The Hope of Glory
(based on Amos 8:1-12, Colossians
1:15-29)
Amos was a prophet from Judah, the southern kingdom of
Israel. However, unlike some of the
major prophets we might know well like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, Amos was
not a lifelong prophet, but rather a situational prophet being called out by
God for a short period of time to prophesy to the Israelites about their
treatment of the poor. And that’s what
the book of Amos is all about; how the Israelites were treating the poor. God was NOT at all pleased. And I imagine that displeasure leaked out
into the attitude and demeanor that Amos projected to the people – a
forecasting of gloom and doom for the Israelites.
It reminds me of a street preacher who used to stand in Market
Square downtown Pittsburgh every day. He
would literally stand on a soap box and proclaim that the world was going to
end in the next couple of days. I rarely
go downtown anymore, and this was many years ago, so I’m not sure if he is
still there on the weekdays or if someone else has taken his place.
It was interesting to watch people’s reactions to his shouting
style of preaching: some would literally cross the street or go around the
square to avoid him, some would lower their heads as they walked by, and there
were a few brave souls who would try to take him on and argue with him. But, I can tell you, he could out shout anyone…except
maybe Amos…if they were pitted against one another in a soap-box-prophesy-preacher
challenge.
In these passages from Amos that we read this morning, he is,
once again, admonishing the Israelites. Actually,
Amos might be considered the first voice of a social conscience in the world;
he preached social justice before we even knew what social justice was all
about. He is shaming the Israelites for
the way they were treating the poor. And
he’s doing it right in the middle of the marketplace, since most of the
merchants were of the noble class, Amos is particularly hard on them…and they
are not too happy to have this straggly-bearded, bombastic old man slandering
them. They would just as soon he fall in
a hole somewhere and disappear forever. I
imagine this is probably the same feeling many of the merchants had about the
street preacher who kept yelling at folks in Market Square.
How many of you have heard about the Prayer of Jabez? About 20 years ago, this two verse prayer
became the basis of a book, which became an instant hit and an international
bestseller the second Bruce Wilkerson took an obscure prayer out of the OT and
made an entire ministry out of it. His
book about the Prayer of Jabez sold over 9 million copies. The prayer goes something like this in 1
Chronicles 4:10: Jabez cried out to God, “Oh that You might bless me indeed and
enlarge my territory! Let Your hand be
with me, and keep me from the evil one.”
And God granted his request.
Well, nearly 3,000 years ago, in the time of Amos’ prophesying,
money and wealth were also considered rewards from God for living a righteous
life. This is not unlike the 'Prosperity
Gospel', which a number of modern-day preachers have extolled over the past 20
years (while getting very rich themselves doing so! I might add) "The more you have, the
more God loves you" is their common mantra. "If you are doing well,
it shows God’s approval. . . God wants you to have a big house and fancy car
and pleasure yacht!"
But Amos, on the other hand, seemed determined to tear down this
cultural norm. Amos wasn’t necessarily
against the wealth of the rich. He
didn’t want everyone to be poor. But he ranted
about the accumulation of wealth at the expense of the poor, the homeless, the
hungry, the ill, the elderly ….all of those who were without a voice, a
protector, a way to provide for themselves.
I can imagine the merchants and nobles sitting around grumbling
to one another because they could not open their shops, beating their breasts
about the money they were losing, and plotting how to make up for it. Even Amos 8:5 portends an economy that
understands how to gouge the buyer in order for the merchant to prosper even
more. It says, "Let’s make the
ephah small and the shekel great". (Amos 8:5) What does this mean? The Ephah was a unit of measure, like a
bushel. While the shekel was a unit of
payment, like a silver coin. So, the
expression means to decrease the measurement, while you increase the price.
Just like selling products more cheaply today…products that are
shoddy and easily fall apart, made by someone on a poverty wage in a foreign
country . . .a practice that is also taking away the jobs from our own neighbors
. . . causing them to need cheaper and cheaper products; . . .an endless cycle that
is not easily addressed if the truly rich have anything to say about it.
