John Mark Hicks

The dialogue between Amos and Amaziah (7:10-17), which interprets the third vision (7:7-9), is followed by a fourth vision (8:1-3) with a further interpretative comment (8:4-14). Ripe for judgment, Yahweh reminds Israel exactly why they will face eventual calamity. God judges them for their economic practices and the greatest calamity they will experience is divine silence.

In the third vision Amos sees a basket of ripened summer fruit ready to eat (or sell). The fruit must be sold or eaten soon. The time for waiting has passed.

The “end” (the extremity, the end of the road) has arrived. Their sins have brought them to this point and God “will never again pass by them.” There is no more recourse; there will be no more delay. The decision has been made. Their festive temple songs will now become howls of distress and hurt as the dead bodies pile around them and are strewn over the land.

What is the appropriate human response in the midst of such horror? When the  “end” arrives, the prophet calls for “stillness” or “silence.” “Hush,” says the prophet. Perhaps the silence is a reverence for God, maybe even an avoidance. Perhaps it is shock as people look at the devastation around them. Whatever the case, horror begets silence as there is literally nothing to say in the face of such tragic circumstances. It is over; there is nothing more to say.

But Amos does not want to leave Israel without a rationale or some idea of what to expect. The third vision is interpreted by a chiastic oracle (“Hear this,” 8:4).

Rationale for Judgment (8:4-6): Economic Injustice

Description of Judgment (8:7-8): Land Trembles.

From Feasting to Mourning (8:9-10):  Lament

Description of Judgment (8:11-12): Divine Silence

Rationale for Judgment (8:13-14): Idolatry

Two rationales for judgment, seemingly always present in Amos, resurface in this interpretation.  One is economic injustice and the other is idolatry.

Amos complains that Israel’s economic practices oppressed the poor. The prophet identifies the specific practice of lightening the ephah (which measures grain) and weighting the shekel (which measures silver). When merchants use unfair weights and measures, they buy and sell to their own interests. Archeological remains in Tirzah demonstrate that sometimes merchants used two different weights–one for selling and one for buying (cf. Mays, Amos, 144). Prohibitions in the Torah, as well as in Ancient Near Eastern codes, demonstrate that this was a common practice (cf. Leviticus 19:35-36; Deuteronomy 25:13-16).

With such economic advantages, merchants did not like to close their shops on New Moons or Sabbaths. They were more interested in economic gain than they were worship or devotion. Indeed, they targeted the poor and needy as the object of their greed. As Shank (pp. 282-3) points out in his College Press commentary, the merchants short-changed the poor, charged excessive prices, cheated with false measures and weights, forced the poor into slavery who could not pay their debts, and sold inferior quality goods (even the “sweepings” along with the grain). This is called the “pride of Jacob” (Amos 8:7).

“I will never forget their deeds.” I wonder if this should not give the American economic system, or any economic system, pause for introspection.  If God will never forget how the poor and needy were oppressed, cheated, and sold inferior goods for the sake of profit or gain, Americana–including global economics–should “hear this word” of the Lord. If economic practices bring judgment–and this is what Amos specifies rather than sexual immorality–American Evangelicals should heed the warning as they protest the demise of “Christian America” while the poor are caught in the middle of the American economic machine.

Amos, however, does identify a further sin other than economic injustice. The bottom of the chiasm references idolatry. As the people thirst for water due to the judgment of God (ironic in that the judgment is pictured as a flood), the people who swear by the gods (“Guilt”) of Samaria from Dan to Beersheba will know the terror of the Lord. Idolaters will fall, “and never rise again.” Dan in the north and Beersheba in the south (Amos 5:5) were idolatrous worship centers much like Bethel (located in the middle of Palestine). Divine judgment will cleanse Israel of its idolatry. Those who swear by these false gods may look to them, but they will receive no help…either from them or from Yahweh who is now silent.

Amos uses two metaphors to describe the judgment. First, the land will tremble as it is flooded with judgment. Just as the Nile rises and falls every year in Egypt, so the flood of judgment will pour over the land of Israel. The result will be mourning and lamentation.

The second metaphor Amos uses is a famine, but this is not a lack of bread  or water. Rather, it is the silence of God. Israel will get its wish. Just as Amaziah told Amos to leave as they had no interest in his message, so Yahweh will no longer send prophets among the people to warn them of the coming judgment. The flood of judgment will be accompanied by the silence of God. They will want to hear from God and they will seek a word, but God has already spoken and will speak no more to Israel in the context of this judgment.

The middle of the chiasm is striking. Judgment day is a day of mourning. The day is catastrophic–darkness will envelop the land at noon and their festive celebrations will turn into mourning. Everyone will wear the sackcloth of lamentation and shave their heads as they weep. The mourning will be so great it will be as if everyone in the nation is mourning the death of an only son. Lament and bitterness will fill the day; nothing will alleviate the pain and hurt. Israel, which should have mourned for its sins, will now mourn its dead.

The northern kingdom’s sins–unjust economic practices and idolatry–spelled its doom as a national entity. Those categories are important to God–it is about the poor and justice as well as about loyalty and allegiance. “I will never forget any of their deeds” should ring in our ears as a warning to all nations that economic justice and allegiance to the kingdom of God are primary concerns for God.

