God Gets Pissed at Our Politics – Amos 8:1-12

What this episode covers

People often call for the separation of state and religion, but in reality, we tread in the middle especially for LGBTQ+ Christians, every day. The scripture today calls for us to strengthen our faith while fighting for those who are oppressed. It calls for us to question the system and the politics that continue to undervalue those who are having trouble supporting themselves. Episode TranscriptBrian: Welcome to the Queer Theology podcast! Fr. Shay: Where each episode, we take a queer look at the week’s lectionary readings. We’re the co-founders of QueerTheology.com and the hosts for this podcast. I’m Father Shay Kearns  B: And I’m Brian G. Murphy. FS: Hello, hello, and welcome to the QueerTheology podcast. It’s Sunday, July 21st and this week we are going to take a look at Amos 1-12, I’m gonna go ahead and read it for us. It will also be on the show notes, you can access those at QueerTheology.com/286, but again, Amos 1-12. B: And that’s Amos 8:1-12 FS: Yes, thank you. This is what the Lord God showed me: a basket of summer fruit. He said, “Amos, what do you see?” I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again forgive them. On that day, the people will wail the temple songs,” says the Lord God; “there will be many corpses, thrown about everywhere. Silence.” Judgment on oppressors and hypocrites Hear this, you who trample on the needy and destroy the poor of the land, 5 saying, “When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath so that we may offer wheat for sale, make the ephah smaller, enlarge the shekel, and deceive with false balances, in order to buy the needy for silver and the helpless for sandals, and sell garbage as grain?” The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget what they have done. Will not the land tremble on this account, and all who live in it mourn, as it rises and overflows like the Nile, and then falls again, like the River of Egypt? On that day, says the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into sad affairs and all your singing into a funeral song; I will make people wear mourning clothes and shave their heads; I will make it like the loss of an only child, and the end of it like a bitter day. The days are surely coming, says the Lord God, when I will send hunger and thirst on the land; neither a hunger for bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the Lord ’s words. They will wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they will roam all around, seeking the Lord’s word, but they won’t find it. Yeah! What do we do with this? B: So, I am obsessed with Amos. One of my favorite passages in the Bible of all time is in Amos. Amos 5:18-24 which I will put links to in the show notes for this episode which you can get at QueerTheology.com/286. But Amos is just like most, if not all of the Hebrew prophets, does not mince words and has some harsh things to say. What struck me about reading the text this time, I love this process of going through the lectionary and sort of revisiting text over and over again, and sort of uncover new meaning each time. This is actually the first time doing this passage on this podcast, but what struck at me this time while reading this passage that right here at the beginning it says: The Lord said to me, “The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again forgive them.” It’s kind of like fun to see an angsty God here, because we just know that that is not true, right? So either God is an unreliable person, thing, being that changes God’s mind or sort of makes empty threats. And/or, the people recording their accounts of the Bible run their experience of God through their own personal lens and narrative and experience and it shifts by the context at their end. And/or God really never is going to forgive us ever again. So, that is something that sticks out at m