Dr. David D. Young
January 28, 2007
Amos 5: 6-15
Luke 7: 18-23
"What About Poverty?"

I really enjoy humor – but today’s focus isn’t very funny – so don’t expect any. There are different types of sermons and many ways to approach them. And in case you hadn’t noticed, I like to vary the style and approach of preaching.

So, this morning I want to jump right in with Amos, Amos the prophet attributed with writing our first lesson for today which Stu McCalley read for us.

Amos was a layperson with no professional training for a religious office. He was a shepherd and a trimmer of sycamore trees in the region of Tekoa – which was some five miles south of Bethlehem and ten miles south of Jerusalem. The sycamore fruit had to be pinched if it was to ripen to an edible state – and it was a food for the poor. The time of Amos was the 8th century B.C. – for he tells us in the opening verse of the book it was in the days of King Uzziah of Judah and King Jeroboam of Israel – two years before the quake.

Scholars know those dates to be 781 – 745 B.C. During those years Israel was able to control trade routes and so a wealthy merchant class developed. The nobility also prospered greatly – building themselves elaborate homes. But the common people had no share in the wealth.

Israel as a nation had earlier been strong in the independence of its citizens – but in the 8th century B.C. was quickly becoming divided into two classes. The poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer. Sound familiar? Just wait, it gets better.

The religious shrines were continuously crowded with prosperous people who interpreted the country’s prosperity as a certain sign of God’s favor and even greater days to come. Priests and prophets at the sanctuaries benefited nicely from the lavish offerings – provided they kept alive the mood of confidence and God’s ongoing material blessings.

There are ministers today (liked Joel Osteen and others) who tell people that God wants them to be successful materially and in some cases to be rich – never mind that many of those preachers become very, very wealthy in the mean time. Rewind to Amos’ time – for those who were doing well – religion went hand in hand with nationalism. Well, I guess on second thought you wouldn’t have to rewind. Just kidding…sort of…

Wealthy merchants were lusting for economic power and they were using the poor for cheap labor to get what they wanted. Public leaders were reveling in luxury. They were corrupted by indulgence – they were, to quote Amos 6: 4, "laying on beds of ease."

The law courts were used to serve the vested interests of the commercial class. Religion had no real protest against the unfairness going on. It was in many ways, part of the status quo.

Enter the scene – Amos. A shepherd and dresser of sycamore trees who knew a simple and modest lifestyle. Surely he saw the extravagances when he passed through Jerusalem and some of the nicer neighborhoods. And surely he saw that some were hard-pressed doing most of the hard labor which was required to keep the wealthy well-off.

Listen to our text again,

"Seek the Lord and live, or he will break out against the house of Joseph like fire, and it will devour Bethel, with no one to quench it. Ah, you that turn justice to wormwood, and bring righteousness to the ground! The one who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep darkness into the morning, and darkens the day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the Lord is his name, who makes destruction flash out against the strong, so that destruction comes upon the fortress.

They hate the one who reproves in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks the truth. Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. For I know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins – you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate. Therefore the prudent will keep silent in such a time; for it is an evil time. Seek good and not evil that you may live."

In Amos’ time – if you had the goods – he would not have been happy with you. The people of Israel who were anybody reasoned that because they were God’s people – God would continue to give them prosperity and prestige. They had justified that their wealth and ease were their right – even if it meant many of their people weren’t nearly as well off.

Amos reversed the logic of his day. Israel was God’s people – God knew them and would not bless them – but punish them. Israel’s special calling, said Amos did not entitle her to special privilege – but to greater responsibility.

Amos prophesied gloom – because the nation was being eaten from within by an immoral sort of cancer. Israel was not merely guilty of social crimes – she was not being faithful to her calling as God’s people – to care well for all of God’s people. In the economy of God – such a nation could not endure long.

Mention God’s economics, that is – the way God would want the world ordered with the distribution of wealth and resources, and people either laugh, don’t take it seriously, or don’t even know what you’re talking about. Hear the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., a prophet of our time. He echoes the truth of Amos,

"As long as there is poverty in the world, I can never be rich, even if I have a billion dollars. As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people in this world cannot expect to live more than twenty-eight or thirty years, I can never be totally healthy even if I just got a good checkup at Mayo Clinic. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way our world is made."

Friends, that is the way of God’s economy – whether we like it or not!

In life we can choose whom or what we will make most important – and we will have to live with the consequences of our choice. The purpose of Amos’ preaching was to give people the opportunity of change. He proclaimed what God was about to do in order to show how urgent it was to change now – tomorrow might be too late! Therefore, as he said in chapter 5, verse 6,

"Seek the Lord and live."

There was little chance the wealthy people of Israel – enslaved by habit and blinded, truly blinded by both greed and complacency – would listen to Amos. Trust me when I say, the people of Israel who were well off did not like Amos’ message. In fact, in chapter 7, the priest of Bethel told Amos to take a hike and never come back. He said the land could not bear his words. How right he was!

Sometimes I don’t like what Amos says either. If you find yourself uncomfortable and not liking Amos’ message – and even taking argument with it in your mind’s eye – welcome to the human race.