The Christian Faith, instead of absorbing the cultural values of its context, should embrace the message of Amos and speak prophetically to a culture for whom economics and allegiance are more about self and the nation than about the poor and God.

We need more lament songs.

I was reminded of of this while studying Amos 8:9.  The prophet offers the most chilling metaphor for lament imaginable for an ancient Israelite:  “I will make it like the mourning of an only son.”

Children killed in their schools, on the streets of a sporting event, by abuse at home, by terminal diseases, and by tragic accidents. And there is much more than that to lament.

There is so much to lament, and we need more lament songs. Our assemblies, devotions, and private prayers should voice lament just as ancient Israel did (almost half of the Psalms are lament).

I am grateful that my good friends Konstantin Zhigulin, a Russian believer in St. Petersberg (Russia), and Jeff Matteson (a citizen of the United States) have produced a “Lament For the Innocents.” Konstantin leads and Jeff sings in a group called Psalom (Facebook page).  Click on the link and listen to the beautiful tones and words (taken from Biblical texts of lament and hope).

We need lament to voice our anger, bewilderment, misgivings, doubt…and, yes, even praise and hope.  Lament is spiritual therapy by which we process our grief and hurt as we sit on God’s lap…even as we protest, yell, and accuse.  God listens and responds.

At the same time, there is so much for which to be grateful. We are blessed more than we could ever realize or grasp.

So, we give thanks and we lament. That is the life of faith.

(The fourth chapter of my book on the Shack. I publish it here in light of the lament over terror, school shootings and the presence of tragic evil in the world.)

Dear God.

I hate you.

Love,

Madeleine (L’Engle)

I meditated on this brief prayer for months after I read it. Initially, I was horrified by how much I identified with the prayer and I was troubled by the prayer’s resonance in my soul. My first reaction, however, was “I get the point.”

So did Mack. He had become “sick of God” over the years since Missy’s death (p. 66). But he went to the shack at God’s invitation, doubting whether it really was God. As he entered the shack for the first time in over three years his emotions exploded (p. 78).

Mack bellowed the questions most sufferers ask and most often they begin with the word “Why?” “Why did you let this happen? Why did you bring me here? Of all the places to meet you—why here?” In a “blind rage” he threw a chair at the window and began smashing everything in sight with one of its legs. He vented his anger. His body released the emotions he had stored up in it.

Anger, if not resolved or healed, simmers inside of us. It becomes part of our body and we feel it in our chest, stomachs, shoulders, or neck. It destroys us from within. One day it will explode. For over three years Mack had suppressed this anger but now alone in the shack it poured out with a vengeance. “Groans and moans of despair and fury spat through his lips as he beat his wrath into this terrible place.”

Fatigue ended his rampage, but not his anger or despair. The pain remained; it was familiar to him, “almost like a friend.” This darkness was Mack’s “closest friend” just as it was for Heman in Psalm 88:18. “The Great Sadness” burdened him and there was no escape (p. 79). There was no one to whom he could turn, so he thought. Even God did not show up at the shack.

It would be better to be dead, to just get it over with, right? When great sadness descends on us, sometimes—like Mack—we think it is better to simply die and be rid of the pain. We think we would be better off dead if for no other reason than that the hurting would stop. Or, like Job, we might wish we had never been born (Job 3). Contemplating suicide, Mack cried himself to sleep on the floor of the shack.

Rising after what “was probably only minutes,” Mack, still seething with anger and berating his own seeming idiocy, walked out of the shack. “I’m done, God.” He was worn out and “tired of trying to find [God] in all of this” (p. 80).

This scene is Mack’s true self. It is Mack in the shack. It is the pent-up, growing and cancerous feelings of anger, bitterness and resentment toward God. God, after all, did not protect Missy. God was no “Papa” to Missy in her deepest distress and need. The journey to discover God is not worth it. It is too hard, too gut-wrenching, and useless!

In his rage Mack expressed the words that seethed underneath the anger, resentment, disappointment and pain. “I hate you!” he shouted.

“I hate you.” Them’s fighting words, it seems to me. It expresses our fight (or, as in the case of Jacob, wrestling) with God. Sometimes we flee our shacks but at other times we may go to our shacks to find God only to discover we have a fight on our hands because God did not show up. This is Mack’s initial experience.

The word “hate” stands for all the frustration, agitation, disgust, exasperation, and bewilderment we experience in the seeming absence of God as we live in a suffering, painful and hurting world. “Hate” is a fightin’ word—a representation of the inexplicable pain in our lives; a word that is used as a weapon to inflict pain on the one whom we judge to be the source of the pain. Sometimes, perhaps, we are too polite with God. Sometimes we are not “real” with the Creator. Sometimes, like Jacob in Genesis 32, we need to wrestle with God.

