Hungering for God’s Word

Ordinary Time XVI; July 22, 2007

Amos 8:1-12

Today’s sermon will follow a preaching tradition known as the “expository sermon.” That is, rather than a unifying theme taken from a central idea in the text, I’ll walk through the text with you. That means that rather than having a particular focus, this sermon will be more like a series of events. You will have an easier time if you brought your Bible with you and if you have it open in front of you while I preach.

In last week’s reading Amos had a vision of a wall and a plumb line; the Lord used a play on images to say he would be among his people as a plumb line to see if they would measure up. In today’s reading Amos has a vision of a basket of summer fruit (vv. 1-3) and God uses a play on words (“summer fruit” = qayits and “end” = qets) to make a prophetic point. The New International Version translates the pun into English this way: Amos sees a basket of ripe fruit and God says, “The time is ripe.” The prophetic point is this: the good times are coming to an end.

Last week I told you about the prosperity of the land and how the people celebrated being rich because, they thought, God was blessing them. Amos predicts that the songs of thanksgiving they sing in the Temple will turn into wailing, because God will no longer overlook their oppression of the poor. You know how often we preachers like to tell you that God is with you and will never leave you; it’s intriguing that Amos says the same thing here, except that he says it as a threat. “I will never again pass them by,” says the Lord; that is, “I will no longer let them get away with things.”

When Jesus instructs his disciples to go on their mission trip (Luke 10:1-12), he tells them they should announce that the Kingdom of God has come near. What’s interesting is he tells them to use the same words as both promise and threat. For those who want to serve God, who want to live as people of God, faithful to the ways of God, say, “The Kingdom of God has come near.” For those who are not interested, who turn away, who want nothing to do with God’s ways, say, “The Kingdom of God has come near.” It’s a promise and a threat at the same time, depending on your point of view.

And if your point of view is you want to get away with living at ease, negligent of the needs of the poor, then God’s presence is a threat. If your point of view is you want God to accommodate to your wishes, your schedule and your personal preferences, then God’s presence is a threat. Both Amos and Jesus remind us that God is sticking around, so the question is whether you will welcome God’s presence as a promise.

Now, in the next section (vv. 4-6), the prophet goes after the merchant class once again and he has two criticisms of them. First: although the people of Israel, according to Amos, do all the right things religiously, their hearts aren’t in it. They are careful not to do business on holidays or the Sabbath; they close their stores on festival days and on the Sabbath, but they aren’t happy about it. These days of rest and festival are supposed to be opportunities to deepen your awareness of God, to worship, pray, talk with one another about the ways of God, deepen your relationships with God and other people; that is, simply be human, rather than a producing-consuming cog in the machine. But these folks that Amos goes after aren’t interested in being liberated from the machine; the machine is making them rich, so they just want the holiday and Sabbath to be over so they can get back to their real purpose in life: making money.

I am once again feeling the temptation to go on a tirade, but that would insult your intelligence. You all know – in your heads, at least – that making money is not the real purpose in life. Spending it is! Just kidding – at least, I hope you think I’m just kidding. We don’t get far in life without making money and your smarts about making, saving, using and giving money is a good index of your abilities as a steward of God. It does not seem to me that it is such an idol in your lives that you sacrifice your humanity, your relationship with God and your life in the community just to be one of the cogs in the producing-consuming machine. If I’m wrong and you feel as though you are, then you had best give me a call so we can talk about it.

The business people that Amos yells at have another issue, besides their abuse of what ought to be their time with God: they are cheats. The ancient Kingdom of Israel doesn’t have a bureau of weights and measures; no government inspector makes sure they are using honest standards. No one is watching to make sure that the sack of grain has only wheat in it, and not floor sweepings as well. As much as some of us like to criticize what we call “big government” and its interference in business, I am grateful that our taxes pay for somebody to check the gasoline pumps to make sure they are pumping honest gallons. I am glad for truth-in-advertising laws, so that claims that companies make for their products have to backed up by legitimate research. I’m glad for the labeling laws, so that I can look at a package in the supermarket and know what is in the box.

I may be a cynic, but if so, my cynicism is at least as old as the Book of Amos. Although, in my experience, most business people are honest, still I do not trust those who produce food, medicines, clothes or other goods to tell us the truth unless the government makes them do it. Would we have found out what that Chinese company was putting in pet foods that was killing our dogs and cats without a government agency to look into it? The lure of profit is so strong, that no one should be surprised that the merchants of Israel were mixing floor sweepings in with the wheat in order to increase their bottom line. Anyone who now criticizes those who make a profit by defrauding the public is simply in the tradition of Amos.

