compares this to a basket of summer fruit. He uses an image that was likely popular at the time, that everyone could get their head around. Although unfortunately for us, it’s a pun that gets lost in translation. A basket of summer fruit… or rather a basket of fruit that comes at the end of the season. That’s it… there is no more… It’s otherwise all gone. “The end has come upon my people Israel…” It may look good on the surface, but that’s it, the season is over!
When Amos looked at the prosperity and wealth that was around him, he saw something else: hypocrisy. On the surface, people were faithful, paying lip service to their religious traditions, and yet none of it was sinking in. Not only that, it was so bad that eventually Israel’s society would collapse under its own self-indulgent bulk. Political corruption and greed had permeated society to such a degree, that sooner or later, something had to give.
The example that Amos gives is the sale of wheat… the foundational staple for making bread… for feeding a nation. Amos spoke of their impatience with observing holy days, so they could get about the business of defrauding the people of a basic food. It was like they were sitting in the midst of the sermon, looking at their watch… come on… hurry up… I’ve got a sales meeting to get to!
Yet as Amos points out, they would make the containers artificially small, and then have the gall to overcharge for them… the most corrupt practices would be to fill the containers with the sweepings of the wheat… basically the last dregs, the stuff swept up off the dusty and dirty floor. If anyone was to honestly eat anything made with that stuff would have some serious health issues. The population would become sick and malnourished, and eventually there wouldn’t be enough healthy people to work the land and provide the food that is needed. It may provide a healthy profit in the meantime, but the long-term health of the nation would eventually crumble and decay because the people had forgotten what justice and fairness truly was. Amos simply calls a spade a shovel…
When Amos points out that there is a time coming that all of this will fall apart, he’s not making some esoteric prediction. He’s not psychic… he’s simply able to see the long-term consequences of a society’s lack of responsibility for their people. It will all come crashing down, and only then will people realize what they’ve lost. Amos calls this “a famine of the word” –that people will have so completely forgotten their roots and relationship with God that no amount of searching will reveal it.
It’s not a pleasant picture… especially for us who have been trained to listen for the happy ending. Most of the time we want to hear scripture readings end on a positive note, but Amos is not the one to give it.
As listeners some twenty-seven centuries later, it leaves us rather confused. If anything, it’s a bit depressing, because there’s no glimmer of hope that we can take away with us to help us in our faith throughout the week. There is also a real temptation to read Amos as some sort of far-future prediction… yet neither approach all that helpful.
Amos didn’t preach and proclaim in a vacuum. He saw the very real consequences of corruption and injustice within his own society… within a generation of his rants, the empire of Assyria had risen in power again, and began to dominate the landscape. The corruption and injustice that pervaded the kingdom undermined their society so much that they were in no condition to be able to resist the political and military pressure from the east. The northern kingdom of Israel would fall in 722 BC, and be swept away into the dustbin of history permanently. Survivors saw this as God’s judgment, and preserved the writings of Amos, whose often ignored rants were vindicated by the events of history.
If there is any good news to hold onto from this text is a reminder of how important fairness and justice is to human society. We often forget that as far as God is concerned, any relationship we have with God is truly reflected in how we treat one another. Amos was livid at the hypocrisy he saw. People said all the right words, did all the right actions as far as their faith was concerned, and yet when it came to caring for others in society it was everyone for themselves! As Amos proclaims, faith that looks at the clock, waiting for the Sabbath to be over is no faith at all.
All the piety in the world means nothing if we ignore fairness and justice in how we deal with one another… If anything, the doom and gloom that Amos proclaims can be taken in the same way as some of the letters of Paul… it’s an example of what not to do! The good news, if there is any to be had, is to realize that our relationship with God is intrinsically tied to our relationship with one another. Fairness and justice are a part of what it means to live together as human beings. Amos proclaimed that to deaf ears, and was ultimately vindicated by history itself. Our challenge is to make sure that we don’t lose sight of God’s call to justice and fairness in the midst of our everyday lives.
Our faith is not something that we pick up on the way in and leave on the way out of church. It must pervade all of our relationships, all of our dealings with one another, in every part of our lives. It is to have an everyday faith, and as Christians this should form the foundation of our relationships with everyone we encounter.
There is a growing movement in the United States of those within evangelical church traditions who have become disaffected by the myopic views of the Religious Right. Where abortion and sexuality seem to be the only issues driving the agenda, there are many who are standing up and saying “what about justice? What about fairness? What about feeding the poor? Called the Emerging Church, it is seeking to strike a balance between faithful expression and faithful action. It is concerned less with a moralistic lifestyle, and is more concerned with a life that is committed to living out Christ’s love in a way that is practical and hands on. I could go on, but there is something genuinely refreshing, and optimistic, because it’s not tied to any one particular denomination.
It shows that somewhere, someone is listening to what Amos has to say… that in our faith, justice and fairness isn’t just something that happens inside the church. Each one of us can have a tremendous impact and influence on the people around us, that we encounter each day. As Amos points out, if that sense of genuine response to God in our lives isn’t there… if we only pay lip service to our faith, and it does not carry over into our relationships with one another in our society, then the future isn’t very bright. I would hope that we can learn from that experience, and not make the same mistake again.
Amen.
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