Historically, it is thought that Amos is the oldest/first among the prophetic writings. So, in a way, he's breaking new ground.
But as far as the order goes, Amos is the 3rd of the minor prophet books. Here they are, in the order found in our Bible: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.
If you have an introduction to Amos in your Bible, take a look at that. Let us know what strikes you as interesting.
It's estimated that Amos was written around 760 B.C.E. Times were good for both Israel (the Northern Kingdom) and Judah (the Southern Kingdom). They had both grown prosperous and had powerful militaries.
Amos' name means "to lift a burden" or "carry." Amos was a herdsman and a tender of sycamore trees. He was from Tekoa, which was located near Bethlehem in Judah. He carried his message from Judah to prophesy to the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
For our first reading, let's look at a little introduction to Amos in Amos 7:10-17.
Amos left one comfortable vocation in Judah (herdsman) to follow an uncomfortable vocation in Israel (prophet). Amos, as we'll soon find out, did not deliver a popular message. It was hard and staggering. How would he have sensed that this was his calling? Have you ever struck out in a similar way - following God's calling to do something uncomfortable?
In The Prophetic Imagination, Walter Brueggemann writes about the alternative vision that the community of faith must hold. The church’s vocation is to critique the dominant culture around us and to energize our communities by providing an alternative vision.
We'll talk more about prophetic voice on Sunday, and here are some more questions to ponder. Feel free to respond in the comments below, or save your response for Sunday.
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| sound your voice |
* What prophetic voices have been silenced through the ages, or are silenced right now?
* What would be a difficult message to deliver to SJMC today?
* Who do you see as a prophet in our time?
* Prophets like Amos were keenly aware of current events and spoke out on issues of the day. How political are you?
* How is SJMC critiquing the dominant culture or injustices in our world?
* How is SJMC energizing our community by providing an alternative vision?
Thanks for posting this Rebecca!
ReplyDeleteHere are some thoughts about critiquing the dominant culture...
A theme that keeps coming to mind for me is an echo of one of the comments in the giving survey... it is that a person's giving as a percentage of their income tends to decrease as their income increases. Likewise, the statistic about the average percentage of income that Canadians give to charity...
An observation is that people tend to live at (or beyond) their means. It just seems to be cultural. If we make more money, we spend more money.
What's astonishing is how easily easily it happens. I was reminiscing this weekend to when I got my first job after university and made a relatively small wage. The irony is that I felt extremely "rich". Pay cheques were coming every two weeks and, after being a student, I could hardly imagine spending it all. Contrast that with today, with a higher salary and two incomes in our family... we just did a budget and I was left scratching my head: How is it that with so much more money, I feel much poorer? Where does all the money go?!
I was pondering this question with friends this weekend and one conclusion was that, of course, things have changed since we were students. Rather than all sharing rent on 1 house, we all now have our own house. Rather than living with some cheap cobbled together shared furniture, we all own furniture, and everything else in our homes. We didn't have cars back then, now we do. Then there's child care expense. And to top it all off, yearly vacations. I suppose when you add that all up, it accounts for most of the difference.
The joke then was, well we should all just move back in together and start a commune!
As funny as that suggestion is, it is good food for thought with respect to how we as North Americans live... each with our separate homes, separate cars, etc, etc. Perhaps that's the most profound aspect of how we "live at our means"...
I don't really have any solutions except to say that when I look at a world of scarcity, the "live at your means" aspect to culture gives me pause. Perhaps it needs some critiquing.
Interesting thoughts, Daniel... your joke about living in a commune-type setting struck home for me because over the past few years, this is the kind of thing we've been tossing around! Haven't quite come up with our dream scenario yet.
ReplyDeleteBut I agree with you. This dominant culture - each family with its own house, car, etc. using xx amount of the world's non-renewable resources per year - could use some critiquing. I think, in part, because living in this kind of individualistic way distances ourselves from each other. Also it's just so taxing on the earth, and not a sustainable model for our kids, grandkids, and so on.
I keep wondering what a world of enough would look like.
Over the past few days, I've been reading Walter Brueggemann's "The Prophetic Imagination" - a great read. He writes, "It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing futures alternative to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one."
And this: "Imagination must come before implementation. Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing." Those words struck me. Perhaps we need to free our imaginations more??
Exciting stuff! Would love to discuss this more.
ReplyDeleteGreat. Sue: I think I fixed the commenting problem, so comment away! Others too are more than welcome. :)
ReplyDeleteDavid Chilton's new book "The Wealthy Barber Returns" (featured in Saturday's Record and one that I'm am currently reading) speaks very pointedly to the issue of living beyond our means - albeit from a secular point of view. He does advocate intentional saving (10-15%) primarily as a means of retirement funding which is his overarching theme but his many of his comments on consumerism could easily have been said by someone like Ron Sider.
ReplyDeleteYes, it seems to be more popular these days to talk about living more simply - seems that Mennonites were prophetic in introducing these ideas through the More with Less cookbook and Living More With Less in the 70s/80s. It seems like many people are yearning for a more simple existence - with more meaning and less consumption of material possessions and the earth's resources. The more with less ideas have caught one... with some. There are still a lot of more with more people out there, I think.
ReplyDeleteAt the Sunday evening meal a couple of weeks ago, someone had mentioned that a family at the church is successful feeding their family of 5 with $400/mo. This sounds more than incredible, it sounds impossible! I would be interested in learning, very practically, how that works. I've emailed them to see if there is any interest in teaching others about this.
ReplyDeleteSign me up, Daniel. I'd be very interested in learning more about this.
ReplyDelete