Thoughts on Amos 8:1-12 for Pentecost 8C, July 22, 2007

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Amos – means “Burden”. This is especially interesting in light of the burdensome word he has been told by God to give to Israel.

 

Amos 8:1-12

A Basket of Ripe Fruit

 1 This is what the Sovereign LORD showed me: a basket of ripe fruit. 2 “What do you see, Amos?” he asked.
“A basket of ripe fruit,” I answered.
Then the LORD said to me, “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.

God shows Amos a vision of ripe fruit. For Amos he is quick to recognize what is before him and it is no wonder since Amos was a fig farmer, and shepherd. The tragedy is not the ripe fruit, but that God has noted that the ripe fruit corresponds to the sin of Israel. Reading this text in something other than Hebrew misses one of the true word plays of the Old Testament, which are abundant. The word for “summer fruit”/’ripe fruit” (qayets/qayis) is a homonym to the word for “end” (qets/qes). God seems to imply that the end is near and then spells it out for Amos. Ripe fruit must be picked before it turns completely rotten. God does not want all of the nation to turn rotten, so must pick the ripe fruit of sin from the people.

This is a challenging image for most of us in the Christian world as we know fruits to be good things, as in the fruit of the Spirit, though we must remember that in the same segment of text in Galatians that gives us the Fruit of Spirit we also have the Fruit of the Flesh, for which Israel is being condemned in this instance.

 3 “In that day,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “the songs in the temple will turn to wailing. Many, many bodies—flung everywhere! Silence!”

 4 Hear this, you who trample the needy
and do away with the poor of the land,

Amos undergirds the word of the Lord with the opening condemnation, putting the sins of the people plainly before them. This is the overarching theme of most of the prophets, that God is angry because God’s nation and people have ignored the needy and oppressed the poor.  

5 saying,
“When will the New Moon be over
that we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath be ended
that we may market wheat?”—

Amos speaks the words of the people who have been trampling the needy, and doing away with the poor of the land.

The New Moon and Sabbath are both Holy Days, days of rest when work and trade should not transpire. And yet, the people want to get back to these things, not because they themselves need the money, or because they are doing God’s work (their vocation), but so they can continue to trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land.

       skimping the measure,
boosting the price
and cheating with dishonest scales,

 6 buying the poor with silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
selling even the sweepings with the wheat.

The particular means by which the marketers are committing injustice is by setting prices so high, by tampering with the weights and measures, and including the chaff and sweepings in the good grain. After setting the prices so high, they are willing to loan the silver back to the poor, buying them by committing usury and charging phenomenal interest rates and developing a class of indentured servitude, out of which there is no recovery, unless the people observe the “Jubilee Year” every 49 years. This is not going to happen, as in the lifetime of the law as put forward during the time of Moses has rarely happened, and often not for the least of these.

Furthermore, the use of the sweepings by the merchants seems to indicate a greater travesty that every last bit is being sold, going against the laws for gleaning in the fields, where something is to be left so that the poorest of the poor can go out into the fields and get something to eat in the community.

Note the reference to the buying with Sandals, as it is the marker for a completed transaction. To see a similar situation where the use of the sandal completes a transaction and make a compact look to the story of Boaz and Ruth, where Boaz bargains with the Cousin of Naomi for the land rights that belong to Naomi, ultimately making sure that Ruth is known to be included in the bargain, leading the withdrawal by the cousin and Boaz earning the right to marry Ruth. 

7 The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done.

 8 “Will not the land tremble for this,
and all who live in it mourn?
The whole land will rise like the Nile;
it will be stirred up and then sink
like the river of Egypt.

God first utters judgment against Israel by way of the elements (what we today call “acts of God”). God promises earthquakes, that will bring death and destruction, flooding, stirring up all the good soil with the salted plains, turning all the land too bad soil for farming, and ultimately return to nothing, such that there will be no water to do any farming with land they could make workable.

 9 “In that day,” declares the Sovereign LORD,
“I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.

 10 I will turn your religious feasts into mourning
and all your singing into weeping.
I will make all of you wear sackcloth
and shave your heads.
I will make that time like mourning for an only son
and the end of it like a bitter day.

Amos brings us the words of God which turn the world of the Israelites on its head. Another author has noted the phrase here in v. 9 “In that day” as an oxymoron. In the case of “In that day” God normally uses the phrase to talk about the redemption of Israel and the blessings that will be bestowed upon the people. Here it is used to bring words of woe and judgment.

The judgment of Israel continues with the natural order of things being undone with the sun going down at noon and the earth darkened in broad daylight. But those moments of celebration and respect for God will also be transformed. The joyous gathering and remembering of what God has done right for Israel will leave the people hurt and wandering. The image of the only son is the reminder that the firstborn son is given a special place in the family worthy of a double share, and the only son is the future lifeblood, and salvation of the family. All of the previous blessings of God will be revoked from Israel.