I hear God’s suffering servant Job in this word though he never uses the specific term in his prayers. God has denied Job fairness and justice, and Job is bitter (Job 23:1; 27:2). God is silent. God “throws” Job “into the mud” and treats him as an enemy (Job 30:19-20). God has attacked him and death is his only prospect (Job 30:21, 23). Job is thoroughly frustrated, bitter in his soul, and hopeless about his future (Job 7:11, 21). He does not believe he will ever see happiness again (Job 7:7). God was a friend who turned on him—“hate” might be an accurate description of Job’s feelings as he sits on the dung heap.

And yet, just as Madeleine’s brief prayer, Job ends with “Love, Job.” He speaks to God; Job is not silent. He does not turn from his commitment to God; he does not curse God or deny him. He seeks God even if only to speak to him though he may slay him. He laments, complains, wails, and angrily (even sarcastically) addresses the Creator, but he will not turn his back on God (Job 23:10-12; 21:16).

The contrast between “I hate you” and “Love, Madeleine” is powerful. It bears witness to the tension within lament and our experience of the world’s brokenness. Though deeply frustrated with the reality that surrounds us (whether it is divorce, the death of a son, the death of a wife, the plight of the poor, AIDS in Africa, etc.) and with the sovereign God who does whatever he pleases (Psalm 115:3; 135:6), we continue to sign our prayers (laments) with love. We have no one else to whom we can turn and there is no else worthy of our love or laments.

We can all get to the point that we are “done” with God, that is, where we are “done” trying to “find God” in our shacks. The search for meaning, relationship, and love is often frustratingly slow and fruitless. “I hate you” may be the most simple and shocking way to express our feelings about the whole mess.

Sometimes we blurt out language that expresses our feelings but does not line up with our faith. This can happen when our faith is shaken, confused, threatened, or slipping away. It is a common experience among believers when they go to their shacks.

We go to our shacks because we yearn for love, for relationship, for healing, or perhaps because we are desperate and there is nowhere else to go. We sign our prayers with love–“Love, Madeleine” or “Love, John Mark”—as an expression of hope. We want to love, to know love, and experience love. It is out of this yearning we pray; it is out of this love we lament.

It is with love we say “I hate you.”

The poignant irony of that last sentence is, it seems to me, the essence of honest lament in a broken world.

This Psalm uses the language of love poetry; it has an “erotic intensity” (Robert Atler, The Book of Psalms, 297). “How lovely are your dwelling places,” the Psalmist exclaims.

The term “lovely” is related to the Hebrew terms for “lover” and “lovemaking.” It describes the “love song” between the King and his wife in Psalm 45. Yahweh sings to  “beloved” Israel is Isaiah 5. It is the language of the Song of  Solomon as the wife seeks the “love” of her “beloved” (1:2, 4, 13-14, 16). The Psalm expresses the erotic relationship between God and Israel that “happens” in the courts of praise. It is a moment when we love on God and God loves on us.

This is the voice of a people who love–intensely enjoy–to assemble and sing in Yahweh’s tempple courts. The superscription locates the Psalm among the temple musicians and singers. Associated with the “sons of Korah” who are best known as temple singers, the choirmaster (or chief musician) is directed to perform the music with the lyre. This seems particularly appropriate for a love song.

As a love song, it expresses the intense desire to be present with the beloved. Indeed, the Psalmist is jealous of the sparrow whose nest is near the altar of God (probably nesting in the crevices of the temple stones). They make their home at the center of God’s presence where they find rest and peace. They are close, and the Psalmist is envious. Worshippers want to live near the beloved and find their home in the divine presence.

The intensity is also expressed in somatic language. The singers so long for the courts of God that their energy is totally spent (they faint). This is no silent anguish but rather their hearts and “flesh” cry out. The Hebrew verb indicates a loud and ringing cry. The desire is so intense that the heart and body moan in anticipation and yearning.

The Psalm, then, opens with a lover’s yearning for her beloved. This is what Assembly means for worshippers. It is an experience of love; it is a relational encounter.

Psalm 84, as love poetry, is also a pilgrimage piece. The singers begin their journey to the temple where the covenant people of God assemble to worship through the sacrifice of praise. Their journey is energized by their love and by the anticipation of “seeing” their beloved. In this way, as Mays writes (Psalms, Interpretation, 275), “every visit to the temple or church [assembly, JMH] or meeting of believers is in a profound sense a pilgrimage.” It is a journey into the love and life of God.

This is the context for the three beatitudes that punctuate the Psalm. Three times the Psalm pronounces the pilgrim singers as “happy” or “blessed” (84:4, 5, 12).

The first beatitutde summarizes the opening of the Psalm and provides a context for the second beatitude. The third beatitude rounds out, like a bookend, the point of the second beatitude.  The point of “happy” or “blessed,” of course, is not some kind of self-security but rather a movement of God toward the person. These are people upon God acts so that they experience joy and peace.

“Blessed are those who dwell in your house.”  Like the sparrow, those who make their home in the temple as participants in the Great Assembly are blessed.  They are “blessed” as they continually praise God. Living in the presence of God at the temple, they never cease to experience the loving relationship with Yahweh.

The next two beatitutdes (84:5, 12) complement each other. They are contextualized by the first one. In other words, the beatitutdes and the extended comment that separates them (84:6-11) are true in the context of the Assembly. They are a function of the worshipping assembly itself.

