Biblical Text

You can read Amos 9.1-15 here.

Sermon Video

You can watch the sermon video here.

Sermon Transcript

[Note: The actual sermon will differ somewhat from what I had typed.]

“Prosperity is too apt to prevent us from examining our conduct, but adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.” So wrote the British author Samuel Johnson. This is because, as G.K. Chesterton wrote, “If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue, it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue.” Prosperity clouds our judgment and makes it difficult for us to have a clear picture of who we are and what we are doing with our lives. As Johnson claimed, it is adversity that is the better teacher.
We have reached the last chapter of Amos. Next week we will begin a new sermon series on the book of Hebrews, which will take us right to Advent. But for today, we have to deal with the final chapter of Amos. As you would have realized by now, Amos is a terrifying book. Israel’s sins are described in brutally honest terms. The failure of the Israelites to keep the covenant is highlighted in many metaphorical ways. And the judgments announced in the book are stark and Amos has hammered at the Israelites all through the book.
But Amos ministered in the mid 8th century BC, during the reigns of Uzziah, king of Judah, and Jeroboam II, king of Israel. Both these kings had long reigns and they came to power at around the same time. And, setting aside past hostilities, Uzziah and Jeroboam functioned as allies rather than as enemies. This meant that the Northern kingdom of Israel and the Southern kingdom had a few decades of unprecedented peace and stability. But in the words of actress Lily Tomlin, “The trouble with being in the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.”
You see, when Yahweh called Abram out of the land of the Chaldeans to move to Canaan, he had a clear purpose. In that small strip of land that connected Africa, Asia and Europe, he would create a distinct people. He would work in and through this people, making their distinctiveness shine out along with their unparalleled prosperity. And this would make their neighbors and their trade partners wonder about this unique people. How was it that, despite not joining the rat race, they were so successful and so prosperous? That was the plan, anyway.
However, as the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings clearly indicate, that is not what happened. The people of Israel did not drive the Canaanites out of the land. These Canaanites remained in the land, showcasing how they worshipped their gods, thereby making it difficult for the Israelites to obey the first commandment and worship only Yahweh. And so the Israelites worshipped the Canaanite deities alongside Yahweh, something that the prophets repeatedly warned them about by announcing judgment.
Yet, the Israelites did not learn. As an aside, archaeological excavations in Palestine have uncovered evidence of widespread worship of the Canaanite deities in all strata related to the period of the monarchy. However, in the strata related to the exilic and post-exilic periods, which would have been uncovered first, there is absolutely no evidence of the worship of any pagan deities. As Johnson claimed, it was the adversity of the exile that taught the Israelites much better than the prosperity of the mid 8th century BC, which is when Amos prophesied.
One major belief that is widespread among religious people is the notion of retributive justice. According to this belief, the gods bless those who are good and punish those who are evil. Doing the will of the gods brings blessings, good health, and wealth, while rejecting the will of the gods brings curses, sickness and poverty. With such a belief system it is hardly surprising that, as Chesterton claimed, “If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue, it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue.”
And so in the mid 8th century BC, with both Uzziah and Jeroboam cooperating with each other, Judah and Israel witnessed an era of prosperity that rivalled what they had had during Solomon’s reign. And quite likely they concluded that, since they were prosperous, they must have been doing things that the gods approved of. It is in this context that Amos and Hosea in the Northern kingdom and Isaiah and Micah in the Southern kingdom proclaimed their messages, warning the people that their prosperity had blinded them to reality.
Amos, of course, is relentless. After the first few verses of chapter 1, he pounds away at the Israelites. This reaches a crescendo in the passage we are dealing with today. Till now Amos has been a reporter of sorts. He has announced the word of the Sovereign Yahweh that came to him through visions in which Yahweh showed him different ways of communicating to the Israelites how precarious their situation was and how close they were to judgment. His stark language was probably chosen with the hope that they would produce repentance.
But now at the start of chapter 9 we read, “I saw the Lord standing by the altar.” It is no longer enough for God to declare his warnings. That time is past. As we saw earlier in Amos, Israel was likened to a basket of ripe summer fruit. Think of the mango. Once it’s ripe, in a couple of days it is no longer fit to be eaten. And so it was with Israel. Once the last warning had been announced, the window of opportunity for repentance was narrow and had passed them by. Now it was time to put the judgment into effect.
