Proper 10C (RCL) – A Preacher’s Ponderings

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.

10 July 2016
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 10C (RCL)
Amos 7:7-17
Psalm 82
Colossians 1:1-14
Luke 10:25-37

Amos was not a polite man. Rage seldom expresses itself politely. Amos expresses God’s indictment of the various lands surrounding Israel and Judah, and a reader who believed that God had chosen Israel and Judah as God’s special possession would expect Amos to shift from indictment to consolation when her turns his words toward God’s chosen. Instead, he includes them in the list of indicted nations, and on the same charges: oppression and abuse of the poor and helpless. When, in God’s name, the prophet finally says, “You alone have I favored among all the families of the earth,” it is only to tell them that God will punish their crimes more severely, because they should have known better. Not what they would have wanted to hear. Continue reading “Neighbors”