Confronted by AMOS!

Thursday of the 13^th Week in Ordinary Time

Amos 7:10-17

A quick peek at where we are in Amos.

The name Amos mean Burden Carrier.  It is a time of peace and prosperity which tends to bring the slothful, fornicating, drunk, sloppy worshipper out in all of us;)  At least those in the top 1%.   But Amos is the voice of the 99. 

Cool note:  The 8^th century BCE text says Amos was called two years before the earthquake…and sure enough archeologists have found evidence of an earthquake in 760!

So Amos the Burden Carrier shares his oracles from God…a litany of sins of power-lust, greed and blindness to the plight of real people. 

Some favorite lines:

“Prepare to meet thy God” 4:12

All you have to do is “let justice roll down like the waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” 5:24

“Woe to them that are at ease in Zion” 6:1

Now in chapter 7 Israel is the focus of divine wrath.  Amos protests and God decides against locusts and fire.  But God is still angry and Amos still preaches truth to power:

Your wife shall be made a harlot in the city,

and your sons and daughters shall fall by the sword;

Your land shall be divided by measuring line,

and you yourself shall die in an unclean land;

Israel shall be exiled far from its land.

The ongoing story of God’s relationship to God’s people is full of ebb and flow.  But underneath it all…like in the end of the Book of Amos, God’s promise endures.  God’s favor always returns.  It looks lush and green and flowing…with wine no less;)

Isn’t it that way with sin and grace? 

Am I able to see my sin without the hope of the contrasting gift of grace? 

Am I able to recognize my need for grace without an honest reflection on my own sin?  

I am thinking that naming grace has more revelatory power the nearer it is to my mea culpa.