Worshippers find their strength or power in God as their hearts are determined to make the journey into the assembly of God. They have pilgrim hearts that are set on entering the gates of the temple to praise God. They have decided to worship God. And this worship, as the third beatitude notes, arises out of their trust in the covenant God of Israel.

So, what characterizes this pilgrimage, the journey from outside assemby into the assembly? At least three perspectives are present which may shape how we approach assembly ourselves.

First, the pilgrimage is sometimes a movement from sorrow to joy (84:6-7). Pilgrims often move through the “Valley of Becca” or the valley of sorrows or weeping.  The desolate valley becomes a refreshing pool of water. This happens by the strength of the Lord. God empowers worshippers to move through lament into the praise of God’s renewing life. Worship transforms mourning into dancing. Strengthened by God, worshippers learn to move through the tears into the bright sunshine of God’s presence.

Second, pilgrims petition God to protect them and lead them into the joy of assembling in the temple courts (84:8-10). The petition expresses the desire to assemble and is grounded in the preference that pilgrims have for assembly over everything else. This functions at two levels–there is no better place than praising God in the assembly of the saints and being with the assembled saints expresses their fundamental commitment to follow the covenant. They choose assembly over any other place and they choose the tent of Yahweh over tents of the wicked.

Third, pilgrims trust God’s faithful goodness. Pilgrims’ lives are characterized by “blamelessness” or better rendered something like “wholeness” or “integrity.” Pilgrims approach God faithfully; they approach Yahweh with covenantal integrity. This approach is rooted in God’s own faithfulness and the divine predisposition to bless the covenant people. Worshippers enter the divine presence with confidence in the goodness and faithfulness of their covenant God.

Believers love to assemble because they not only love each other but they love the God who draws near in those moments of assembly. The passion expressed here models the intensity that worshippers might share as they approach God with integrity. They know that God is faithful and as they approach God will show up to love on them.

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth–
for your love is more delightful than wine.”
Song of Songs 1:2

The ancient compilation Apostolic Constitutions (2.59) advises believers to gather for daily worship and to open their service with Psalm 63. Reflecting the same time period (ca. 400 CE), Chrysostom reports that believers sang this Psalm at the begining of their morning assemblies (Commentary on Psalms, cv. 63). It is still part of the communal daily morning prayers of the Greek Orthodox Church. The church, through this Psalm, has expressed the fervant yearning to assemble with the saints in the presence of God.

The use of the Psalm at morning gatherings is rooted in the Hebrew verb “seek.” The term projects an image of one who rises at dawn to seek God. The early Greek translation (LXX) rendered it, “I rise early for you.” In other words, God–or gathering with the saints to seek God–is the first thought on the mind when the Psalmist rises every morning. Our first thoughts, if we follow the model here, are about God. We rise to meet God. We yearn to meet with other believers to share in the prayers and praises.

The Psalm, however,  is set in the wilderness; it is prayed by one whose life is threatened by the wilderness or the circumstances that created the wilderness.  The wilderness is not only a concrete reality for the Psalmist but also a metaphor for the spiritual anxiety permeating the author’s soul. The felt need is deeply rooted in the psyche of the Psalmist. We hear the voice of lament in these opening lines.

Separated from community and from the presence of God at the sanctuary, the Psalmist thirsts for God’s presence like a parched wanderer in the desert. This yearning is so deeply felt that it is like an unquenched thirst. The deep need to experience God reverberates through the body; the spiritual desire has a somatic effect. The body trembles, even faints, due to the lack of spiritual nourishment.

This thirst, however, is not created merely by the seeming absence of God but by the concrete absence of community in the presence of God. It is the absence of assembly before God with other believers that spiritually troubles the Psalmist. Without assembly the Psalmist is restless, distressed, and dissatisfied.

So, what the Psalmist longs for is not an individual experience but a corporate one. The Psalmist longs for the sanctuary of God, the place where God dwells. Divine encounter is like a drink for a thirsty person; it is a satisfying meal of rich (fatty) food! Assembling for worship in the presence of God is spiritual nourishment.

The Psalmist remembers a time, and longs for future moments, when the glory of God was experienced. To “see” God–to behold divine power and glory–is an experiential metaphor. God is revealed in the congregational experience of worship. We hear, see, and taste God there.

Through such worship, the Psalmist learned to confess:  “your hesed (love) is better than life.” Believers confess this in the midst of worship and it is worship which forms and shapes that confession.  The early church heard this on the lips of its martyrs, but this is not simply about physical life or delieverance from death. Rather, it is fundamentally about a divine relationality who faithfully (loyally) loves. It is covenantal language. This love (covenant loyalty) or divine faithfulness is true life. Authentic life leans into that divine faithfulness and comittment. We confess through worship that God is the center of authentic life.

The experience of hesed in the temple (sanctuary) is a practical and spiritual obsession for the Psalmist. Nights are filled with meditations as well as the recognition that this hesed has perserved the Psalmist’s life in the wilderness. Consequently, praise falls from the lips as well as up-lifted palms. Both lips and hand express our worship.

