The Park Forum

Links for today’s readings:

Apr 24  Read: Amos 8 Listen: (2:16) Read: Matthew 28 Listen: (2:39)

Links for this weekend’s readings:

Apr 25  Read: Amos 9 Listen: (3:08) Read: Psalm 73 Listen: (2:56)
Apr 26  Read: Obadiah 1 Listen: (3:28) Read: Psalm 74 Listen: (2:34)

Reflection: Famine-Bread vs the Bread of Life

By John Tillman

Weather, war, economics, and ecological disasters cause famines. The worst famines have multiple causes.

The Irish Potato Famine began with a fungal blight on potatoes in 1845. It was worsened by tariffs and economic policies of the British government that caused every other kind of food produced in Ireland to be exported to England while millions of Irish people starved to death.

In 1932, the Holodomor, which means “death by hunger,” in Ukraine began with mismanagement. Russia intentionally weaponized and worsened the shortages to crush Ukrainian identity and break resistance to Soviet control. Millions died.

In 1941 Axis powers began an 872 day blockade of Leningrad to cause starvation, desperation, and surrender. An estimated 1.5 million people died—nearly half the city’s population.

Famine victims eat strange or disgusting things. Non-food animals, like dogs, cats, rats, mice, and insects are first. Famine victims also boil and eat leather from shoes, handbags, or saddles to get scraps of protein and items of cotton or linen to fill stomachs. They stretch flour by mixing it with dirt, sawdust, clay, or ground bones. They eat animal-based glues, such as bookbinding or hide glue and scrape the paste off of old wallpaper because it contains potato starches. Cannibalism also occurs, both in some modern examples and biblical ones.

God promised a strange famine to Israel. He took his word from them precisely because they wouldn’t listen to it. He removed food they were already refusing to eat.

Imagine a city with free, delicious bread on every corner. Yet, people scrounge for flour, mix it with dirt and sawdust and eat horrific loaves of famine-bread instead. That’s a picture of Amos’s Samaria and our world today.

We have greater access to God’s word, the Bible, today than ever before. It is like the bread of life is on every corner, yet we ignore it. We need God’s word so badly that ignoring it long enough leads to gorging on disgusting substitutes. We fill our sickened bellies with anything to hide pangs of hunger for God.

Leaders read fake Bible verses (or misapply real ones) on national media. We mix a little Bible with a little politics, a little self-help psychology, and a popular film, and make famine-bread wisdom to eat. And we wonder why our stomachs ache.

Stop eating famine-bread. Devote yourself to the bread of life in God’s uncut and unadulterated word, the Bible.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer

Search for the Lord and his strength; continually seek his face. — Psalm 105.4

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: God of the Weak and Doubtful

Thank God, that he is the God of the weak and the doubtful.
In doubt hold out your hands.
In weakness cling to him.

God of the Weak and Doubtful

Read more: Better Things to be Doing

In moments of worship, whether private or corporate, may we remember there is nothing more profitable that we could be doing than worshiping God.

Better Things to be Doing

Links for today’s readings:

Apr 22  Read: Amos 6 Listen: (2:13) Read: Matthew 26 Listen: (10:01)

Scripture Focus: Amos 6:1, 4

1 Woe to you who are complacent in Zion,
    and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria,
you notable men of the foremost nation,
    to whom the people of Israel come!

4 You lie on beds adorned with ivory
    and lounge on your couches.
You dine on choice lambs
    and fattened calves.

Reflection: Let Them Eat Cake

By Erin Newton

“Better a low motive than no motive,” my mother used to say. The statement was always somewhat of a joke, noting how action was at least better than inaction. As far as a Christian ethic is concerned, I don’t think it’s really the mindset we are supposed to adopt. But what about inaction? If action is better than inaction, is inaction better than… wrong action? Or are they both just as bad?

Amos declares to Israel’s elite that they are complacent. Complacency is defined as: “marked by satisfaction with the status quo especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies.” Satisfied with the status quo alongside obliviousness toward danger. Synonyms are “self-satisfied” or “unconcerned” or “apathetic.” Amos could have just said, Woe to you who are satisfied with how things are and are oblivious to the dangers in Israel.