 11 “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD,
“when I will send a famine through the land—
not a famine of food or a thirst for water,
but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.

 12 Men will stagger from sea to sea
and wander from north to east,
searching for the word of the LORD,
but they will not find it.

“The days are coming” is another instance of Israel finding hope in the opening words, only to be cut down. Previously, they had heard those words at the beginning of judgment upon foreign nations for the wrongs done against Israel, and now they are facing the wrath of God for their own sins, to their own undoing.

 

After God has removed all the aspects of security from the people, as the land and natural order of things has been undone, and worship is no longer of use, and the former joys the people had in God are taken away, God adds just a little more punishment. This punishment is perhaps the worst. God sends the famine, there is no longer going to be food for the people. One can endure if there are means to start over at the end, but the famine will destroy the strength of the people. The final justice God commends to the people is the famine of the Word of God. The final means of hope and restoration will no longer be able to be found in the nation.

 

 

Consider what gleaning laws might look like and allow in our society today to provide for the poorest of the poor, and doing away with similar types of merchant indentured servitude.

-Would day old foods be free?

-Would broken or dented products be free?

-Anything past-date free?

-Surplus goods free?

-How much perfect goods would be mixed in with the less-than-perfect for the poor, as the fields were to contain certain levels of the “good grain” for the poor, and unpicked heads, not gathering everything from the fields so that others could come through, the poor and the sojourner (the migrant worker??).

 

What does Sabbath mean to you and your congregation today?

-Do you run out to lunch and make others work?

-What of the blue laws?

-How do you and your congregation honor the 4^th Commandment?

 

How could these judgments against Israel be heard in your community by the people who celebrate worship with you?

-How does the phrasing immediately displace the words to the “Ancient Times” and therefore not intended for the church today?

-Can you make it current?

 

 

In an effort to recover from all the pain God sends this day in our communities, when we can find hope there is yet something left, because God has not left us adrift. If nothing else, even if all the other judgments have been uttered and we have been guilty of all the same sins as Israel we have not had all hope removed.

-What is the “hope” of your community?

-What is the vision of the future that needs to be conveyed that transforms the people from sin to justice, through love?

Thoughts on Amos 7 – text for Sunday July 15, 2007

7^th Sunday After Pentecost

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First, let me offer a warning against false prophets as it seems appropriate when talking about the prophets. This time I have come across a few readings that will be attractive and interesting takes on Amos 7, but have done some poor exegesis. So that you too will not be led astray let me share with you.

Some persons have read the “plumb line” in our text today as a “plummet line”, which is not far from the same thing, but takes some very dangerous turns when added into comparative word studies.

In Hebrew (thanks to my Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance) “Plumb line” also means “hook” and “Plummet Line” also means “Tin”. The word in Hebrew (without the benefit of the actual Hebrew word inserted here) is well and truly “plumb line”. While “hook” could be presented in some interesting ways and can be helpful to the understanding of this passage, it is still best rendered “plumb line”. The danger and intrigue came in reading the “plummet line” as “tin”. For in this instance one who understands metallurgy knows that the rise of the Bronze Age came when it was discovered that when one added 10% tin to copper, bronze became much stronger, and the hardening of weapons changed the course of battles. The danger came when God was seen as stockpiling tin, thus creating a weapons surplus. This is a flashy and interesting tack and easy to travel down when one wants to condemn the modern age for its use of weapons and how God has a bigger weapons cache than we could ever imagine, etc, etc.

I say again, beware of false prophets and dangerous teachings. God is setting a plumb line before Israel. Go forward trying to set things straight.

 

 

Amos 7
⁷ This is what he showed me: The Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb, with a plumb line in his hand. ⁸ And the LORD asked me, “What do you see, Amos?”
“A plumb line,” I replied.

Amos is quickly brought to attention and focuses on the very thing God sets before him. Notice that when asked what he sees Amos does not respond, “you, Lord” or “a wall”, but instead sees the detail, a plumb line set before the wall.

Then the Lord said, “Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.
God affirms Amos’ vision of the plumb line and tells him that it is time to bring about the correction of the off-kilter wall, which represents the people of Israel. That is to say, God is getting ready to “straighten out” Israel.

⁹ “The high places of Isaac will be destroyed
and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined;
with my sword I will rise against the house of Jeroboam.”
When the Lord declares judgment on Israel, he uses the words of Amos. We can understand a little about these words by hearing that God is going to destroy the “worship of forefathers” by destroying the high places of Isaac. By destroying the sanctuaries of Israel God effectively does a couple of destructions. First, the “worship of buildings” is destroyed; Second, God in this instance seems to give greater credit to the capital of Judah, Jerusalem. Which fight continues into Jesus time, as we see the outcasts have become the former people of the Capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel, the people of Samaria, the Samaritans. The final judgment God offers is against the house of the current King of Israel. This seems to indicate, as in previous times, that this king will be alright for the rest of his reign, but that the lineage and kingship are in jeopardy over the long haul.  The implication is that Jeroboam is not a fit king, and not teaching those who are of his line how to rule well.

