Word to the Wise
Thursday, July 2, 2020 - Thursday in the 13th Week in Ordinary Time
[Amos 7:10-17 and Matt 9:1-8]To Amos, Amaziah said: "Off with you, visionary, flee to the land of Judah! There earn your bread by prophesying, but never again prophesy in Bethel; for it is the king's sanctuary and a royal temple." Amos answered Amaziah, "I was no prophet, nor have I belonged to a company of prophets; I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores. the Lord took me from following the flock, and said to me, 'God, prophesy to my people Israel.' Now here the word of the Lord." [Amos]
Amos made powerful people very uncomfortable. He condemned their lifestyles at the expense of the poor and their cocky belief that the Assyrians would not be able to conquer them. So, he became a real nuisance and in the passage for today's first scripture, he is confronted by one of the chief religious authorities in the "northern kingdom," - Israel or Samaria. The role of a prophet in those days was more formal and accepted than in our own, but the results were the same. Great prophets make the powerful and the complacent very uncomfortable. In our own time, the advent of social media can spread statements far and wide in a matter of seconds! As in Amos' time, there were many "prophets of prosperity" who calmed the nerves of the powerful and assured them that they were in no danger. Amaziah tells the king, "Amos has conspired against you here within Israel; the country cannot endure all his words." Amos was downright unpatriotic and seditious!! Yet, as he points out to Amaziah, God called him from nowhere and Amos intended to do what God has asked him to do!!!
Time and again both in Old Testament times, New Testament times, and in our own times, a complacent social consensus can take over and act as a kind of narcotic that cloaks real problems. That consensus led to the introduction, even by Solomon, of foreign deities into the temple and the beggaring of the people to build that temple in the first place! In our own history, our congress actually passed the Alien and Sedition Acts that punished speech critical of the government.
As we approach the 244th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and give thanks to God for the blessings of liberty, we would do well to remember those in our land who are unable for whatever reason to enjoy those blessings, and work ever more to make these blessings more accessible. Amos is watching! AMEN