In addition, during the time of Amos they were "buying the
poor for silver", in other words; because the poor were so needy, they
were going to be "righteous" and hire them for just enough money to
keep them indebted, but not enough to get them out of debt. This brings to mind the old company houses
that used to exist in coal mine towns or on large plantations during
Reconstruction. Or even today.
Some of you might know that I take applications for the Lazarus
Fund. A fund given out through
Pittsburgh Presbytery, which has given out nearly $3 million dollars over the
past 20 years in $200 individual grants to those in need of utility shut-off
and rent eviction assistance. I’ve
teamed up with Elizabeth’s Guardian Angels to help those in our area with a
matching grant. One of the applicants
came to me because he and his wife received an eviction notice. Through the application process I learned
that they worked for a convenience store whose owner paid them minimum wage,
but when they started to get into financial difficulty told them that he’d
allow them to get groceries and staples at the store, put it on a tab that they
could pay back. Their needs were so
great with two children at home that they quickly racked up a large tab on
things like toilet paper and canned tuna, diapers and boxed lunches. The owner than started taking it out of their
weekly paycheck. When they came to me
for assistance, they showed me paystubs for the past month. One week of work, $2.10. Another week of work, $4.05, etc…
Amos’ message isn’t one from a culture and situation from the
past. It’s happening today. “And they bought the needy for the price of a
pair of sandals”… Amos tells us. I could
substitute today’s scenario, “And they bought the needy for a box of
diapers.” Think how distraught and
desperate a young couple would have to be in order to be bought for such little
money $2.10 for a week’s worth of work in today’s dollars in order to have diapers
for their children.
How arrogant and cruel to indenture another human being for such
a small thing as diapers. But that is
what our society is doing when we hook people on welfare, or other needed
assistance – giving them just enough
to subsist but not enough to make a better life.
Now,
if you think I’m only talking about those who “work the system” or “those who
don’t want to work”, I’m not. I know how
hard some of these folk try. I know,
while I sit with them in their tears and their pain of doing the best they can
and still it means nothing. Oh, believe
me, I know the difference, because I’ve also sat with those who come in with an
attitude and expect a hand-out before they leave the door.
Even our own soldiers risking their lives in the Middle East and
in other parts of the world are only getting an average of $1500 a month in
wages, forcing their wives and children to depend on their families for help
just to exist. Should Amos be railing at
us about this situation? I think he would be standing on the top of the Capitol
Dome in Washington yelling his lungs out!!
Amos warns that if the Israelites don’t change their ways, there
is going to be rumblings of the earth and upheavals like the flooding of the
Nile. Or maybe he meant that the
oppressed would rise up, there would be people protesting in the streets against
unjust conditions.
I don’t really care how high the Dow Jones Industrial Average
gets, if we aren’t doing enough to help the poor in our country. Do we sit here, fat, dumb and happy, because
our economy is growing due to the wealth generated by big business as it wages
war on the poor? Because our earthly
stock is going up?
God sent Amos to rail against such indexes 3,000 years ago to a
country who was dead-set on prosperity for the rich at the expense of the
poor. Where is God’s Amos today? God’s Amos is in the Christ of the Colossian
gospel. We are to be following the son
of God, the Christ of the Gospels, the one who Paul introduces to the people of
Colossae through their preacher, Epaphras.
Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God. The first-born of all creation; for in him
all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created
through him and for him. In him and only
in him do all things hold together. For
in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was
pleased to reconcile to himself all things, by making peace through his blood
on the cross.
Have we seriously not learned anything in all this time? Perhaps, it was excusable in Amos’ day. They did not have Christ. But it is no longer excusable. We do have Christ. We have his message, his life, his
teachings. Do not let the bauble of
riches be your guide, but rather the words and work of Christ – the Christ in
you, which as Paul writes it, is The Hope of Glory.
Do we just shrug and say “it is out of our hands, there’s
nothing we can do?” A renowned 19th
century clergyman by the name of Reverend Everett Hale, said it so well:
I am only one, But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
The Christ in you is the Hope of Glory. If that is true, what will you do?
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