Sermon. Read Amos - the Giant, Minor Prophet

Sermon. 18 September 2016, St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford

Trinity 16 (Year C)

Amos 8:4-7:

Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, "When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat." The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.

I was hoping today's would be short by my standards. Do you think I manage it? Of course, it's too late to take bets on it, but maybe you won't have to wait long to find out. What I can promise you is a very short summary. In fact, two words...

READ AMOS.

Or, more extensively, read the whole of the Book of the Prophet Amos, from which today's First Reading comes. What do you think?

Well, the good news is that to call it a 'Book' is just a convention; It is in fact just nine chapters. Here it is [shows], over six pages. It can be read in twenty minutes. So, will you do it? Or would you prefer a longer sermon...? Let's see...

Who was Amos? Amos was a prophet who was around, early-to-middle eighth century before Christ. Although he was from the South, Judah, he prophesied in the North, Israel. In his days, Judah and Israel are indeed divided, but they are rubbing along and doing pretty well. The Northern Kingdom has expanded northwards, and the two kingdoms together may even cover the same territory as at Israel's glory days – by which I mean, of course... back in Solomon's day. And with that expansion, there is much wealth; the rich are flourishing.

That's the context into which Amos (like most, well, all the prophets) spoke hard, negative things. To the rulers he threatened poverty, calamity, exile, and death. (Yes, it's as bad as that.) So he was 'advised' (by a cautious, bureaucratic priest; who else?) to leave the North and go home. That is presumably why he wrote down his prophecies. And, note: that is actually a new idea; Amos is the first prophet we know of to write down prophecies, the earliest of the written prophets. He's called a 'Minor Prophet', but that's only because his text is short; he's actually a revolutionary.

And Amos is revolutionary in other ways. It's actually evident in today's passage. You see, Amos is very critical, but one thing he does not criticise the people, or the rulers for... he does not condemn them for being religiously faithless. On the contrary, there's no doubt about it: the people of Israel are very, very religious. You have heard it in today's reading: they are good at observing both the Sabbath and the New Moons (and since new moons aren't all that important in the Israelite pattern of worship, presumably they kept all the festivals). Elsewhere, Amos insists they love and relish their religious practices [4.4-5].

What is more, at least in their own minds, subjectively, their religious activity is addressed to the true Gd. For Amos, the problem is not that the people are lost or trapped in idolatry (as for some prophets). There are two, or if you really stretch things maybe three references to so-called 'other gods' or alien religious practices in Amos – and that is it [2.4 ??; 5.26; 8.14]. When the People name Gd in worship, they do indeed use the nameless name given to Moses [e.g.5.18]. They are – in that formal sense – faithful to the One Gd.

What then is the problem - the devastating problem which means the prophet promises their devastation? It is that the powerful and rich among the people combine their worship of One Gd (which is on the face of it quite proper) with neglect of, and scorn for, and even violence against the poor and powerless people among them. We've already heard it: 'you that trample on the needy and bring to ruin the poor'. As you will see, when you read the whole book, that is something of a refrain for Amos. Earlier he says that the people 'trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way' [2.6].

This combination of piety and cruelty leads Amos to have Gd say:

I hate, I despise your festivals,

and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,

I will not accept them;

and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals

I will not look upon.

Take away from me the noise of your songs;

I will not listen to the melody of your harps. [5.21-23; cf. 4.4-5]

Plenty of meetings for worship going on. All of it hated by Gd. Notice that it is not that Gd is against animal sacrifices as such; Gd is as much against hymn singing, even hymn singing that is addressed to him. Because when you sing hymns and wilfully neglect people, you harm rather than help your relationship with Gd. Bracing, we can even say scary stuff.

When you sing hymns and wilfully neglect people,

you harm rather than help your relationship with Gd.

I'd say this bluntness from Amos, the 'Minor Prophet', is what makes him a giant among biblical writers, calling out to each generation of worshippers throughout time every since.

When you sing hymns and wilfully neglect people,

you harm rather than help your relationship with Gd.

I do though need to add one thing: the problem for Amos is not that the people both worshipped Gd and still sinned. That's a position we are all in, always. We are all always glorious in our worship and sinning in some parts of our lives. That is why repentance and forgiveness are part of our worship – indeed, the beating heart of our worship. Far from having to be morally perfect to worship, our worship is a place of healing of the wounds our own sins have inflicted on us. It has to be so, and it is so.

So to be clear: the problem for Amos isn't that the people can be sinful, it is rather that the people were so trapped by their sins, and so lost in love and enjoyment of them, they could not even see them. Their problem was not imperfection; their problem was smugness. They were rich, safe, contented, stuffed, and cocooned and blinded to the needs of others. It's not that they went about being literally violent to the poor; it's that the way things were set up amounted to a form of violence against the poor, where they lacked what they needed just to get by. It's worship of the One Gd combined with smugness and a willingness to pretend other people don't even exist which pushes Gd out of our worship.

May it never happen to us! There may or may not be contemporary resonances. I'm inviting us to think about that, but leaving that open for our discernment. The main thing is: take heart; it does not have to happen to us. We can say: if we are at all troubled by our coldness of heart to others, then we are not in the position of those condemned by Amos.

I don't suppose for one minute that I am saying something you have not heard before. Still, I am insisting that when it is said as powerfully bluntly as Amos says it, then we should give thanks. Read Amos. Amen.