And so God, who would normally be seen sitting with his feet resting between the Cherubim on the ark of the covenant, has now arisen from his throne and has set his feet on the ground near the altar. The altar was where most of the – pardon the word – action in the temple happened. And Amos sees that God had taken his stand there. God was ready to act on the judgment he had declared. And more terrifyingly, he was taking a personal interest in this one. He was not asking one of his minions to oversee this, but was going to supervise it himself.
And then Amos declares what he presumably heard God say. The first thing he announces is, “Strike the tops of the pillars so that the thresholds shake.” Till a few decades ago, buildings were made with the doorways being the most structurally stable parts of the interiors. In case of an earthquake, the interior doorways would have been the safest places, especially if you did not have a sturdy table. God declares, however, that he will strike the tops of the supporting pillars of the temple with such force that the thresholds themselves would quake.
With the foundations shaking the entire structure would collapse on the heads of the worshippers. And if anyone escaped, they would fall to the sword. Those familiar with the book of Judges will recognize some resonances with the story of Samson. As his last act, Samson took hold of the pillars in the temple of Dagon and brought the whole structure down. And just as he has used Samson to judge the Philistines so also he would judge the Israelites for worship of false gods and false worship of the true God are both detestable in God’s eyes.
The message that God announces is that ‘none will escape’. Those who might want to escape may think that they could flee to the underworld – the depths below – or ascend to the heavens. But even there God would find them. Here too we can see a parodic resonance with Psalm 139, where David declares, “If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”
And if the Israelites thought that the worst that could befall them would be exile, which was the policy of the Assyrians, God declares, “Though they are driven into exile by their enemies, there I will command the sword to slay them.” The Israelites had so completely broken and rejected the covenant that there was no recourse but to completely annihilate them. What could have been more terrifying than that God had so utterly forsaken his people that even exile would be just the beginning of their end?
And then God says, “I will keep my eye on them.” These would normally be words of comfort for in Deuteronomy 32.10 we read, “He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of a wilderness; he encircled him, he cared for him, he guarded him as the apple of his eye.” This is Moses retelling the story of the formation of the people of Israel. God had formed Israel and had guarded Israel as the apple of his eye. Surely when he says, “I will keep my eye on them” it was a word of comfort!?
But no! God continues, “for harm and not for good.” He is going to oversee the punishment he intends to bring upon Israel. That’s why he is going to keep an eye on them. This was not going to be the caring observation of a father for his child, but the punitive supervision of an executioner for a convicted criminal. What was going on? Where were the everlasting promises God had made with the Patriarchs? What had happened to them? Was Israel not Yahweh’s special people, chosen from among the peoples of the world to be recipients of Yahweh’s love?
And then in a shocker God declares, “Are not you Israelites the same to me as the Cushites? Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?” God declares that, just as it was he who had brought Israel out of Egypt, so also it was he who was responsible for all the migratory movements of all the people groups, the Philistines and Arameans being mentioned as examples. God was reminding the Israelites that he was Sovereign over the whole world and not just the people of Israel and the small patch of land they lived in.
God then declares that his eyes are on the sinful kingdom and that he will ensure that it is wiped from the face of the earth. Till now in Amos there has been no reprieve from the constant onslaught of the words he declared to the Israelites. And with this statement from God that he would destroy Israel from the face of the earth, all hope of restoration would have gone up in smoke. I would not want for one minute to have been in Amos’ audience, listening to his message of impending and imminent doom. But this was not the end of Amos’ prophecy.
In late 2003, or early 2004 if you were in India, you may have gone to the theaters to witness the final installment of Peter Jackson’s interpretation of Lord of the Rings. Frodo had stumbled toward Mount Doom and was perfectly poised over the fires of the mountain, the only fires hot enough to destroy the Ring of Power that had such a corrupting influence on the world. And as we wait for him to cast the Ring down to its destruction, he chooses rather to claim it for himself. And our hearts sink as the last hope is lost to the corrupting power of the Ring.
And just as we thought it could not get worse, along comes Gollum, who, after fighting with Frodo, claims the Ring for himself. Surely now all is truly lost. Gollum is extremely susceptible to the influence of the Ring and the Dark Lord will surely forcibly take it from Gollum. But just as Gollum is celebrating the recovery of his precious Ring, he stumbles and falls off the edge to his doom, taking the Ring with him to its destruction. Of course, this is how the book narrates the final events. In the movie, they had Frodo and Gollum fighting over the Ring.
