"3" Take Aways (Amos)

Here we go! Famous Amos! Perhaps not as famous as he should be. This is a prophetic book that seems to get skipped over often. Amos is portrayed within his own book as a shepherd and fig tree farmer in the south who heads North to speak to King Jeroboam. Jeroboam was, as Amos portrays, complacent and greedy - two things that are common frustrations of the prophets of those in power and with privilege. I know, I know, it's absolutely impossible to imagine today.Amos’ day jobs are important, make sense of God’s pronouncement. Or perhaps better, they, as Amos’ context, shape his understanding of what God is saying and doing in the world. 

The same is true of all of us. The Wesleyan Quadrilateral, which is stored somewhere in my institutional memory of church, values Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience. And as someone who holds high value of the Process tradition, experience is HUGE for me in how I understand how we understand God. I find lawyers to be quite stern and black and white when it comes to their view of scripture. I find artists to live with a flow that is reflected in their own spiritual practice. On and on that game is played. We interpret the world, AND God, through the lens that we’ve shaped through scripture, tradition, reason, and experience - it should be no surprise that we come to different conclusions on so much -  there really is not a universal way to understand life.  

Amos’ prophetic word is a journey, like his own from South to North. He begins by accusing Israel’s neighbors of violence and injustice, he draws one BIG circle around Israel by calling out the nations around her. And then, on this third day of Christmas, Amos’ launches a critique of Israel that is three times as long as what the other nations were given. The wealthy are exploiting the poor. The have nots are crippled and the have lots continue to rise. The poor are being denied legal representation. Again, hard to imagine. 

Amos continues his poems reminding Israel that they were chosen for great responsibility. The thematic flow reminded me of a river that a shepherd would lead their flock to. Themes like:  the religious hypocrisy of the wealthy and powerful, the non-stop idol worship of Israel, and ultimately this judgement that the day of the Lord is coming. But with all the doom and gloom from Israel's own poor choices, Amos sees God’s justice like an ever flowing stream. "Amos compares Israel to an overripe fig, a word that, in Hebrew, poetically echoes the word for 'end'." (Fig qeys, End - qes)  In other words, Amos’ context allows him to play with a prophetic call to justice that if not met will be a part of Israel's end. But like all the prophets, God is committed to rebuild and restore out of the ruins. Amos sees God’s mercy and justice holding hands, they are so close they even kiss. 

Amos is culturally famous even if we don’t spend the time we ought to reading this 9 chapter poetic critique of power. Amos has been read, re-read, and used to build momentum for incredible social movements around the world. Socialist and Labor parties alike have used Amos to critique those in power. MLK jr. used Amos in his “I have a Dream” speech. The liberation theologies crafted by people like Gustavo Gutierrez in Latin America relied on Amos to root themselves and their liberation in the biblical story. 

And so for me, there are THREE takeaways to cling to in the major moment from this minor prophet: 1.) Hypocrisy, 2.) God’s justice and mercy, and 3.) Trusting a rebuilding. We need to recognize and learn from the hypocrisy of God’s people, the Church, and seek to do good to those who are exploited by wealth and systems of power. We need to seek the justice and mercy of God for the world in the way that God does. Finally, we need to trust that God is working to “rebuild” the ruins of our lives and invites us to play a role in that, too. 

Let us challenge the status quo of empire and seek to liberate all from the exiles we have made for ourselves and others.