Worship reminds us that God is with us. We rejoice under the shadow of God’s wings even as we sleep with our fears throughout the night. While the Psalmist is pursued by enemies, we are often pursued by our fears. Fear subverts faith; unbelief gives birth to fear. We often fail to trust.

The Psalmist expects those fears to dissipate as enemies disappear. Nan Merrill (Psalms for Praying, 116) offers this dynamic equivalent for contemporary readers of this Psalm. What the enemy was to the Psalmist is what our fears are to us. But worship–divine encounter–transforms fears. “The fears that seem to separate me from You shall be transformed and disappear; As they are faced, each fear is diminished; they shall be gone as in a dream when I awaken.”

We pursue God in the wilderness and we yearn for the satisfying feast–both drink and food–in which our restless souls find peace in union with God. To encounter God in the sanctuary as part of a community with other believers is to experience joy and satisfying peace.

This experience is not dependent upon how well the songs are sung or even which songs are sung. It is not dependent upon whether the service is “boring” or “exciting.” It is not even dependent upon the excellence of the leaders though we value the giftedness of the community. Rather, it is dependent upon the gracious presence of God who comes to us through the praises of the saints. Worship is authentic because God is present and not because we have performed so well.

Only God’s presence satisfies thirst and dispels fears. This is for what humanity longs–peace, rest, satisfaction. Psalm 63 leads to the fountain that quenches thirst.

In the first two visions (locusts and fire, 7:1-6) Amos interceded and Yahweh relented: “This will not happen.” Then Yahweh shows Amos a third vision (Amos 7:7-9). This time Amos does not intercede (as far as the text reveals) and Yahweh is resolute in judgment. Yahweh will destroy the idolatrous sanctuaries of Israel and put the sword to the house (dynasty) of Jeroboam II.

Amos sees Yahweh measuring a wall with a plumb line. This is a tool that measures how straight a wall has been built. It is a line to which a weight is attached. As the weight is lowered to the ground from the top of the wall, one can measure how well-built the wall is. Does it lean? Will it stand?  Is it perpendicular?

In the vision Yahweh is measuring Israel’s justice and righteousnes, their devotion and covenant loyalty, by a standard. Israel is not what it was designed to be. We may assume that the Torah is the standard and righteousness is the desired outcome. Instead of justice, Yaweh finds injustice among the people. The wall is not standing straight and strong. Instead, it is faltering and leaning. The wall was not properly built and Israel was nothing like it was supposed to be.

The effect is that the wall must be torn down as it is unsuitable; Israel does not represent God to the nations but has become like the nations. Consequently, God will no longer bear with their injustices. God has decided to act. In particular, God will destory the north’s religious sanctuaries (high places) and raise the sword of Yahweh against the royal dynasty of Jeroboam II. Nevertheless, even within the divine judgment is the divine acknowledge that Israel yet remains “my people.” The covenant language remains and the covenant is excecuted according to the cursings promised in the covenant (Deuteronomy).

The message is so final and disturbing that Amos’s visionary reports are interrupted (even interpreted) by a dialogue between the priest (Amaziah) of one of these religious sanctuaries (Bethel) and Amos the prophet (7:10-17). It is not so much, actually, an interruption as a comment on the seriousness and determination of Yahweh to carry out the word of Amos. The prophet emphasizes the gravity of the prophetic warning by reporting the dialogue between an idolatrous priest and the Yahwehist prophet. The final word of the prophet reiterates the announced word of Yahweh from the vision (compare 7:9 with 7:17).

The dialogue also alerts us to the opposition Amos faced as a Yahwehist prophet in the northern kingdom. Amaziah reports the message of Amos to king Jeroboam II (Amos 7:10-11) and then forbids Amos–presumably on the authority of the king–to prophesy again (Amos 7:12-13). Amos responds with a prophecy (Amos 7:14-17).

Prophet, priest, and king–all of whom should represent Yahweh before the nations–are found in conflict with each other. The priest attempts to preserve his unique role at Bethel. The king supports, presumably, the priest as it is the “king’s sanctuary” against which Amos prophesies. The prophet reaffirms his message against the sancutary despite its royal and priestly support. Prophet, priest, and king are engaged in a religious contest for the hearts of God’s people.

Amaziah, the priest, appeals to the highest court, that is, to king Jeroboam II. Reporting Amos’s message in terms of the death of Jeroboam II and Israel’s exile in a distant land (removed from their own land of promise), he describes Amos as a political conspirator. Amos intends, according to Amazriah, to overthrow the royal authority and implement a different religious program that would unseat both priest and king.

Amos attacks the religious and political heart of Israel–Bethel. This was the worship center that was situated on the southern border of Israel next to Judah (the southern kingdom). It was a political act as well as a religioius one since the sancturay was an alternative worship site to Jerusalem (which was also a religioius and political center). Bethel’s political function was to unite the northern kingdom religiously and prevent a return to Yahweh at the temple in Jerusalem. Amaziah describes Bethel as the “temple of the kingdom.” To prophesy against Bethel was to prophesy against the religio-political state of Israel. Amaziah saw the threat, reported him, and presumably on the authority of Jeroboam commanded him to cease and desist.