Tolkien, of course, wrote the book and he coined the term ‘eucatastrophe’ to describe this sudden change when something that is truly a catastrophe is reversed into something that brings good. Joseph being sold into slavery is such a catastrophe, but his being exalted to second in command over Egypt is the eucatastrophe. In a similar manner, Jesus’ death is a catastrophe, but the resurrection shows that his death was actually a eucatastrophe. Why did Peter Jackson change the eucatastrophe of the books into a struggle in the movies?
We humans crave some kind of assurance that we are in control of our future. We want to have the confidence that what we do actually changes things. A classic example of this is when someone who does not believe the doctrine of predestination asks, “If everything is predestined, then why should we bother to evangelize anyone else?” If Peter Jackson had stuck to the way Tolkien told the story, it would have been a cinematic faux pas. You can’t have the heroes standing by while a chance circumstance solves the problem. That’s storytelling suicide.
And so Jackson, recognizing that the way Tolkien told the story would not work on screen, alters the narrative to include a scuffle between Frodo and Gollum. But by doing this, Jackson actually undermines one of the main points of the book – true character is displayed when we do something simply because it is the right thing to do, not because we think we might actually succeed in our endeavors by doing it. The problem is solved despite the failure of Frodo to successfully complete his task of destroying the Ring. And we don’t like this.
And so when we come to the second half of verse 8, it seems to come at us from out of the blue. There was no preparation for it before this in Amos. There was no indication that there was any hope. So when God declares, “Yet I will not totally destroy the descendants of Jacob,” we may wonder where this came from. Indeed, so out of tune with the rest of Amos is this declaration that many interpreters have concluded that the latter part of chapter 9 was added many years after Amos, probably shortly after the Jewish people returned to the land from exile.
But that misses the point of the book, not just as a self contained literary work, but also as one book in the library we call the Old Testament. The scriptures are fully aware that humans are sinful and God himself declares this in a number of places in the Old Testament. But the scriptures also showcase a few unconditional, unilateral promises that God made, notably with Abraham and David. And the conditional Mosaic covenant is given as a response to God’s unconditional call of and promise to Abraham.
If God utterly wiped out the people of Israel, for whatever reason, he would not be able to be faithful to the unconditional promises he had made to Abraham. But if he did not impose judgment on the people of Israel for their sins, he would be unfaithful to the conditional covenant he made with them through Moses. It is in light of these almost contradictory impulses that the prophets declare that there would be one way in which God could be faithful to both the unconditional promise to Abraham and the conditional promise through Moses.
We saw way back in Amos 3 that the prophet gives the first hint of the idea of a remnant. But since there is only an idea of getting spared from an attack in Amos 3, that passage does not really offer much hope. But Amos has received from God the manner in which God could be faithful to all the covenants, both unconditional and conditional, that he has made with humans. In order to understand this we must do something that most Protestants find very difficult. We must not read the New Testament into the Old Testament. What do I mean?
Both testaments have ideas of election. In the New Testament, which is likely the part of the bible we are more familiar with, the notion of election is linked to eternal salvation. And we unfortunately read these ideas into the Old Testament and get stumped. The Old Testament idea of election is related to the people of Israel and not to individuals within the nation. Israel is chosen and elected for a purpose. This does not mean that every Israelite is eternally saved. The prophets, primarily Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, make it very clear.
The prophets are clear that biological descent from Abraham only guarantees inclusion in the blessings Israel receives as a nation and requires adherence to the Torah given through Moses. Hence, inherent in their writings is the notion that Paul later develops, namely that not all who are of Israel by physical descent belong to the true Israel. So God says, “I will destroy it, namely the sinful nation, from the face of the earth. Yet I will not totally destroy the descendants of Jacob.” The nation will be destroyed while the remnant will be preserved.
But it was not going to be easy going. God uses the image of shaking grain in a sieve. While not a violent image, it is nonetheless tumultuous. The remnant is going to face a difficult time while Yahweh sifts the people of Israel. And just as the grain husks would be carried away by the wind and the dust would fall through the sieve, leaving only the grain kernels behind, so also the difficult times ahead of them would sift out those who were not a part of the remnant, leaving only the remnant ready for Yahweh’s deliverance.
All those who are not a part of the remnant, in context those who do not receive Amos’ words and who say, “Disaster will not overtake or meet us,” are warned that they will be put to the sword. But for the remnant there is a promise that God would restore David’s fallen shelter. But here we have an intriguing idea when God declares that David’s fallen shelter when restored would possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear God’s name. What does the remnant of Edom refer to? And what are these nations that bear God’s name?
