Neighbors

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost; 10 July 2022; Proper 10C (RCL); Amos 7:7-17; Psalm 82; Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37.

In Track 1 in the RCL, we read through the major events in Old Testament history, and in Year C, Ordinary Time, we’re reading through the end of the two kingdoms. Amos is the first prophet of whom we have any record of his sayings. He is beginning to predict the collapse of the Northern Kingdom. As would become the standard trope of the deuteronomistic historians, Amos lays the blame for the impending collapse squarely in the kingdom itself, and particularly its king. Never mind the geopolitical forces that would bring disaster to both Israel and Judah, it is their faithlessness, according to the prophets, that brings about their end.

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