Another 8th century BCE prophet--relatively contemporaneous with Hosea and even Isaiah. Amos follows Joel in our Old Testament most likely because of phrases (Joel 3:16 and Amos 1:2) that are virtually identical.
Amos was a farmer from the Southern Kingdom of Judah who was a prophet to the Northern Kingdom of Israel--and not very welcome there because of the message God sent him with. His message was pretty negative. It sometimes took the form of a judicial declaration of guilt. His words were hard to take.
Chapters 1-2 The LORD is, from the beginning of this prophetic scroll, NOT a comfortable figure. He roars (1:2) like a lion. His breath is like a hot wind.
There follow a series of condemnations of the enemies of Israel that take a specific form:
"For three transgressions of ___ and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
because they have ________[commited the following evil]
So I will [send the following punishment]"
The objects of God's punishment are Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, and Judah.
What? JUDAH?!? then ISRAEL?!?
Lumped in with all those enemy states and cities?
God accuses Judah of "rejecting the law of the LORD" (2:4).
God accuses Israel in even more specific terms:
because they sell the righteous for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals--
they who trample the head of the poor
into the dust of the earth,
and push the afflicted out of the way;
father and son go in to the same girl,
so that my holy name is profaned;
they lay themselves down beside every altar
on garments taken in pledge;
and in the house of their God they drink wine bought with fines they imposed. (2:6-8)
It's important to note that Israel's sins are social: failing to care for the poor, the widow, the sick; and they are ritual. The sexual acts cross the line both ways: sexual acts with girls by father and son are about self-aggrandizement rather than commitment, and the following phrases imply that the venue may be temple prostitution. But again, the ritual sin and the social sin are tangled together, each making the other worse. The Torah prohibited taking a garment in pledge for a debt and keeping it overnight. A poor man used his coat at night as a blanket.
The LORD's response to all this sin is to "press down" the one who tramples the poor (2:7,13).
Chapter 3 develops the idea of the LORD as the Lion roaring in the forest. Pay attention to the syntax. These are all rhetorical questions.
Chapter 4 gives us the magnificently offensive description of narcissistic Israelites as "cows of Bashan" and describes all the ways that God tried to get their attention--by famine, drought, blighted crops--and in every case concludes: "..yet you did not return to me."
Chapter 5 develops the metaphor of Israel as a maiden who has fallen "no more to rise." The form is a funeral lament. And the familiar prophetic language about the coming "day of the LORD" appears as well, and another reference to lions (5:19). The climax of the chapter is passage that was made so familiar to Americans in the speech of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (5:21-24).
Chapter 6 takes up a lament for the wealthy, leisured class of Israelites. (Amos wrote in a time of relative political stability when Israelites were accumulating wealth.)
Chapter 7 is in the form of visions that Amos has of the future. Amos is appalled:
O Lord God, forgive, I beg you!
How can Jacob stand?
He is so small!
Then Amos says: "The LORD relented concerning this; "It shall not be," said the LORD.
This chapter contains King Amaziah of Israel's encounter with Amos. Basically, he says that Amos's words are not good for the morale of the country and he should just head south to his own part of the world and leave Israel alone.
Chapter 8 has another vision which really only makes sense in the Hebrew language, because it's based on what you might call a visual pun. Amos sees a basket of fruit (qayits in Hebrew) and God tells him that he is about to see the end (qets in Hebrew) of Israel.
Another very familiar and beloved passage is in this chapter.
In 8:11 we read:
The time is surely coming, says the Lord GOD,
when I will send a famine on the land;
not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the LORD.
Chapter 9 closes with an oracle of hope and restoration. As in the prophet Isaiah, the idea of a righteous remnant being preserved is expressed here.
The time is surely coming, says the LORD,
when the one who plows shall overtake the one who reaps,
and the treader of grapes the one who sows the seed;
the mountains shall drip sweet wine
and all the hills shall flow with it.
I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,
and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,
and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.
I will plant them upon their land,
and they shall never again be plucked up
out of the land I have given them,
says the LORD your God. (9:13-15)
How do we responsibly read these prophetic books in our own day? It can be simply a case of reading the promise parts when things get difficult, and looking at other people's wicked behavior and applying the threatening parts to them. "Our country is about to suffer because of the terrible sins of those (fill in the blank) who live in our midst." I don't think that's the best way to read, because usually God wants to call the reader and the hearer to repentance for our own sins and complicity in the big communal/social sins of our day. I'm reminded that the beloved hymn does not say: "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like you."