Do they approve of the dangers in Israel? It doesn’t necessarily say that they are participating in the danger or that they are financing or supporting the evil around them. They simply do not care enough to react.

The “notable men of the foremost nation” implies that these were the elite, the powerful, the important leaders of the community. What are they doing? They are lounging. They are lying around in their fancy furnishings. They are eating their expensive foods. They are comfortable. They lack nothing. But most importantly to God, they lack empathy.

Sometimes we view overt sinful actions as the worst thing we can do. That mindset leads us to avoid evil (which is a good thing) but can lead us to avoid doing anything. Amos reminds us that there is something just as bad as doing evil, it is to care so little that we do nothing.

Why don’t the notable people of Israel do or say something? I assume they fear losing the luxuries they have. Like Marie Antoinette, when faced with the starving multitudes who beg for a crumb of bread, the elite shrug and reply, “Let them eat cake.”

Maybe the fear is not just losing one’s own comforts but not knowing where provisions will come from. In contrast to this apathetic mindset, Jesus faced a multitude of hungry people and told his disciples, “Feed them.”

Complacency is abhorred by God just as much as sinful actions. Let us open our eyes and loosen our grips to see the dangers in our community and then do something.

Divine Hours Prayer: A Reading

Jesus said to the disciples: “In truth I tell you, when everything is made new again and the Son of man is seated on his throne of glory, you yourselves will sit on twelve thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children or land for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times as much, and also inherit eternal life. Many who are first will be last, and the last, first.” — Matthew 19.28-30

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: Of Pride and The Sword

Jesus pointedly referenced the theme of the sword in scripture…a warning to Peter and…a condemnation of religious leaders and the empire with which they were partnering.

Of Pride and The Sword

Read more: Victims and Victimizers

Let us be humble and repentant. Otherwise, God may become terrifying to us and bring comfort, peace, and justice to our victims.

Victims and Victimizers

Links for today’s readings:

Apr 21 Read:  Amos 5 Listen: (3:44) Read: Matthew 25 Listen: (6:04)

Scripture Focus: Amos 5.7, 10, 25-26

7 There are those who turn justice into bitterness 
and cast righteousness to the ground.
10 There are those who hate the one who upholds justice in court 
and detest the one who tells the truth.
25 “Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings 
forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel? 
26 You have lifted up the shrine of your king, 
the pedestal of your idols, 
the star of your god— 
which you made for yourselves.

Reflection: Justice to Wormwood

By John Tillman

As the people ignored Amos’s calls to repent, God called into question Israel’s entire history of worship, implying that in their hearts they had always worshiped a god of success, wealth, and comfort rather than him.

Rather than provide justice (mishpat) to the poor, they were frustrating justice and causing bitterness, more literally, “wormwood.” Wormwood is translated as “bitterness” multiple times. It is symbolic of a curse or poison and may refer to hemlock. For example, wormwood is used to describe the poison of an adulteress whose lips “drip honey,” but in the end, she leads victims to a bitter death. (Proverbs 5.4)

Justice is very much the business of people of faith, and when people ignore it or frustrate it…God notices. God points out that the wealthy enjoy great benefits of stone mansions and lush vineyards (Amos 5.11), but because of their treatment of the poor, the vineyards will be filled with wailing instead of joy and they will be exiled from their comfortable homes. (Amos 5.16-17)

Amos is sympathetic to the plight of living in a corrupt land where justice is denied. “The times are evil” Amos acknowledges and points out that “the prudent keep quiet.” (Amos 5.13) But this acknowledgment of the evil state of the world is not an endorsement of doing nothing or a command to be quiet. Prudence should mean “approaching a problem wisely,” but too often it means “avoiding a problem selfishly.” Rather than avoid trouble, God charges the people to “hate evil, love good” and to “maintain justice in the courts” despite the days being evil.