God’s people have, unfortunately, been very limited in their understanding of who actually constitutes God’s people. After fleeing from Ahab and Jezebel, Elijah claimed that he was the only one in the northern kingdom who was faithful to Yahweh only to have Yahweh inform him that there were thousands of others, unknown to Elijah, who had not worshipped Baal. When Jacob stole Esau’s blessing from Isaac, Isaac seemed to think that there was no way of blessing Esau after he had blessed Jacob. But here we read about the remnant of Edom.
God’s specific actions with respect to the plan and history of salvation do not mean that he has not called to himself faithful people from among all the peoples of the earth. And then God announces a mind-blowing promise, “The days are coming when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes.” How can the reaper be overtaken by the plowman? Simply put, this means that when the sowing season starts the harvest of the previous year would not have ended. The promise is of unimaginable abundance.
But God also promises a return from exile of the people of Israel. Let us step back for a moment and take stock of the situation into which this promise was made. Remember that Amos prophesied to the Northern kingdom of Israel. This was in the mid 8th century BC. But less than a decade after the death of Jeroboam II, the Assyrian forces, under the command of Tiglath-Pileser, conquered the Israelite tribes that had settled on the Eastern side of the Jordan and took them into captivity, forcibly resettling them in other parts of the empire.
A few years later, Tiglath-Pileser once again attacked Israel, annexed the Northern parts of the Northern kingdom and took those tribes into captivity. And in 722 BC, Sargon II completely destroyed the Northern kingdom, sacked the capital, Samaria, and carried the remaining tribes of the Northern kingdom into captivity. The bible records that, during this period of constant threat from Assyria, some members of the Northern kingdom migrated South and took refuge in Judah. Which exile was Amos referring to?
Since Amos addressed the people of the Northern kingdom, the only exile that would have made sense to them would have been the deportation by the Assyrians and not the deportation under the Babylonians. However, there was no formal return from the Assyrian deportation. Moreover, v. 15 reads, “I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them.” This definitely cannot refer to the Babylonian exile since the Jewish people were uprooted from the land in AD 135 after the bar Kokhba revolt.
So how are we to understand this passage? How are we to make sense of this promise of a sudden change in Israel’s fortunes from an unprecedented catastrophe to an unimaginable abundance and an unbreakable stability? When the Israelites conquered the land, formed the monarchy and built the Temple, the great promise to Abraham about the land and the promise to David about the kingdom and place of worship had been fulfilled. They could not conceive of their identity apart from these three elements – land, kingdom, and Temple.
But when they were conquered and when the Temple was destroyed and when they were taken from the land, they had to find a new way of formulating their identity. And so began the process of defining themselves in terms of a people dispersed through the world. This process was cut short when Cyrus allowed the Judahites to return to the land. Being in the land, renewed the fervor of their belief in land, kingdom, and Temple. But while earlier they accommodated to the practices of the other nations, now they became insular.
In the pre-exilic times they were indistinguishable from the other nations. But now they became so wary about the other nations that they became insular to the exclusion of the other nations. The pendulum had swung from one extreme to the other. Amos’ vision of a remnant in Edom and other nations could just not be realized as long as the Jewish people were so insular. They had exchanged the catastrophe of worshipping the false gods for the equally ineffective catastrophe of isolationism.
The Hellenization under Alexander and his successors and the persecution under the Syrian Seleucid rulers did nothing to swing the pendulum back to a position where the Jewish people could be effective witnesses to the true God in a world that readily worshipped so many false gods. Their growing insularity and inward focus ensured that they began to lose the prophetic vision that included the other nations in God’s plans. Rather, they began gradually to view the peoples of the other nations as enemies and, at times, even as sub-human.
With the Jewish people having such an attitude toward the Gentiles, there was no way Amos’ prophecy would be fulfilled. But since his prophecy depended on the ingathering of the remnant of Edom and other nations, the promised abundance and stability could never become a reality. From one era to another the Jewish people went from one catastrophe to a more severe one. And ironically, it would take the crucifixion of a first century Jewish teacher to make the fulfillment of Amos’ prophecy a possibility, though in quite a surprising manner.
Now, instead of having just a small strip of land in the Levant to focus on, the whole earth became part of the purview of the people of God. God’s people can no longer be in exile because, through the victorious death of this Jewish teacher, the whole earth has become the Promised Land. Through the victorious death of this Jewish teacher the Temple had been rendered obsolete. And through the victorious death of this Jewish teacher, he had been given all authority not just over the small strip of land in the Levant, but over the whole world.
