Amos 8:1-12
Doom and Gloom
James Sledge July
17, 2022
The Prophet Amos 
by Irving Amen (1918-2011)
You may or may not be aware that this
congregation recently became part of something called VOICE or Virginias
Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement. VOICE is a coalition of around
50 faith communities who work together to address systemic social justice
issues in northern Virginia. Getting well connected with VOICE hasn’t been easy
during a pandemic, but I think you will be hearing about initiatives we want to
get involved with in the future.
Recently another church member and I attended a VOICE meeting that discussed trying to address some of the issues in what is a woefully inadequate Fairfax County mental health system. Even people with means struggle to access any sort of emergency care for a family member experiencing a mental health crisis, and the situation is even more dire for people who are poor.
Among the many things I learned at this meeting is that the rules for the state of Virginia require that any mental health medications for Medicaid patients must be prescribed by a psychiatrist. No prescriptions from general practitioners allowed. But here’s the catch. Not a single psychiatrist in Fairfax County accepts Medicaid patients. Good mental health care is difficult to find for anyone, but if you are poor, it is nearly impossible.
Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring ruin to 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 prophet in our reading for this morning addresses the wealthy merchants of his day who pretend to be faithful worshipers of God but whose only real concern is how they can make more money by whatever means, fair or not. Israel is a land with a growing wealthy class, but it is a two-tiered society where some live in luxury and others in poverty. And the prophet insists that God has noticed and will not tolerate such a situation for long.
In our own day, we have individuals who have amassed wealth on a staggering scale. People like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have so much money that they can undertake personal space programs, something that only a government could manage in the past. And many of these fabulously wealthy people are loathe to share their fantastic wealth with the community at large. This country’s billionaires pay a miniscule amount of income tax as a percentage of their wealth. The actual tax rates for you and me are considerably higher.
And the companies of these billionaires want to hang on to every bit of profit that they can. Amazon, Google, Apple, Starbucks and more have resorted to intimidation and labor law violations in an effort to prevent unionization of their blue-collar workers. Meanwhile the pay gap between worker and CEO pay continues to expand. A recent study found that the CEO to worker pay ratio had jumped to 670 to 1. The average CEO pay at the top 300 US companies is $10.6 million while the median worker salary is $23,968.[1]
The prophet Amos speaks to the Jeff Bezozes and Elon Musks of his day. Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.
The prophet sees gathering doom because of the basic inequities of their society and insists that no amount of religion will do any good. In verses prior to our reading this morning, the prophet speaks on God’s behalf and proclaims, I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies… Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like and ever-flowing stream.
The prophet insists that religion that does not enact a fair and just and equitable society is an affront to God. Spirituality that is not concerned with the poor and the needy and the vulnerable is a good way to find yourself further away from God rather that closer.
I can’t imagine that Amos’ message was very well received. Not only did he rail against the well to do and powers that be in Israel, but he was a foreigner to boot. He was from the neighboring kingdom of Judah. It would be like someone from Canada came to Washington, DC and began to scream and yell that because of the continuing systemic poverty and racism in this country, God was about to lower the boom on us.
I wonder how many of us can entertain the notion that God might become upset enough at us that there would be real consequences. And if our God would never punish, is our God the God of the Bible, or simply some concept of a god that suits us?
And you can’t wriggle out of such questions by making the popular distinction between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New. The story of Jesus is the story of God intervening in history, and Jesus can sound very much like Amos. “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled… But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.”
That sounds very much to me like God will sit idly by for only so long. That sounds to me like God will at some point turn things upside down, and those who’ve long suffered will suddenly be on top, and those who enjoyed themselves in the midst of others’ suffering will find the shoe on the other foot. And that is Jesus, no Old Testament prophet.
Can we hear the words of Amos or Jesus in such a way that they unnerve us and worry us? Is our God real enough that real action is even a possibility? When I was working on this sermon, I found a quote from the famous preacher and Duke Divinity School professor, Will Willimon that said, “One way you can tell the difference between a true and living God and a dead and fake god is that a false god will never tell you anything that will make you angry and uncomfortable!”[2] Can our God make us angry or uncomfortable?
False gods are nice because they always agree with you and always work just the way you expect, but such gods are little different from the idols that used to upset the Old Testament prophets so.
Me, I want a real, living God. I want a God who cares about the people Jesus cared about, and who cares enough about me to disturb me and prod me to be a representative, an agent of God’s dream for the world. And what could possibly be more important or more satisfying than to be a part of that?
[1] “Wage gap between CEOs and US workers jumped to 670-to-1 last year, study finds” The Guardian, June 7, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/07/us-wage-gap-ceos-workers-institute-for-policy-studies-report
[2] Bartlett, David L.; Barbara Brown Taylor. Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition, location 8972
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