Not a Prophet’s Son (July 10, 2002) Amos 7.7-17

Over the past few weeks there have been a couple of sermons from the First Testament. And why not? The First Testament is a great place to find a sermon that tells a story. There are plenty of stories to go around in this section of the bible. Stories that enlighten, invigorate, and strengthen faith. Stories that tell of miracles and or meeting with God. Stories that sometimes we wish we could tell from our own lives.

The section from which we find these stories is known as the historical books, books where we find the history of Israel. Then we come to another section of the First Testament. This is a section known as the Prophets. Now in the Hebrew Bible, what we know as the First, or old, Testament, the books are divided differently from what we have in our Bible. What are known as the historical books are part of the Prophets. This is because they tell the stories of the prophets that were in the land of Israel and Judah. A prophet is not one who just tells the future (though they do that at times) but they are also ones who preach the Word of the Lord to the people in a certain time and place. They often preach a hard word and are not held in high esteem by those around them who hear these words. The first section of the Prophets includes, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, also known as the major prophets for the size of their writings.

But there is another section of the Prophets. In Judaism they are known as the Dozen or the Twelve because they can fit on one scroll. We call them the Minor Prophets. But do not be fooled, there is nothing minor about the message that these prophets bring. In fact, the Minor Prophets likely influenced the Major prophets with the delivery of their message. It is unfortunate that we call them the Minor Prophets because we believe that they are lesser because of this designation.

So, we come to a minor prophet today that will begin a look at the minor prophets and hopefully open our eyes to see the message of those who brought God’s message to the people they were called to speak to.

The minor prophet that we come to today is the prophet Amos. He is from the land of Judah and preached to the land of Israel. This was after the kingdom was divided and had been for many years. The land of Israel is prosperous at this point in their history. Assyria is weak and not expanding, a good thing for smaller kingdoms like Israel. Syria, or Aram, is declining and not posing a threat to their neighbor as they have been. The trade routes are open and goods are flowing through the country. There is stability on the throne in Jeroboam II and things are looking quite rosy for the people of Israel. But all is not as it seems.

Amos comes into the country and begins to preach a message of social justice, repentance and punishment. See, with all the wealth that is flowing in the country, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. The poor, for who the land is everything, are hard pressed. They must live by the cycle of the seasons. If there is drought, then they have to buy seed for the next season on credit. If the crop fails then they have to mortgage their land or even sell one of the family into slavery. And even then, there is no guarantee. And so, the land is being bought up by the rich and those poor who owned the land are now without any way to make a living unless they hire themselves out to the rich. There is dishonesty in the marketplace where those who sell are selling with loaded scales and giving less than marketable goods. There are those who have rich homes filled with luxury goods and with all the finery of a lovely home. In fact, many have two homes, one for summer and one for winter. There is so much wealth among the rich that they indulge themselves and participate in recreation that has no building up of anything, just having fun.

Into this comes Amos with words from the Lord. His best known is from 5:24, “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”[1]It is a call to be more just with those around them, to treat the poor as they should be treated not as they currently are. The people think that because they are the Chosen People, they can do whatever they like because they know that God will take care of them. But that is not what being Chosen means. To be Chosen is to be a light to all the nations, to go and tell them what the Lord has done for them and to show what righteousness and justice truly are. Unfortunately, they have not done any of this and Amos is there to call them out.

And so, we come to chapter 7. There Amos sees two visions: one of locusts who will devour the crops and cause famine in the land and one of fire which will sweep over the land. Amos pleads for the people saying that Jacob is small and cannot withstand anything like this. Now, there are those who say that God’s mind cannot be changed. This section of scripture proves that to be wrong. God’s mind is indeed changed and God relents from these punishments because of the pleading of the prophet.

But then there is another vision. Amos sees a plumb line, a line with a lead weight that marks whether or not a wall is straight and true. God is holding the plumbline and is saying that the wall is not true, that Israel will come under punishment. In an interesting aside, the term plumbline can also be translated as tin. It is not certain what this means, is God saying that the walls that the Israelites put so much faith to keep them safe are made of tin (think of how sturdy tinfoil is) and therefore the walls will come down in judgement? Or is there something else that is being said here? What we know for certain is that judgement is coming. The places of worship will be destroyed, laid waste and made desolate so that know one will worship there again. The house of Jeroboam will be attacked with a sword. Things will not go well with the land of Israel.

