God speaks to us through the Prophets, both current and ancient. Last Sunday, through Ezekiel, God said: “I am sending you to your own people. They are a stubborn and obstinate bunch. Whether they listen or not, they will know that a prophet has been among them.” Today we hear Amos standing up to Amaziah, the priest in service to Jeroboam, King of Israel. Jeroboam brought prosperity to Israel by expanding his territory. The new land was given to his supporters creating a wealthy class of landowners. As land and money were redistributed the number of poor people increased resulting in a class of servants and slaves exploited by the rich. It was these social and economic abuses that led Amos to deliver God’s demand that the poor of the kingdom be attended to. They had a legitimate claim on the wealthy and powerful of Israel. Throughout Scripture we hear that continuing cry for justice, for healing, for care and mercy to flower in people’s hearts replacing hard-hearted self-interest.
Amos is a simple shepherd and tender of figs. He is not a “professional” prophet, one paid to tell the people what the king wants them to hear. No. He speaks TO the king, to the priest, to the entrenched authority structures of his day. The Spirit is at work in him, directing his attention to what is being done to the weak by the wealthy, to the powerless by those who hold the reins of power. He is inflamed by the injustice of it all and compelled to challenge the status quo. He puts his neck on the line not because he wants to do this or because his position requires it of him, but because the God of justice and mercy sends him to this moment—to confront the system and its King!
Real prophets challenge centers of power. Like Amos, their prophecies highlight the selfish failings of organized religion and society’s constant oppression of the disenfranchised, marginalized and helpless. They unsettle social structures that create or uphold inequality, that exploit resources and harm communities for the benefit of a privileged few. We have many prophets among us today. Pope Francis is one.
At the international conference titled “Saving our Common Home and the Future of Life on Earth” Pope Francis said: “The pace of consumption, waste and environmental change has so stretched the planet’s capacity that our contemporary lifestyle, unsustainable as it is, can only precipitate catastrophes, such as those which even now periodically occur in different areas of the world. “Humanity has the know-how and means to cooperate responsibly in safeguarding the earth…All governments should strive to honor the commitments made in Paris…[This} requires honesty, courage and responsibility, above all on the part of those countries which are more powerful and pollute the most….we cannot afford to waste time.”
Prophets often resemble the disciples sent out two-by-two, with nothing but a pair of sandals and a walking stick. In our world, this often looks like ordinary people using ordinary means to take a stand against injustice. An example is Christ Church Cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis. As part of its #EveryFamilyIsHoly campaign, they put their Nativity statues of Jesus, Mary and Joseph out on the lawn two nights before July 4th. They imprisoned the Holy Family behind a chain link fence topped with barbed wire to protest the detention of all families arrested near the U.S-Mexico border. The Rev. Lee Curtis who serves at Christ Church came up with the idea, bringing to the foreground the immigrant status of the Holy Family itself—a powerful witness to the travesty being perpetrated by the current administration.
Prophets direct our thoughts and energies toward replacing the evil of injustice with the good of healing society. Ridding the world of as much evil as we can, Mark tells us, is what the followers of Jesus are called to do. Another example comes from the Diocese of El Paso. The Commission on Migration on Family Separation at the Border released a statement last month signed by Bishop Seitz and the two co-chairs. “The bridges that unite us to our sister city of Ciudad Juárez,” it says, “have been converted into steel gates against families fleeing for their lives. We have heard the crying of children separated from mothers and fathers. Our Tornillo port of entry will soon be transformed into the likes of a child refugee camp. The blood of Claudia Patricia Gómez González (a 20-year-old woman shot in the head by the border patrol) continues to cry out to heaven and question us – why?” The statement ends with these words: “All things have been made one in Christ. And still, Christ is found in the one lonely migrant who knocks at our door, looking for respite. Now, let us feed them, pray with them and wash their feet.”
The prophets are all around us. They are in the streets of our cities. They huddle in tents along the roadside and under freeways. They pile into vans and trucks and decrepit boats, risk the hire of coyotes in hopes of crossing borders, struggle for safety as bullets fly around them, stand helplessly by as their homes sink further into the melting permafrost. They are also standing up in churches, mobilizing congregations, defying orders along the border, walking refugees from Juarez across the bridge into El Paso, taking in the children, creating shelters across the country, blocking federal court house and protesting ICE, providing free legal counsel and assistance to asylum seekers, counseling the traumatized. Prophets stick their necks out for the sake of the poor. Casting out demons is a dangerous occupation since those demons have no qualms about striking back. It is good we are sent out in pairs. We need each other. And we need those sandals and walking sticks to navigate the dangerous terrain. We are simple people, like Amos, doing the one thing we are asked to do—walk with each other, doing what we can to replace evil with good as we make our way down the road.
Let’s help each other maintain our courage, hope and resolve. The world needs our healing oil.
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