"AMOS N APATHY"

Rev. Jim Petersen

November 8, 2009

First Congregational UCC,Great Falls, MT

Text: Amos 6:1-7, Matthew 23:23-24

"Woe to those who are at ease in Zion.  Woe to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria."

Woe...woe...pronounces the prophet Amos.  Amos, successor to Elijah and Elisha in the Hebrew tradition.  Elijah passed the prophetic baton to Elisha.  Elisha has now handed off to Amos.  Amos is off and running.  Or perhaps we should say, he is off and writing, for Amos becomes what we call the first of the Old Testament "written prophets."  That is, those prophets in the Bible for whom a book is named.  Amos is first, alphabetically and chronologically.  He proceeds the prophecies of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Daniel, and the other written dudes.

Amos is ticked.  "Woe in Zion," meaning Jerusalem, capital city of the southern kingdom of Judah.  "Woe in Samaria," capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel.  Woe, Amos is saying, north and south,  he's covering it all with a broad brush, who to every Israelite, all of you at "ease in Zion," and "feeling secure in Samaria."           Woe!  Not whoa, as in hold your horses, but woe,    as in you are in deep dung.  Well, woe, what is going on here?

Amos prophesied during the reign of King Jeroboam II in the northern kingdom of Israel.  King "Jerry" had a successful crown.  He ruled 40 years, 786 - 746 B.C.  That's a long time a long time ago.  During his rule Israel reached a height of territorial expansion and national prosperity almost never before or since achieved.  In fact, a success eclipsed only by the heyday of David and Solomon 250 years earlier.

It was great.  A quail on every table and a chariot in every garage.  Made possible because the surrounding empires of Assyria, Babylonia and Egypt, were at a low ebb.  They had successfully if temporarily pounded one another into oblivion.  So there was a power void in Palestine, and for one of the few times in Hebrew history, Israel was able to fill it.  It was wonderful.  The border was secure and the economy was humming.

How do the Israelites respond to their new found military might and domestic

affluence?  Trust the Bible to tell us.  The Bible is a brutally honest human account.

Being uncommonly well off, prosperous and privileged, the children of God

become apathetic, indifferent and  self-indulgent.  If you can believe that?  "At ease

in Zion," hear it now, "secure in the mountain of Samaria," they interpret their

abundant times as a sign of the Lord's special favor upon them.

In response, they lavish extravagant excesses upon their shrines and themselves.

But they forget to offer a simple thanksgiving before supper, and they forget to

offer alms to the poor.  With gold they gild their crown, but they ignore their God. 

Encore for a prophet.  Enter Amos.

Like others called to the position of prophet, Amos did not seek the job.  He is

happily employed, minding his own business, tending sheep in the southern

kingdom of Judah.  He has no need to get up and go.  Yet God nabs him and sends

him north to Israel with no credentials but himself.  Being a prophet is lonely work.

But this guy is gutsy. 

He barnstorms the border and barks out his pronouncements of "woe."  Understand,

"woe" is word used by prophets to signal a grave message, literally.  Woe meant

grief.  It was the word used to begin funeral services.  "Woe."  "Grief be to you."

Amos says "woe."  It is his warning that death is pending.  Grief be to you if you do not change your ways.  Realize, there is a word of hope in here.  It is not too late.  We can still change our ways.  So, woe, either listen up, or woe, we will end in the grave.

Jesus used this word a lot, usually reserved for his friends the Pharisees, as Jeromy

read.  "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees!  Woe, you hypocrites!  You tithe to God

one tenth of your mint and dill and cummin, yet you neglect the really important

teachings of the Law, like justice, mercy and honesty.  Woe to you, blind guides! 

You strain a fly out of your drink, but swallow a camel!"

But there is more.  "Woe to you scribes and Pharisees!  Woe, you hypocrites!  For you are like white-washed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead men's bones and decaying corpse.  So you outwardly appear righteous, but within you are full of hypocrisy and sin."

