Monday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Amos (8th century BCE), the first of the writing prophets, reveals YHWH as a deity consumed — consumed for justice and consumed for the chosen people. In contrast, Israel saw YHWH as a deity obsessed — obsessed with proper worship and sacrifice, not unlike the foreign gods of Israel's neighbors.
For Amos, the divine obsession was for a just society: I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. You offer burnt and grain offerings, but I will not accept them, and the offerings 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).
Amos sets the stage for the writing prophets who will follow him:
- Intervening in the affairs of the Chosen People at times of crisis.
- Admonishing social transgressions as the deadliest sins.
- Forthtelling not foretelling. Not as “predictors of the future” (foretellers) but as “mouthpieces of God’s perspective” (forth-tellers).
- Filtering everything through the lens of the Sinai covenant.
- Depicting a YHWH of intensity and fury — with the Chosen People for moving far from their covenant promises.
- Measuring the situation of the marginal, the rejected, the destitute as touchstones for covenant faithfulness or lack of it.
- Reproaching and warning that drought, famine, economic hardship, and military disaster occurs when the nation is unfaithful.
Over the years I advised my students to wear their “Jesus glasses” when studying the prophets, to filter out assigning God acts of genocide or vengeance. But that doesn’t mean that God is not consumed with God’s own who asks the same question today: what is the state of the needy, the vulnerable, the rejected, the unloved among us?
The message of the prophets resonates through the prism of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, the ultimate prophet. Amos sets the stage. Beginning today and throughout July, we will hear nearly each weekday from one of the writing prophets. As we encounter them, let us ask the questions: What would these prophets have to say to our Bread of Life Parish Family in 2024? For what would YHWH be consumed regarding you and I?
—Timothy J. Cronin