This is the eucatastrophe that Amos’ prophecy was awaiting. It was a sudden, unexpected, unplanned-for overturning of events that changed everything. The remnant of Edom and the other nations do not have to physically move in order to be in the jurisdiction of Israel’s God because Israel’s Messiah has been given authority over the whole world. God’s people can never be uprooted from their land and exiled because there is no place in the world that lies outside the jurisdiction of Israel’s true king.
And what does this mean for us? First, through his death and resurrection, Jesus has torn down all the obstacles that stood in the way of the people of God witnessing to the wonderful, marvelous deeds of God. Now we have no excuse for not sharing how God has worked in and through our lives. We share our testimony with others not because we think we are better than they are but because we have found something that is so wonderful that we want everyone else, especially those whom we love, to experience it.
But we must not share our testimony with others in a threatening manner. Jesus has called us to be witnesses to the manner in which he has transformed us. He has not called us to speak about anything we are unaware of, namely the heart of any other person. But when we speak, we need to be aware that this may have consequences for us. Our nation has become increasingly intolerant to people becoming followers of Jesus. And our government has cracked down on some fellow Christians because they led someone else to the feet of Jesus.
Do we shrink back in the face of this opposition? Do we attempt to reverse the law? If we do so, it simply means that we have not been convinced that Jesus has authority over the whole world. It means we believe that there is a realm in which his authority is not ultimate. It’s okay if we act that way. It’s okay if we believe that we should not break such laws of the land. But in that case, let us please at least be consistent and erase all references to Jesus’ being Lord from our discourse, our prayers, and our liturgies.
Second, Jesus’ death and resurrection show us that God is in the business of turning catastrophes into eucatastrophes. Do we not see it when he rescues Noah and his family in the Ark? Do we not see his hand when he stops Abraham from killing Isaac? Do we not see it in Joseph’s words, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good”? And I could go on from almost every book in the Old Testament. So when we are walking through the valley of death we are able to walk tall because God walks with us.
Mind you, this does not mean that God will deliver us physically from every evil we face! No! Most of the Old Testament prophets were mistreated by the Israelites and some were even killed. Most of Jesus’ first disciples were martyred for their faith. But we can walk with an unshakeable faith even in the face of death because we know, from what God did when he raised Jesus, that even the darkness of death is not catastrophic enough to prevent God from fulfilling his promise of eucatastrophe through our resurrection.
Or do we recoil at the prospect of death? It is a daunting prospect and I would not fault anyone for considering the threat of death too high a hurdle to climb. I too do not know the caliber of my own faith and whether I would be able to remain resolute in the face of prolonged and severe periods of suffering. Even as I speak, I speak first to myself, as a challenge to live a life consistent with the messages he delivers to God’s people whether it be in sermons like today or in the bible studies or in any other forum and believe God’s promise of eucatastrophe.
Third, we need to reevaluate our continued dependence on holy times, holy places, holy practices, and holy people. The Jewish people thought that God was concerned only about them because they were a holy nation, but Amos announced that there was a remnant of Edom and of the other nations. The Jewish people were hung up on the Temple when it was standing, but managed to redefine their worship practices after it was destroyed. The Jewish people could not think of being God’s people apart from being in the land, but learnt to do so when they were exiled.
In and through Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection, God has redefined the role of his people with respect to the rest of the world. By raising Jesus and granting him all authority, God has redefined the land, the temple and the throne and we should take it seriously. Because of Jesus’ promise that where two or three meet in his name, he is there, the gathering of any Christians is at once a holy place and holy time because Jesus is there. We need to remember this and reappropriate the priesthood of all believers in the life of the Church.
You see, God has fulfilled the promise announced through Amos. For sure it is not fulfilled in a literal manner. But that is the nature of biblical prophecy. The fulfillment often does not look like what was expected. But that does not mean it wasn’t a fulfillment. We await the appearance of Jesus to fully establish his kingdom and spread his justice throughout the world. In the meantime we will have a roller coaster of a ride. There will be mountaintop moments and seasons in the valleys. And as we remain faithful to Jesus, we may or may not face opposition.
And we may or may not face unimaginable suffering and distress, mental anguish and physical trauma, that is completely unconnected to our witness as Christians, but just a facet of living in a creation marred by human sinfulness. But one thing we can hold on to that will enable us to praise God in the good times and rely on him when things look bleak is the promise of resurrection – the promise of eucatastrophe.