And there is one who is affronted by this message. His name is Amaziah and he is a priest in the sanctuary of Bethel, which means House of God, a high place for sacrifice and worship in Israel. Amaziah believes that he must report to the king. There is a message that can only be called treason. But Amaziah leaves out some important parts of the message. His message to the king is this, “Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos has said, ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.’ ”[2]

Amaziah is what we would call a lackey. He is a priest because the king made him one. Those in the sanctuary of Bethel know on which side their bread is buttered. They have been preaching a message of peace and continued prosperity to the people of Israel. And here comes one into the sanctuary who is preaching a different message, one of judgement and of the king being taken down by the sword.

Amaziah’s message would have been taken seriously by those in the royal palace. There had been many coups in the history of Israel and therefore any hint of conspiracy would have been taken seriously. We do not know how Jeroboam responded but we do have Amaziah’s “advice” to Amos. He tells him “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.”[3] Notice something interesting here. Amaziah says that Bethel is the “king’s sanctuary” and a “temple of the kingdom.” These are not the places of the Lord, but rather national symbols of worship, something akin to the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. where there is national worship but not worship that the LORD desires.

Amos will have none of this talk. He begins right away with three I statements. First, that he is not a professional prophet. Second that he is no “prophet’s son” meaning that he is not the member of a school of prophets. He is not taking pay from the king of Judah from where he comes nor from the king of Israel. Rather, third, that he was taken from his job as a herdsman and tender of sycamore trees and told to proclaim the word of the Lord.

Now here is an interesting statement. Amos did not do this job willingly. He had to be dragged to it. All prophets are dragged to their profession, most kicking and screaming, some even running from the message they are told to give. They do not want to be seen as a prophet. It is a thankless job and the message that is given is one that usually will not win friends and influence people. The prophets are not the people who get to be invited to many barbeques.

Amos follows up these three I statements with three statements of the LORD’s. The LORD took him from his job. Now hear the word of the LORD, you say that I should not preach the message that I am preaching against Israel. And last, he tells Amaziah “Thus says the LORD…”, Amaziah will see all that he holds dear taken away from him, that he will be taken away and that he will die in an unclean land. A harsh word indeed for a man who thought he was doing what needed to be done.

The prophets are hard to swallow. As mentioned before that would not be ones who you would invite to a get together. They would be the ones who would cause an awkward silence as they call out wealth and luxury. They would be the ones who would make the other guests uncomfortable and cause them to leave early to tend to “other engagements”.

But we need prophets among us. During the civil rights campaign of the fifties and sixties there were many prophets calling for a just society. Martin Luther King Jr. was one. But there were also those who were wanting the status quo to be just that, the status quo. They told King to soften his message and to not be so forceful. They were the Amaziah’s of their day.

Today we need prophets. Ones who call out the discrepancy between the haves and the have nots. Of the top ten richest in the world, 8 are from the United States with Elon Musk at the top of the list with a net worth of 240 billion dollars. That is almost the GDP of several nations. He could lose 239 billion and still be a billionaire. Think of what could be done with that money if it were to be distributed by this man.

But what about us? We have our retirement plans and we have our comfortable lives. We may not have two homes, but how many of us have two or even three cars? How many of us have enough food that sometimes we forget what we have in the refrigerator and have to throw out leftovers? How many of us can buy food for the blessing box or Pilot Outreach without it hurting us?

We have need for a prophet who is not a professional prophet, not one who is a lackey to the ones in power. Ones like William Barber II who stands when his body is aching and calls us to have what are known as Moral Mondays. Ones who are not popular because of their message and who call us to repentance. Ones who also call upon us the judgement of God. This is a message we do not like to hear. We do not want others to be in judgement of us. That is only for us to do of ourselves. But when God judges us, it is with true justice and we are called to come back from the places we have been and where we are. We are called to be the light to the world for doing true justice and mercy. We are called to be like the ultimate prophet, Jesus.

We may not believe the prophets are relevant to us today, but I hope that I have shown that they are. We have a call to us all to be ones who will stand in the gap and call for justice and righteousness. What will be our answer? Amen.

[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print. [2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print. [3] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print.