Amos is ordered out of the country and back to Judah. He should pursue his prophetic career (and earn his money [bread]) there; A maziah presumes that Amos is a career prophet seeking monetary gain. He is forbideen to prophesy in Bethel ever again. Amos is neither one of the king’s priests nor the king’s prophets. He is not welcome in Israel.

Amos never wanted to be a prophet. In Judah he was neither a prophet nor training to be a prophet (the probable meaning of “prophet’s son”). He did not go to prophet seminary. Instead, he was a shepherd and a migrant worker. He was not part a royal prophetic tradition in Judah nor was he an urban royal counselor (as other prophets were like Isaiah later). Instead, he was a simple believer who was called to speak a word of prophecy to Israel. We might imagine that he may have even been reluctant to prophesy as others were (e.g., Moses, Jeremiah, Jonah).

In so many words Amos said, “Yahweh told me to prophesy to Israel and that is what I am here to do.”  Like Luther later, he can do nothing else–he must speak the word of the Lord. “Therefore,” Amos says, “I will tell you what Yahweh has said.” Amos must speak; he cannot remain silent.

Amos has a word for Amaziah specifically. His children will “fall by the sword,” he will go into exile with Israel and die in a distant land, and his spouse will (we may presume) join him in exile where she will serve as a prostitute. His familly–his joy and future–will be decimated. His descendants will have no future as even his land is divided and given to others. In essence, Amaziah, as a priest in Israel, represents Israel as a whole. What will happen to him will happen to Israel. His future is Israel’s future as Israel will go into exile. The land grant–one of the great blessings promised to Abraham’s descendents–is rescinded. The hope of Israel evaportes as it has no future without land.

Amos does not back down from his message. He will not stop preaching the message Yahweh gave him.  Royal and priestly opposition do not deter him even though he is but a shepherd from the backwater town of Tekoa.

Amos was a lone voice, it seems, at the Bethel sanctuary. He faced tremendous religious and political pressures. The dominant culture opposed him and yet he steadfastly proclaimed the word of the Lord. Perhaps such is our task as well.

May we ever be so faithful!

Brother “J. R. W.” of Kentucky tossed Tolbert Fanning a softball in the June 1858 issue of  the Gospel Advocate (pp. 170-171).  It was a subject he had constantly addressed as an editor and evangelist. It was one of the great themes of his life beginning with his time as an evangelist supported by the Nashville (TN) church from 1832 to 1836.

Question:  Are the disciples authorized to perform the service without an Evangelist?

The question contains several. What is the “service” to perform on the Lord’s Day? What is the function of an evangelist? Does the evangelist have a clerical function such that without an ordained evangelist the congregation could not “perform the service”?

Concerning the function of an evangelist, Fanning writes:

it is the duty of the Evangelist to preach the Gospel to the world, plant the taught with Christ in Baptism, congregate the converts, teach them all things in which they are to walk, to see that they keep the ordinances, ordain the Elders in the congregation, and set in order everything wanting for the perfection of the body.

In other words, the evangelist evangelizes the lost, plants the congregation, equipts members, and appoints leaders. Then an evangelist moves on to a new field and repeats the process. The evangelist should not linger and serve as a priestly mediator for the congregation. “It is not the work of the Evangelist to perform the service of the congregation.” Rather, the evangelist equips the congregation so that they might “perform the service” themselves.

When the disciples give the worship into the hand of a hired preacher, as one who works merely for the profit or place, to lord it over God’s heritage, they abandon, in fact, the religion of the Bible. The healthful soul invigorating life giving and life sustaining ordinances, have been given into the hands not entitled to them. The hired, or voluntary services of the church in the hands of preachers, enrich not them spiritually, and make the disciples poor indeed.

To hand the service over to “a hired preacher” is a form of “Popish” clericalism, according to Fanning. It destroys the faith of the congregation as they become passive receivers rather than active participants. The legitimate field for evangelists (preachers) is within the “world” rather than in the established congregation. Let the congregation do its own work, including the work of sending out evangelists to plant new congregations.

What the evangelist should do, however, is plant the congregation, equip the members, and appoint elders to lead the church. Fanning is quite insistent that evangelists appoint bishops or elders. On what authority, another querist asks? “In the Apostolic times Evangelists were consecrated by the hands of the seniors” (Acts 13:3; 1 Timothy 5:14; 2 Timothy 1:16), “and Elders were set apart to the Bishop’s office by Evangelist” (1 Timothy 3; 5:22). Remember, however, that the evangelist does not settle into the congregation but is sent to other places. Consequently, it is the elders who lead the church rather than the evangelist.

But what is the “service” that members are to perform on the Lord’s Day? Fanning lists seven particulars:

1. The assemblage and Christian greetings on the Lord’s day.
2. Prayers of the Saints.
3. The teaching, reading of the Divine oracles.
4. The exhortations and confessions of the disciples.
5. The Lord’s supper.
6. The songs of praise.
7. Communicating, or putting money into the treasury, a sacrifice with which God is well pleased.