We are under the same charge. Is there bitterness and poison? We must counter it with justice and righteousness. Justice, or mishpat, is the law being upheld. Righteousness, or sedeq, implies the actions that uphold it. We must not sit quietly but speak out. We must not avoid the unjust but confront them and comfort their victims.

It will not do for us to sing about justice without bringing it to pass. We must bring justice to counter bitterness. We must bring a flood of mishpat to wash away wormwood.

23 Away with the noise of your songs! 
I will not listen to the music of your harps. 
24 But let justice roll on like a river, 
righteousness like a never-failing stream! — Amos 5.23-24

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons

Purge me from my sin, and I shall be pure; wash me, and I shall be clean indeed. — Psalm 51.8

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: A Trinity of Neglect

The goats didn’t actively cause hunger or oppression or sickness. They just didn’t do anything about it.

A Trinity of Neglect :: Readers’ Choice

Read more: Wake-up Call

We need a wake-up call. From the goats, a clamorous claxon resounds: Serve Others! Serve the poor! Serve the hungry! Serve the outcast!

Wake-up Call—Readers’ Choice

Links for today’s readings:

Apr 20  Read: Amos 4 Listen: (2:21) Read: Matthew 24 Listen: (5:59)

Scripture Focus: Amos 4.1-3

Reflection: Fat Cows and Fat Cats

By John Tillman

Amos called Samaria’s women “cows of Bashan.” He wasn’t body shaming, but he was drawing attention to shameful things.

Just as the poet of Song of Songs was not insulting the bride by saying her hair was like a flock of goats (Song of Songs 4.1; 6.5), Amos was not insulting the physical appearance of these women by comparing them to prize cattle.

The region of Bashan was a symbol of wealth and power. Bashan had rugged mountains and terrain (Psalm 68.15-16), towering forests of strong trees (Ezekiel 27.6; Isaiah 2:12-14; Zechariah 11.2), and strong, well-fed cattle of all kinds. These fattened animals were desirable for eating (Ezekiel 39.18) and for sacrifices.

In agrarian societies, cattle are a symbol of culture and wealth. This is why Pharaoh saw fat and skinny cows in his warning dream about the famine. (Genesis 41.1-4) Amos’s “fat cow” metaphor is less instinctive to our finance-driven society, but “fat cats,” which is similarly unrelated to physical appearance, still resonates today. 1920s journalists coined “fat cats” to shame ultrawealthy industrialists and robber-barons who had outsized influence on political campaigns and public policy. Their influence contributed to increasing poverty and the Great Depression. 

Amos shamed the wanton appetites and greed of Samaria’s society that contributed to the oppression of the poor. Their hearts, not their bodies, were misshapen and we can find the same “heart” in our society. Amos would not have to look far today to find “cows of Bashan” and “fat cats” and we don’t either.

Don’t make excuses, thinking Amos only meant uber-wealthy people. His condemnation is broader. Amos wasn’t just talking about rich women—he included everyone. Take the log from your eye first. (Luke 6.41-42) Much more is demanded of those who have been given much (Luke 12.48), however, greed is not just a sickness of the wealthy. It infects us all.

Our society promotes and celebrates unfettered appetites of greed and pleasure. If you want it, you need it. If you need it, you take it. Or, better yet, force someone to give it to you. We cannot sit in this river passively—we’ll be swept away to destruction. We must constantly resist the current by paddling toward mercy, benevolence, and equal justice and anchoring ourselves to the generosity of Christ.

Like God, look at the heart, not outward appearance. (1 Samuel 16.7) It is shameful for those blessed by the generosity of Jesus to find our hearts shaped by greed. Continually confess and repent this cultural influence of greed and power.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence

For the sake of your Name, lead and guide me. — Psalm 31.3

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: Prepared to Meet God

Through the mediation of Jesus, we can prepare to meet God with confidence.

Prepared to Meet God

Read more: Cherishing Chaff

Many things the disciples prized, Jesus recognized as poison. Many things they cherished Jesus called chaff in the wind.

Cherishing Chaff