And so forth and so on, for 39 verses in Matthew 23, if you  are looking for a few good quotes with which to level your friends.  Jesus "woes" the Pharisees, in the prophetic tradition of Amos.  Which is admittedly exaggerated and unfair to the Pharisees.  It is a sign of how much Jesus cares.  This is why he woes them.  He "woes" them to warn them.

The same is true of Amos, who continues to his congregation, "Woe to those of you who lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch yourselves upon your couches and eat lambs and calves" (a description of excessive luxury, including eating lying down in the custom of pagan kings, as we see in the movie depictions of caesars, as opposed to the proper Hebrew tradition of sitting in a chair at a table.  A costume we inherited from the Hebrews, except for teenagers).

Woe.  Forgive me, but at this point I can't resist pulling out the sluggard proverbs.  For this is Amos describing the slothful children of Israel.  From Proverbs chapters

6 & 26 if you want to look them up later:  "The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; it wears him out to bring it back to his mouth." (26:15) "As a door turns on its hinges, (creak...creak) so does a sluggard turn on his bed." (26:14)

So Israel, accustomed to a hard history of being buffeted back and forth between

ruling empires at its borders, happens into a soft time of history.  The Israelites have

no-one abusing them and ripping off their resources.  They are able to prosper for a

change.  They get to keep their toys.  And with this new found wealth they turn

slothful and sluggardly, in the style which precedes the fall of every successful

empire.  Hear Amos again, "You lie around and sing idle songs,        you drink wine

by the bowlfuls, and anoint yourselves with the finest oils" (which, incidentally,

were to be used only in the context of worship or the coronation of kings.  Not for

personal pleasure).       Furthermore (more Amos), "you are not even grieved over

the ruin of Joseph," meaning, they are not disturbed by the suffering of their

brothers and sisters, as Joseph's brothers were not disturbed by his suffering.  In

fact, they created it!

In the prophetic tradition Amos woes and warns the children of Israel.  They are

breaking their covenant with their God.  Even though they make their altars and

shrines shine with gold, they are not living godly lives. They are no better than the

Philistines of Gath, nor the Syrians of Calneh and Hamath, as we heard in this

morning's lesson.  No better.

The children of Israel were chosen to be "a light unto all the nations."  Now, warns

Amos, they will be the first to meet God in the darkness, and the first to be exiled

from the Promised Land.  As it turns out, Amos is the first to be exiled.  The

Israelites rail at the uninvited observations of this shepherd from the south. 

Offended by his southern drawl, "woe, y'all," they issue Amos a one-way ticket

back to Judah.

But his prophecy lingers, as Amos attacks the apathy, indifference and self-

indulgence of this disinterested people, whose torpor of mind, feeling and spirit

stand in opposition to the spirit of life, activity and concern which is to characterize

the children of God.

"It is the sin," writes Dorothy Sayers, a 20^th century prophet, "that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die."

Woe!  Sounds like a slug to me!  So what?       This was 750 B.C.  A long time ago in a distant land.  Right?  I remember, because I saved it, a Time Magazine cover story from a few years back which I think sadly still fits.  It was about the decline of the American character.  The article focused on the rise of special interest groups and the practice of personal injury law suits.  Sound familiar?  Two of our favorite targets for what ails our nation: lobbyists and tort lawyers.

Ah, but the article's real focus was how self-serving we have all become as a

nation.  And how narrow our vision has become of what America means.  This was

illustrated by an interview Peter Hart conducted with teenagers.  He asked them,

"What is it that makes America special?"   There was a silence.  Finally one of

them ventured a guess.  "Cable television?"  Hart then asked, "How can we

energize more young people to vote?"  That response came easier.  "Pay them," the

teenagers suggested.  Woe to the spuds who sprout upon soft sofas watching

mindless television doped dead by MTV.

Writes David Poling in a book titled, The Last Years of the Church, "A man sites in

front of a bad television program and does not know he is bored; he reads of war

casualties in the newspaper and does not recall the teachings of religion; he learns

the dangers of nuclear holocaust and does not feel fear; he joins the rat race of

commerce where a person's worth is measured in terms of market values and    is not

aware of anxiety.  Ulcers speak louder than the  mind... Theologians and

philosophers have been saying for a century that God is dead, but what we confront

now is the possibility that (the human being) is dead, transformed into at a thing, a

producer, a consumer, an idolater of other things."