Amos and Amaziah
¹⁰ Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: “Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words. ¹¹ For this is what Amos is saying:
Imagine if you will that the Bishop was coming to town and calls out your richest and most powerful congregation member, who in turn has made your life very comfortable, and lavishes you with gifts on a regular basis. When Amos comes to Bethel, and decries against the King, Amaziah feels this immense pressure. Amaziah has unfortunately become confused about whom he serves, choosing the King over the Lord God. In an effort to press the issue he tells the king that Amos is stirring up trouble, and that the people of Israel cannot bear to hear that the end of the world is coming (for this is what Amos’ words amount to for the common folk). Then like so many other times in our lives Amaziah finds himself quoting the source of the trouble, but listen closely…

” ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword,
and Israel will surely go into exile,
away from their native land.’ “
Amaziah immediately misquotes Amos to make the situation all the more dire for the King. No longer will the Lord rise against the house of Jeroboam, making it a God versus long-term power corruption issue, but instead is twisted into an Amos versus Jeroboam thing, where Jeroboam is told he will die by the sword, with the implication that Amos might well wield that sword against Jeroboam. Israel is not told that the destruction will come to the high places and that they are to leave the “dead to care for the dead” (to borrow from the words of Jesus) in regard to the “High places of Isaac” that will be destroyed, but instead that Israel will be taken over by a foreign nation, and sent away. No longer foreigners in their own land, Amaziah plays up the fear factors and tells the people that they are going to be run out of their land, and held captive by another nation.

No wonder the people cannot bear such things, as Amaziah reports to the King. Those are dire predictions. Amos is cast as the scapegoat rather than Amaziah taking responsibility for serving King Jeroboam over the Lord God.

¹² Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. ¹³ Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.”

Amusing, isn’t it? Amaziah claims Bethel as the holy place of the King, even though the capital is in Samaria, as this is the high place of the House of God renamed as such by Jacob, where we first learn of Jacob’s Ladder. And when Amaziah is confronted with wrongdoing by Amos he tells Amos to go away, and preach his bad news to the South in Judah, thus doing twin duty, allowing God’s word to be proclaimed, but upon the enemy of Israel, and protecting the King. Jerusalem is only 10 miles to the south and Amaziah fears the dangers that word of a weakening kingdom in the north might do for the kings of Judah in the south.

¹⁴ Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor a prophet’s son, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. ¹⁵ But the LORD took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ ¹⁶ Now then, hear the word of the LORD . You say,

” ‘Do not prophesy against Israel,
and stop preaching against the house of Isaac.’
Amos takes it all in stride, pointing to the fact that once again God has chosen one without credentials to preach the word of change to the people, and even to the King. Amos had to change vocation as so many of the great leaders of scripture have done (Moses and David were shepherds, Jesus was a carpenter, Paul was a Pharisee, and the stories compile quickly). Amos was a farmer of fig trees (hear again a future passage of scripture, the use of fig trees by God in Amos 8, and then Jesus and the fig tree in the Gospels), and a shepherd, who is once again tending the plants (houses of worship) and the sheep (people of Israel).

¹⁷ “Therefore this is what the LORD says:

” ‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city,
and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword.
Your land will be measured and divided up,
and you yourself will die in a pagan ^[1] country.
And Israel will certainly go into exile,
away from their native land.’ “

The climax of this story is rife with irony as Amaziah had twisted the vision of Amos and proclaimed great calamity on the northern kingdom. Those were not Amos’ original words, but Amaziah has claimed prophecy and God has now honored that prophecy, and added to it. Amaziah now too will suffer the consequences of his actions. As he has prostituted himself to other Gods, namely the King, now his wife will be prostituting in the streets. Amaziah proclaimed the sword would destroy Jeroboam, and now God turns the original prophecy against Jeroboam (that the lineage would be destroyed) against Amaziah with Amaziah’s own choice of instruments of destruction. The separation of the people from the land that Amaziah prophesied is now come to roost in his own lands, including the exile to a foreign land. And then offers the final judgment on Israel, brought about, not by Amos, but by Amaziah as Israel is going to exile away from their native lands. They will once again be slaves.

Footnotes

1.       7:17 Hebrew an unclean

How many of our Congregations are guilty of the sin of worship of forefathers? This can be heard every time someone offers up the “but, we’ve never done it that way before” mantra, because the “former ways” and the people who instituted those former ways are now being lifted up beyond what God is doing in this moment.

 

How many of our Congregations are guilty of the sin of worship of Buildings? Think of it in this way. How long did it take your church to settle in their current location. What caused those early changes, and how long have you been in your current location. When was the last time something was taken down to provide something more necessary?

 

Have you ever noticed that we are the purveyors of our own doom? We somehow create our own worst fears and make them come true. Amaziah falls victim to his own sense of victimology. Playing the victim only leads to greater damage done to the self than the actual danger presented.