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Sunday, January 4, 2015
Back after a LONG Break
At the end of June, I went on a 3 week road trip, visiting all five of my children, performing a wedding, and touching base with old friends, returning to some interesting challenges in my parish. And then I did some continuing education in Arizona and took my last vacation week for our son's wedding. In November we had a flood at church when a radiator burst. Then it was Advent and Christmas. The blog languished.
It's January 4, 2015.
It is COLD in Minot, North Dakota. The wind chill when church began this morning was south of -40 degrees (where, incidentally, the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales cross…), and it was -17F before we factored in the wind chill. The temperature has risen a bit, but so has the wind. It was so bitter that when I wanted to capture the amazing sun dogs late this afternoon, I was too wimpy to go outdoors!
People in my congregation have continued to read. It has not always been easy or pleasant. sometimes it hasn't even seemed very edifying. Yet when we've met on Wednesdays, a group of retired women for the most part with an occasional visitor, the conversations have been meaningful.
So where are we this coming week? Reading Hosea and Joel. Reading Psalms 101-106. Starting to read the Gospel of Luke. We are on our second pass through the Psalms, and now just beginning our second pass through Luke. I will be interested to ask the group how their second reading this year differs from their first reading. These women have been reading the Gospels all their lives and hearing passages read in church. Yet the more intensive task of reading larger chunks of the Bible daily has been eye-opening.
So…. some comments about HOSEA, the first of what are called the "Minor Prophets," because they are relatively short and they come at the end of the English Old Testament; or the "Twelve" in the Hebrew tradition.
Hosea preached in the 8th century before the Common Era, just before the Northern Kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians.
Hosea 1.
Notice the structure of the first verses. We locate Hosea as "the son of Beeri" and the time when "the word of the LORD came to" him, both in the dynasties of the Kings of Israel and the Kings of Judah.
Hosea is called to what I'd like to call Prophetic Street Theatre. God calls him to marry a prostitute and have children with her, "for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD" (1:2).
Having been a priest for more than a quarter century, I have seen the pain that marital unfaithfulness causes. It's hard to imagine a person willingly taking on the risk of marrying someone who has no plans to be faithful. Perhaps that's too un-charitable a reading of Gomer's situation. Maybe she was amazed that Hosea would ask her to marry. Maybe she fully intended to be a conventional wife. Maybe she was a conventional wife at the start. Hosea and Gomer had babies together, and gave them names that would be hard to carry: Jezreel, "Not Pitied," and finally "Not My People."
Hosea 2.
If we'd been hoping that Gomer would respond to Hosea's love with faithfulness, it would appear that chapter 2 doesn't allow for such an interpretation. Hosea's relationship with his wife and children is like God's relationship with Israel: passionate, loving, but disappointing.
What do you think about the role of the land in reflecting God's disappointment with Israel?
What do you think of this picture of God as One who punishes unfaithfulness?
The feminist in me still recoils at the idea of an unfaithful woman as a metaphor for human sinfulness.
Yet the pain and pathos of the LORD in the face of the unfaithfulness of his people is so very moving in Hosea's words:
"She did not know
that it was I who gave her the grand, the wine, and the oil,
and who lavished upon her silver
and gold that they used for Baal.
God continues to try to woo Israel back:
"Therefore, I will now allure her
and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.
From there I will give her her vineyards,
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she shall respond as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt (2:14-15).
The following chapters continue this theme. The idolatry of Israel is likened to adultery.
God is so frustrated, so disappointed.
(This is an astounding admission on God's part, gives us a very different picture of God than we sometimes have. Theologians of the Middle Ages spoke of the Impassibility of God. They could not imagine God in pain, God suffering, because pain and suffering imply imperfection, a lack of completeness, and God must, by their definition, be perfect.)
Hosea 6:4: "What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early."
Watch how Hosea develops the metaphor of a vine in Ch. 10.
Watch how Hosea's words "Out of Egypt I called my son" (11:1) are used in Hosea, and how they are appropriated in Matthew's gospel as a prophecy of the Flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. (Matthew 2:15)
Notice how God continues to agonize in 11:8ff!
And notice how even by the end of the book there is still ambiguity. 14:4-7 are so full of hope and love. Yet 14:8 still is quite open-ended; we don't know what Israel's response will be:
"O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols?