“We cannot see how it is possible,” Fanning adds, “for disciples to neglect any of these parts, and still maintain a position in the church of Christ.”

No Evangelist necessary; no clerics needed. It Is the priesthood of (male?) believers; there are no clerics, only the gathering of disciples. It is simply the gathering of Christians to greet, pray, teach, read, exhort, eat & drink, sing, and give. This is the fellowship of the saints on the Lord’s day. No preacher required; just committed, active disciples who gather to listen to each other and the word, sing their praises, share their resources, pray, and sit at the table together. Ad all that to the glory of God and the building up of the body.

This text begins the fourth major section of Amos which contains five visions (Amos 7:1-9:10). While the structure of this part of Amos is variously understood, the five visions form the heart of its message:

1. Locust (7:1-3)
2. Fire (7:4-6)
3. Plumb Line (7:7-9).
4. Summer Fruit (8:1-3).
5. Pillars (9:1).

Amos “sees” the future, intercedes for Israel, and Yahweh responds. The vision of the future Yahweh gives Amos is negative, filled with loss, and destruction. Amos pleads for Israel in the hope that Yahweh may yet relent.

As a result this section of Amos is dialogical and autobiographical. Amos exercises the covenant privilege of intercession. Yahweh honors that faithful address. Yahweh listens, considers, and responds. A major point of this last section, then, hears Amos’s fervent pleas for Israel as Amos laments the future and seeks to intercede for Israel. This last part of Amos, therefore, evidences the relational nature of Yahweh’s covenant with Israel as one of Yahweh’s prophets represents Israel rather than prosecuting them. While previously Amos was Yahweh’s prosecutor as Amos indicted them for their sins and announced their judgment, now Amos pleads with Yahweh for mercy on Israel’s behalf. The prophet mediates the relationship between Yahweh and Israel.

In these first two visions Yahweh responds positively to Amos’s intercession. Yahweh relents and decides to forego the implementation of the visions he showed Amos. Yahweh opens the future to Amos and reveals what the Lord of the covenant is about to do. In both cases Amos pleads for forgiveness and Yahweh relents. Yahweh changes the future.

In the first vision Amos sees a swarm of locust devour the spring crop just as the king has been given the first fruits. Locust (grasshoppers) eat the crops that were intended for humans and they appear at the most hopeful moment–the king has his share (to support the state and military) and the people are about to receive their portion. At this point Amos sees the arrival of an army of locust to devastate the land. A famine will ensue as their is no crop and no grass for the livestock.

In the second vision Amos sees a fiery judgment that consumes the land. “Fire” was a common judgment metaphor in Amos 1-2 and here it probably refers to a heat wave that will dry up the water in the land. In other words, this is not a Sodom and Gomorrah event, but rather than drought that will thoroughly dry up life in the land.

In response to both visions Amos pleads, “Yahweh God, please forgive (or cease)” because Jacob is too “small.” Jacob will not survive such an onslaught.    “Small” is an interesting word has it has a semantic range of young or insignificant as well as referring to size. Probably size is the main reference such that an extensive famine or drought would totally annihilate the population of Israel.  Does not the God of Israel want Israel to survive? Implicitly, there may be an allusion to the covenant promises of God.

The intercession makes a case, as did Moses in Exodus 32. Israel will not survive because it is too small. God, don’t you want Israel to survive? Do you intend to totally annihilate your people, the remnant of the house of Israel? The intercession pleads for another way, and God chooses another option which yet might leave a remnant in the land. He chooses to send Assyria rather than a famine or drought (as Amos 1-6 testifies).

In response to both intercessions Yahweh “relented,” declaring that what Amos saw will not happen. The future will be different from what Yahweh showed Amos. The future is open in some sense as Yahweh shows Amos two possible ways in which the Lord might judge Israel. Amos’s intercession moves God to go a different route.

“Relented” (7:3, 6) is an important word in the Hebrew Scriptures. It describes Yahweh’s grief over the sinfulness of the antediluvian world (Genesis 6:6-7; cf. 1 Samuel 15:35), part of Moses’s intercession that God would adjust the end that was decided for Israel (Exodus 32:14; cf. Jeremiah 26:3, 19; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2), that Yahweh would have compassion on Israel (Deuteronomy 32:36; cf. Judges 21:15; Psalm 135:14), that Yahweh decided against an earlier intent to destroy Jerusalem (2  Samuel 24:16; 1 Chronicles 21:15), that Yahweh would show pity by adjusting the present predicament (Psalm 90:13), and that Yahweh does not change the determination made (1 Samuel 15:11; Psalm 110:4; Ezekiel 24:14).

The Hebrew term basically means “change.” The context must determine the nature of the change or the kind of change. For example, God changed from delighting in the good creation to grieving the sinful Noahic world (Genesis 6:6-7). God changed from a determination to destroy Israel and renew it through Moses in response to the prayer of Moses (Exodus 32:14). God changed from anger to compassion (Deuteronomy 32:36). And sometimes Yahweh remains committed to a previous intent and the Lord will not change or choose a different course (1 Samuel 15:11).

