JULY52024

I will send famine upon the land: Not a famine of bread, or thirst for water, but for hearing the word of the LORD. The prophet Amos lived in a time of great economic disparity. The “haves” had a lot — and they had so much by “trampling upon the needy,” by exploiting the have nots. The prophet threatens society with great social upheaval because of the injustice in the system. (Was he chuckling a little when he said: “I will make every head bald?“) The greatest threat was to withhold the word of God, to make it difficult to know the will of God. If they weren’t listening to the word of God about the obligation to care for the poor, they won’t understand anything God is telling them. It reminds me of our time. The Bible could not be clearer about the responsibility to care for the immigrant and the “resident alien.” The resistance that we as a nation have to fulfill that Biblical injunction might be why we cannot move forward together in finding what God wants us to do.