Proper 10 -- Amos 7: 7-15; Psalm 85: 8-13; Ephesians
1: 3-14; Mark 6: 14-29
This homily was given by Fr. Gene Tucker at St. John’s Church in Huntingdon,
Pennsylvania, on Sunday, July 12, 2015.
“OF
PROPHETS, PROPHECIES AND WHISTLE BLOWERS”
“Oh seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.”
No one likes a prophet.
No one likes to hear prophecy.
No one likes to hear God’s truth,
spoken in judgment, for that is what prophecy is.
No one likes a whistleblower.
When I was in the Army, one of the
most dreaded words those of us who were in leadership positions ever wanted to
hear was: “Someone has filed an IG
(Inspector General) complaint.”
Inspectors General (IGs) are the
maintainers of truth. They function as
independent agents whose task it is to ferret out wrongdoing, improper
practices and behavior, and corruption.
The prophets of old were the whistle blowers of their day.
And so, today, we have before us two
of the great prophets of old: Amos, who
lived in the eighth century BC, and John the Baptist (or Baptizer), who lived
at the time of Jesus.
Both of these whistleblowers speak
against the corruption that existed in the high places of their day: Amos speaks against the Northern Kingdom of
Israel and its corrupt king, Jeroboam II, and John the Baptist speaks out
against the corrupt puppet king, Herod Antipas.
To gain some perspective, it would
be well for us to trace the history of the times in which these two prophets
lived.
We can begin with Amos’
situation. In order to understand his
situation more fully, let’s back up about 200 years into history:
When King Solomon died in the year
930 BC, the united kingdom that he, his father David, and Saul had ruled over
split in two. The ten tribes in the
north separated from the two tribes in the south. The ten tribes formed the nation of Israel,
sometimes called the Northern Kingdom.
The two tribes in the south formed the nation of Judah, sometimes called
the Southern Kingdom.
In the south, Solomon’s son,
Rehoboam, was king. His throne was in
Jerusalem, and the temple which his father had built remained the center of the
religious life of the kingdom.
In the north, however, the situation
was very different: The Northern Kingdom
was ruled by Jeroboam I, who reigned from 930 – 910 BC. Jeroboam set up centers of worship which
featured golden calves[1]. In addition to this practice, which adopted
some of the ways of the Canaanites who had lived in the land before God’s
people came from Egypt to take possession of it, Jeroboam also altered the
seasons which the Law of Moses had established.
Finally, Jeroboam I also established a priestly class which was not
drawn from the tribe of Levi. So a
completely different way of worshiping was established. Moreover, it was a way of worshiping not the
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not the way of the Law of Moses (the Torah) but
it was the way of idolatrous worship.
From there, things go downhill
steadily until the time of King Jeroboam II, who ruled over the Northern Kingdom
from 781 – 753 BC. By the eighth
century, and from all outward appearances, things were going well for the
Northern Kingdom (and for the Southern Kingdom, as well): The kingdom enjoyed a
period of peace with its neighbors, and the economy was doing well. But underneath this patina of good fortune
was another, ugly truth: The ruling
class exploited the poor and the underclass, using false weights in their
trading, and ignoring their plight.
While those in power reclined on ivory beds, their poorer neighbors
suffered terribly.
It is against this thoroughly
corrupt situation that God calls Amos to go from the Southern Kingdom of Judah
to speak God’s judgment against the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
Talk about a lonely occupation: Can you imagine such a call coming from
God? Put into today’s terms, such a call
might go something like this: “Your
name, I want you to go North Korea and tell their ruler that his ways are
corrupt.” I think, if I got such a call,
I might be tempted to say in response, “But, Lord, they’ll kill me if I go to
do that!”
That pretty well sums up the task
that Amos was called to undertake: To go
to the enemy and tell them that they’re all messed up, and that, unless they
straighten up, the good times that they think they will last a long time are
about to come to an end. Of course,
history tells us that Amos’ prediction came true, for the Assyrians swept into
the Northern Kingdom and destroyed it in the year 722 BC, deporting most of its
population in the process.
So that is Amos’ situation. Amos is an independent voice, speaking the
truth to power. That is the prophet’s
task, oftentimes. The prophet’s voice is
the voice of the whistle blower. No one
likes a whistle blower.
John the Baptist is a very similar
situation some 800 years (nearly) later:
The people in the Holy Land are living under oppressive Roman
occupation. The Romans had established a
dynasty of puppet kings, of which King Herod the Great (who ruled from 37 – 4
BC. Upon his death, the area he ruled
over was divided among three of his sons.
One of these sons, Herod Antipas, is the subject of our gospel reading
from Mark, heard this morning. Herod
Antipas ruled as a puppet king from 4 BC – 39 AD.
The Herodian dynasty was marked by
all sorts of immorality, of which the birthday party which Mark describes is an
example. No doubt, the dance which was
performed by Herodias’ daughter[2],
was an exotic dance (it would be “X rated” today). Furthermore, the Herodians engaged in a
culture of easy marriage and divorce, that is to say, they would divorce one
partner in order to marry another. It is
this practice that John speaks against.
Prophets are unpopular. Speaking truth to power can cost a person
his/her head, as it did, literally, for John.
The voice of prophecy isn’t a
welcome voice, for who among us wants to hear that God’s judgment is that we
have fallen short of His expectations of us?
But the voice of the prophet is an
essential voice. It is the voice of the
whistle blower, a voice which ferrets out corrupt practices, a voice which calls
us to account for the ways in which we live, in which we think, in which we
act.
The prophet’s voice may come from an
unexpected place, from a person who – by normal human standards – is a
“nobody”, as Amos was. Amos describes
himself not as a prophet, but as a dresser of sycamore trees and as a
shepherd. Amos was an ordinary, common
person by the standards of his day.
The prophet’s voice comes, born out
of independence from the accepted ways by which things are ordered. The prophet’s voice calls us to amend our
ways, to live as God would have us live.
The prophet’s voice may arise as we
read the pages of sacred Scripture. It
may arise as we commune with God in prayer.
It may arise through the promptings of the Holy Spirit, whose power to
enlighten and convict weigh heavily on us.
It may arise through faithful preaching of God’s word. It may arise when – out of nowhere
(seemingly) and from a totally unexpected source – someone will say something
to us that rings with the truth of God’s prophetic voice.
As uncomfortable as it is to be in
the presence of a prophet, and to hear the prophet’s voice, we stand in
continual need of the prophet and the prophet’s voice.
May we, through the power and
influence of the Holy Spirit, be enabled to recognize the words of the prophet
and to amend our ways accordingly.
AMEN.
[1] The presence of the golden calves is
reminiscent of Aaron’s disobedience in fashioning a golden calf at the base of
Mt. Sinai as Moses was receiving the law from God at the top of the mountain. See Exodus 32: 1–35.
[2] Neither Mark nor Matthew, both of whom
describe this birthday party in their gospel accounts (see Matthew 14: 1–12)
name Herodias’ daughter. We learn that
her name was Salome from the first century historian, Josephus. This birthday party and Salome’s performance
became the subject of a play written by Oscar Wilde in 1891. Richard Strauss also wrote an opera by the
same name, based on Wilde’s play, in 1905.