But we are people doing more than simply existing as the human race. We are a people of faith seeking to live in a right relationship with God in Jesus Christ. And thus to live in a right relationship with the whole human race. And as such, we are not called to only seek what we like – but to be faithful to God and to one other.

Listen to what Thomas Jefferson said in the earlier years of our nation’s history,

"I tremble for my country when I remember that God is just."

Think of that today with the way people are living in the United States and the way they are treating one another – from corporate greed and scandals to immigration and the labor of immigrants and everything in between. To which one of our recently deceased prophets William Sloane Coffin, Jr. can say when speaking about bad news for many Americans today,

"Let me quickly recall an often forgotten fact: judgment of the rich spells mercy not only for the poor, but finally for the rich as well. There are two ways to be rich. One is to have lots of money, the other to have few needs. Whereas the second option is rarely weighed in the United States, the Bible promotes it all the time, suggesting, moreover, that spiritual resources – the only truly renewable resources – do better when economic ones are not in excess."

What About Poverty?

John sent two of his disciples to Jesus to ask if he was the one who is to come. And Jesus answered them,

"Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, and lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me."

Oh, but Jesus, your teachings about money and wealth and the message of your life and death are offensive. Some of you probably saw the Time magazine cover last fall that had a cross as the hood ornament on the Rolls Royce with the caption, "Does God want you to be rich?" And then the article inside quoted ministers on both sides – but most notably those who thought he did. And all I can say is – they are reading off a different page of the scriptures than I am and the Christ I seek to follow is leading in a very different direction.

An Arkansas layperson once boasted to evangelist Charles Templeton that God had given him a Cadillac. Templeton answered him, "It’s interesting that God gave you a Cadillac; He gave His only begotten son a cross. He gave Paul, one of his first and strongest disciples, imprisonment, stoning, shipwreck, and all the other thousand troubles he faced."

Archbishop Oscar Romero who was assassinated nearly 27 years ago and who worked fiercely with and for the poor in El Salvador wrote these life reflective words,

"The commitment to be a Christian is this: to follow Christ in the incarnation. If Christ is the majestic God who becomes human, humble unto a slave’s death on a cross, and who lives with the poor, so should be our Christian faith. The Christian who doesn’t wish to live this commitment of solidarity with the poor is not worthy to be called a Christian.

Christ invites us not to fear persecution because, believe me, bothers and sisters, one who is committed to the poor must run the same fate as the poor. And in El Salvador we know what the fate of the poor signifies: to disappear, to be tortured, to be captive – and to be found dead.

If God accepts the sacrifice of my life, may my blood be the seed of freedom and the sign that hope will soon become a reality."

And listen to what St. John Chrysostom said at the end of the 4th century,

"Beautify your house by all means, but also look to the poor; or rather, look to the poor first. No one was ever condemned for not adorning his house; but those who neglect the poor are faced with the everlasting fires of hell…Adorn your house as you please, but do not forget those in distress. They are temples of far greater worth."

What About Poverty?

Throughout time it has been a concern. And it’s not surprising that the wealthy have often quoted Jesus when he said,

"The poor you will always have with you."

And so some think that absolves them of doing much of anything. I mean, after all, "What’s the use?" Jesus said it, so it must be okay. Jesus was simply stating a fact. Because if you look at Jesus’ entire life and all his teachings about the poor – he was always pointing us in the direction of caring, helping, sharing and making a difference.

Jesus knew well the importance of Deuteronomy 15:11,

"Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’"

As soon as some people become wealthy they actually think they deserve it. But the Bible warns against such an attitude. And I don’t know that I’ve ever met a Christian who thought we shouldn’t pray for the poor. But as that great English Congregational Minister, P.T. Forsyth reminded us,

"What is the value of praying for the poor if all the rest of our time and interest is given only to becoming rich?"

Surely Forsyth was pointing us to the importance of the truth of the book of James in the New Testament, chapter 2: 14-17,

"What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead."

Prayer has the greatest power when it is merged with action.

Back in the 1960’s Lyndon B. Johnson began the war on poverty. And while obviously it wasn’t eliminated in the country – we did make a significant dent in it – cutting the number of people living in poverty in half. Since that time we have lost some of the focus – focusing instead on other things.

When we consider that nearly three billion people – half the world’s population – live on the equivalent of two dollars or less a day, global poverty is a staggering concern. Now, I’m not going to cite statistics which could go on and on. And I’m not going to lay a guilt trip on you either.

Let me simply say I believe that if we placed a huge focus on poverty here in the United States and that of the world – and I mean huge – the threat of terrorism would diminish. But what do I know?

So, What About Poverty?

This sermon is not meant to be prescriptive in terms of how you make a difference with respect to poverty. I know you can go away writing me off and justifying why you shouldn’t take up the cause of the poor on a regular daily basis. But remember, I’m simply the messenger who is convinced that the message of the scriptures and our God who is still speaking is that we are called to struggle with making a regular difference on behalf of the poor.

What About Poverty?

I will conclude as I did last week with peace – because I believe the two are closely related.

What About Poverty?

However you choose to pursue addressing it…I say…Go for it!

Amen!