51% of those interviewed in a nationwide poll describe their life as "dull or routine."   The same interview finds the average American as watching six hours of television a day.  Is there a relationship?

It reminds me of another sluggard proverb (6:9):  " ?How long will you lie there, O sluggard?  When will you arise from your sleep?'  Says the sluggard, ?A little sleep, a little slumber,     I'll just fold my hands and rest awhile.'"

We worship this morning in recognition and celebration of God's greatest gift - life!  We worship this morning in joyful and grateful expression of life.  As Christians we support the forces of alertness and awareness, of learning and creativity, of caring and concerns, and we commit ourselves and our resources to energizing and being energized by the spirit of God's grace and love in which we gather. 

This is simply a great and glorious place to be. And this is a fine time to be alive.  If we do not feel this, then something is wrong.  We are worshiping other things and it is killing us.

Writes John Gardner, an Amos for our times, on sluggards:  "The renewal of societies and organizations can go forward only if someone cares.  Apathy and lowered motivation are the most widely noted characteristics of a civilization on the

downward path. Apathetic people (read sluggards) accomplish nothing.  People who believe in nothing change nothing for the better."

Mass sluggardness is serious in a society.  It can be fatal.  Amos warned the ten tribes which comprised the nation of Israel to change their apathetic ways.  "Woe," he warned them. They did not listen.  Instead they get rid of Amos.  Bad move.  Israel's soft history turns brittle.  A few years later Assyria rises again, and wipes out the kingdom of Israel.  The ten tribes disappear from history, never to be heard from again. 

Amos' voice still echoes, however, "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." (5:24)

We who are Christians walk in the footsteps of Jesus who awakened new life in those he touched and created community for those he missed.  We are the community, the church, the body of Christ, here not to judge others, or make others in our image, but here to announce that God is alive, and that through Christ God is alive in us, redeeming, renewing, rejoicing.

We are called to set our lamp upon the hill to proclaim     light and life to those who

have been captured by the dark forces of apathy and indifference, and to invite them

into the community of the church, where we celebrate and exercise the manifold

gifts of the Holy Spirit, in support of the forces of life, that we might make this tired

old world of ours a new and wonderful place to live for all of God's children.

There is an old Irish story about a group of fellows who decide to play a practical

joke on one of their friends.  Which is a very Irish thing to do.  So they have one in

their group feign death in order to set up an Irish wake, with the plan to have their

unknowing friend keep vigil during the night next to the supposed dead man in the

coffin.  Then in the middle of the night the presumed corpse is to sit up and scream

the friend's name, intending no doubt on scaring the friend to death.  That's the

joke.

So they pull it off.  The corpse sits up and lets out a blood curdling call.  At which point the somber friend who is keeping the vigil calmly walks over to the cadaver, shoves him back down into the coffin, and says, "Shut up.  You're dead.  Now lie down and act like it."

We are the church. We are not dead.  We have been given life by a spirit which refused to be buried in a tomb.  You see, ours is a resurrection faith.  Therefore, we must get up and act like it.

The German poet Heinrich Heine was standing with a friend before a great

cathedral in France.  "Tell me, Heinrich, why can't people build edifices like this

anymore?"  "My dear friend," replied Heine, "in those days people had convictions.

We moderns have opinions.  And it takes more than opinions to build a Gothic

cathedral."

As a church we have opinions.  Many opinions.  Differing opinions.  This is fine. 

But what we really need are convictions.  In the words of former UCC President,

Dr. Paul Sherry, "If we dare to retain our God given community, if we are to be the faithful church, we dare not lose our convictions about the ultimate Gospel matters.  Our convictions that the truth be told, that hungry people be fed, that the afflicted

and bereaved find solace, that peace with justice be pursued, that the full humanity of all persons be honored, that the revitalizing hope for the beloved community be renewed and affirmed - these convictions are and will remain the way of our future."

Well, brothers and sisters, the way is still before us.  Let us move forward faithfully into the future.

AMEN.