It is I who answer and look after you.
I am like an evergreen cypress;
your faithfulness comes from me."
(14:9 is actually a post-script and probably not originally part of Hosea's prophecy.)
It's January 4, 2015.
It is COLD in Minot, North Dakota. The wind chill when church began this morning was south of -40 degrees (where, incidentally, the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales cross…), and it was -17F before we factored in the wind chill. The temperature has risen a bit, but so has the wind. It was so bitter that when I wanted to capture the amazing sun dogs late this afternoon, I was too wimpy to go outdoors!
People in my congregation have continued to read. It has not always been easy or pleasant. sometimes it hasn't even seemed very edifying. Yet when we've met on Wednesdays, a group of retired women for the most part with an occasional visitor, the conversations have been meaningful.
So where are we this coming week? Reading Hosea and Joel. Reading Psalms 101-106. Starting to read the Gospel of Luke. We are on our second pass through the Psalms, and now just beginning our second pass through Luke. I will be interested to ask the group how their second reading this year differs from their first reading. These women have been reading the Gospels all their lives and hearing passages read in church. Yet the more intensive task of reading larger chunks of the Bible daily has been eye-opening.
So…. some comments about HOSEA, the first of what are called the "Minor Prophets," because they are relatively short and they come at the end of the English Old Testament; or the "Twelve" in the Hebrew tradition.
Hosea preached in the 8th century before the Common Era, just before the Northern Kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians.
Hosea 1.
Notice the structure of the first verses. We locate Hosea as "the son of Beeri" and the time when "the word of the LORD came to" him, both in the dynasties of the Kings of Israel and the Kings of Judah.
Hosea is called to what I'd like to call Prophetic Street Theatre. God calls him to marry a prostitute and have children with her, "for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD" (1:2).
Having been a priest for more than a quarter century, I have seen the pain that marital unfaithfulness causes. It's hard to imagine a person willingly taking on the risk of marrying someone who has no plans to be faithful. Perhaps that's too un-charitable a reading of Gomer's situation. Maybe she was amazed that Hosea would ask her to marry. Maybe she fully intended to be a conventional wife. Maybe she was a conventional wife at the start. Hosea and Gomer had babies together, and gave them names that would be hard to carry: Jezreel, "Not Pitied," and finally "Not My People."
Hosea 2.
If we'd been hoping that Gomer would respond to Hosea's love with faithfulness, it would appear that chapter 2 doesn't allow for such an interpretation. Hosea's relationship with his wife and children is like God's relationship with Israel: passionate, loving, but disappointing.
What do you think about the role of the land in reflecting God's disappointment with Israel?
What do you think of this picture of God as One who punishes unfaithfulness?
The feminist in me still recoils at the idea of an unfaithful woman as a metaphor for human sinfulness.
Yet the pain and pathos of the LORD in the face of the unfaithfulness of his people is so very moving in Hosea's words:
"She did not know
that it was I who gave her the grand, the wine, and the oil,
and who lavished upon her silver
and gold that they used for Baal.
God continues to try to woo Israel back:
"Therefore, I will now allure her
and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.
From there I will give her her vineyards,
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she shall respond as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt (2:14-15).
The following chapters continue this theme. The idolatry of Israel is likened to adultery.
God is so frustrated, so disappointed.
(This is an astounding admission on God's part, gives us a very different picture of God than we sometimes have. Theologians of the Middle Ages spoke of the Impassibility of God. They could not imagine God in pain, God suffering, because pain and suffering imply imperfection, a lack of completeness, and God must, by their definition, be perfect.)
Hosea 6:4: "What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early."
Watch how Hosea develops the metaphor of a vine in Ch. 10.
Watch how Hosea's words "Out of Egypt I called my son" (11:1) are used in Hosea, and how they are appropriated in Matthew's gospel as a prophecy of the Flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. (Matthew 2:15)
Notice how God continues to agonize in 11:8ff!
And notice how even by the end of the book there is still ambiguity. 14:4-7 are so full of hope and love. Yet 14:8 still is quite open-ended; we don't know what Israel's response will be:
"O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols?
It is I who answer and look after you.
I am like an evergreen cypress;
your faithfulness comes from me."
(14:9 is actually a post-script and probably not originally part of Hosea's prophecy.)
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