The next part of the prophecy (vv. 7-10) repeats the sort of predictions of gloom that we have heard before. Although Amos never says that it is the Assyrians who will carry out these predictions, that is what happened. The land was devastated, the cities destroyed, countless numbers killed and everyone else resettled. The Assyrians practiced ethnic cleansing on a grand scale. So rather than belabor the point that Amos predicted destruction and destruction is what happened, let’s focus instead on the way he says it.

Amos’ prophecy uses highly figurative language. He says that the earth and the heavens will join in on the destruction. There will be such an earthquake that the land will rise the way the River Nile rises in Egypt. The land will turn liquid, rise and fall. And the sun will set at noon, leaving the earth in darkness. Amos may be thinking of a solar eclipse; there was one in 784 BC, so they knew what he was talking about.

The point to take from this, though, is that neither of those things happened when Israel fell to the Assyrians. The fall of Samaria was a disaster with lasting effects, but it was not accompanied by an earthquake and a solar eclipse. So, was Amos lying? The narrow way lots of people read the Bible would lead you to think that if those events did not happen exactly the way Amos described, then Amos was wrong. That’s because they don’t know how to read the Bible.

Part of the wonderful richness of the Bible is the beauty and creativity of its language. Prophets, psalmists, story-tellers and many others used wonderful images to drive a point home, to make us feel as well as think, to broaden our perceptions of the work of God. When Amos says that the fall of Samaria will be accompanied by a solar eclipse and an earthquake, he’s not predicting the weather. He’s saying that the lives of the people of Israel will be turned upside-down; that the light in their sky will be dark; that the social upheaval will be so severe that it will feel as though the land itself were turning to lava and rising and falling like the Nile. Is there any better way of saying it?

Now, when Amos predicts a famine for the words of the Lord (vv. 11-12), a hungering for God’s Word that overtakes the people, so they run the length of the country trying to find something from God, he’s not saying that they’ve forgotten how to appreciate figurative language. That’s not their issue; their issue is that they have God’s Word already but it doesn’t suit their social and economic priorities, so they choose to ignore it. By the time they come to their senses and want to hear from God again, it will be too late.

Since we have the Word of God printed, published and available in nearly every language on Earth, it will never be unreachable. Our famine is the impoverished way we read it. We read the Bible and think it’s a science text, or a history book, and have lost the ability to use our imagination and our appreciation of poetry to get the message of God. The last book of the Harry Potter series was released yesterday and I’ll bet some of you are nearly finished reading it; there are lots of people who see “witches” and “wizards” and “magic” and, because they have no imagination, think it’s somehow of the Devil. They are probably the same ones who want Halloween banned and have tried to get The Wonderful Wizard of Oz removed from school libraries.

No more finger-pointing. I’m still learning to appreciate the Bible; as I’ve said to you before, I first read it all the way through when I was a teen-ager, and I’ve been reading it for myself ever since I learned to read. And it grows richer and more wonderful all the time. Rarely anymore do I ask, “Did it really happen that way?” but instead I exclaim, “What a beautiful way to describe it!”

One last thing to add on the subject of hunger for the Word of the Lord. You occasionally hear people bemoan the lack of great preachers in our society; nobody has the stature to be quoted regularly in the newspapers or to be pointed to as the model for all the rest of us. But in 2004-2005 I spent nearly a year on sabbatical, as you know, finishing my dissertation. During that year I was able to worship in a lot of different churches. I came away from that with a deep appreciation for the tremendous privilege of going to church. It was so wonderful to be able to attend a service, sing hymns, pray and listen to the Scriptures read and interpreted. But in particular I came away with a deep appreciation for my colleagues, for those pastors who week after week labor over the Bible and over their love for it and for the people of God, and who stand before their congregations and relate their insights creatively and with passion. I loved listening to my friends preach and I was deeply impressed by their skill and their faithfulness.

In other words, there is no famine for the Word of God in our nation, and in particular there is no famine for the Word of God in the Presbyterian Church (USA). The Word of God is living and active, motivating people to live faithfully, to love their neighbors, and to love the Lord their God with all their hearts, souls, minds and strength. That is true because the people of God continue to hunger for God’s Word, continue to ask their preachers, “Is there any word from the Lord?” When that Word comes from Amos, it can be gloomy; it also gives us a chance to learn, to turn around and make a new start, so that when God says, “I will be with you” it is not for us a threat, but a promise.

Thank you for those who preserved the words of Amos; give us faith to heed their warning and grace to love you and to love our neighbors. In Jesus Christ, amen.

Robert A. Keefer

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Clarinda, Iowa