Homily for Thursday, 13th Week

Homily for Thursday, 13th Week

July 5, 2018

Amos 7: 10-17
Nativity, Washington, D.C.

“The Lord took me from following the flock, and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel” (Amos 7: 15).

For several weeks we read from Kings 2 fragments of the history of the 2 Hebrew kingdoms, Judah in the south with its capital in Jerusalem, ruled by the dynasty of King David; and Israel in the north with its capital in Samaria, ruled by a succession of families and afflicted with numerous coups.  Israel’s history is one of consistent infidelity to the covenant between God and his people, while Judah’s history is a mixed bag of infidelity and reform.

In the end, Israel is conquered by Assyria in 721 B.C. and its 10 tribes dispersed into exile, where they disappear from history.  As for Judah, it survives until it’s conquered and Jerusalem is destroyed by Babylon in 587 B.C., and all the upper- and middle-class people are taken away to Babylon—the Babylonian captivity.  (You heard parts of that episode late last week.)

Into that history come the prophets.  We met Elijah and Elisha in 2 Kings, prophesying in Israel.  On Monday we began some weeks of hearing from the “classical prophets,” starting with 2 of the so-called minor prophets, Amos and Hosea, and then moving on to the major prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah.

The prophet Amos

By 18 cen. icon painter - Iconostasis of Kizhi Monastery, Russia, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3232602

Amos was active around 760 B.C.  (If you do the arithmetic—760 to 721 B.C.—you realize that Israel had just a short time left.)  Altho he was from Judah and was but a humble shepherd and some kind of woodsman, God called him to prophesy in Israel.  It was an awkward time to go and tell the powers of Israel how displeased God was with them, for the 40-year reign of Jeroboam II was the best period in that kingdom’s life—one of economic prosperity and diplomatic and political success.  Yet Amos shows up in Bethel, where the kings have established a quasi-pagan temple to rival the true Temple in Jerusalem, more or less in the middle of Jeroboam’s apparently happy reign—shows up to denounce both idolatry and rampant social injustice.  The king, nobles, and priests violate God’s covenant by false worship, cheating at business, and oppression of the poor.  We heard on Monday that “they sell the just man for silver and the poor man for a pair of sandals.  They trample the heads of the weak into the dust of the earth.”  Fathers and sons visit the same prostitutes (2:6-7)—there’s an implication that these are “sacred prostitutes” serving at pagan temples.

Amid the kingdom’s material prosperity, Amos prophesies doom.  Having abandoned the Lord God, they will be abandoned by him and suffer a sudden, disastrous collapse.

And that’s what we must take note of.  Idolatry—the worship of anything that’s not God—and disregard for the dignity and the rights of our fellow human beings are expressions of disdain for God and formulas for both moral and social disaster.  If we worship wealth, pleasure, comfort, power, fame, national security—we’re looking for trouble.  If we have no room in our hearts or our policies for refugees, the sick, the aged, the unborn, the uneducated, the poor and illiterate of the world, we’re violating a covenant between God and humanity—for all are his beloved children.  The terrible price Israel paid for its infidelity may serve as a warning for us.