The intercessions of Amos presume that, as far as Amos is concerned and as far as we can see from our limited and finite perspective, Yahweh listens and that Yahweh might relent (change). The vision was not determinative, but a possibility.  Yahweh showed Amos the future, but then Yahweh changed the future. Yahweh was going to do one thing but now, in response to prayer, Yahweh does something different.

Whatever our theories about the divine nature, we pray like Amos prays. We intercede in the hope that God might act in certain ways. We pray in the hope that God might listen and respond to our prayers. We pray with the real possibility that God might say, “Yes.” We make our case in prayer and leave it in the hands of God, trusting that God will work out the divine purpose in whatever happens.

But does not God always know what is best? Should we not simply pray, “your will be done” and accept whatever comes? That is certainly possible, but it does not appear to be the way God made the world or us. This Amos text indicates the prayer (intercession) has meaning and power. It can change God’s mind.

Maybe it is better to think of this covenantal relationship in the context of God’s creative intent. God created us as partners (junior partners, to be sure) in the world. We co-rule with God; we co-create with God. We create the future with God. The relational nature of this journey is cooperative though we always acknowledge God as the sovereign Lord (as Amos does).

Prayer is one of the ways history moves forward; it is one of the ways we create the future with God. This is part of the honor and glory God has given to humanity as we represent (image) God within the creation.

This Easter, before assembling with other believers, I did something that I had never done before.

I visited Joshua’s grave.

For me visiting graves has rarely been comforting. In fact, it was the opposite. The graveyard seemed too permanent. It contained too many granite stones which testified to both the pervasiveness and intransigence of death.

I have found in recent years that visiting graves is good grief therapy for me. It can become a moment of spiritual encounter with God as I learn to face the grief and live through it rather than avoid it.

As I drove to the grave on Sunday morning early, I listened to some lament Psalms (including several musical versions of Psalm 13). I imagined the journey of the women to the grave that morning. I felt the lament, the sadness, and the disappointment (lost years, what could have been, he’d be 28 now). The women and I shared something.

At the grave I remembered, prayed and protested.

But the grave does not have the final word. It seems like it does. Death overwhelms us–it looks permanent, immutable, and hopeless.

But that is why I assemble with believers on Easter (but also every Resurrection day, every Sunday). When we assemble, we profess our hope, encourage each other, and draw near to God. We encounter the living God who is (yet still, even now, and forevermore) the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The hope of the resurrection is a future one. God did not leave us without a witness to the future. The resurrection of Jesus is our resurrection. His victory is our hope. His empty tomb is the promise of our own.

That hope, for me, is experienced not so much at the grave (though God may be encountered there as well), but in the assembly. When I assemble with other believers to praise, pray, and profess. In that moment the assembly of believers becomes one–one with the past, present and future, heaven and earth become one, and God loves on those gathered. In that moment, I stand to praise with Joshua rather than without him; we are one for that moment at least.

We continue to lament–both Joshua and I. We both yearn for the new heavens and new earth. We both pray for the day, like the souls under the altar in Revelation 6, when God will put things back to right and make everything new.

But for now the journey from the grave to the assembly is no easy one. It is filled with obstacles. Faith is a struggle and the walk is arduous. But at the end of the journey is an empty grave rather than a filled one.

Good Friday and then Easter!

But a day is missing in that story. To move from Friday to Sunday we must walk through Saturday.

Saturday, however, is a lonely day. Death has won. Hope is lost. Jesus of Nazareth lies in a tomb. His disciples are afraid, hiding, and deeply depressed. Everything they had invested in for the past three years seems pointless now.  They forsook their Master; they lost faith in that moment. They are leaderless, hopeless, and aimless.

Holy Saturday is the day we sit by the grave. It is the day to feel the gloom of the grave, to face the reality of death itself. It is a day to weep, fast and mourn. The late second century church (e.g., Irenaeus) fasted from all food on this day because it was a day of mourning. They did not break the fast till Easter morning.

Those of us who have spent time at graves–in my case the grave of a parent, wife and child–understand this grief, the despair of the grave. I have spent much of my life running away from graves, and have rarely spent much time thinking about Holy Saturday.

It is much easier to skip from Friday to Easter than to dwell on Holy Saturday. It is like, as happened in my life, skipping grief as much as possible. It is easier to run from grief. We prefer to escape it rather than face it.

Holy Saturday reminds me to grieve, to lament. It reminds me to rail against death, the enemy of both God and humanity. It reminds to protest death and renew my hatred for it. It reminds to feel again and sit with the disciples in their despair.

Indeed, to sit with the disciples in their despair is to sit with humanity in the face of death. When we sit at the grave we recognize our powerlessness. We cannot reverse death; we cannot defeat this enemy. Holy Saturday creates a yearning for Easter. We need Easter for without it we are dead.

Today (Friday) we remember the death, tomorrow we sit at the grave, but on Sunday we are renewed by the hope of the resurrection.

Jesus walked that path and we follow him.  We, too, will have our Friday, one day we will be entombed in a grave, and–by the grace and mercy of God–on that great day we will rise again to walk with Jesus upon the new heaven and new earth.

That is the meaning of Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter.