Archbishop of Sydney

His Eminence,
Cardinal George Pell
Cardinal Priest of the Title of S. Maria Domenica Mazzarello

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Home > Our Archbishop > Homilies 2003 > Article	Printable Version

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

St Mary's Cathedral
Amos 7:12-15; Eph 1:3-10; Mk 6:7-13

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
13 July 2003

Today’s reading from the prophet Amos prompted me to say a few word generally on the role of the prophets in the Old Testament and more particularly on Amos, who is the first of the so-called minor prophets, the first prophet whose message was written down and preserved for us. He began to teach and prophesy about 760 years before Christ’s birth, when Jeroboam II was king of Israel, then at the peak of its prosperity. His message is a tough one, not balanced up too much by beautiful references to God’s faithfulness and love as you find in Hosea and Micah, whose “reproaches” are used in our Good Friday liturgy.

The three greatest of the prophets were Ezekiel and Isaiah, who wrote during the Jewish people’s exile in Babylon, and Jeremiah, who was active immediately before the Babylonians captured Jerusalem. Incidentally in Jerusalem they have excavated 10 or 20 metres below the present surface part of the walls and one narrow gate through which the Babylonians entered. Spear tips and other odds and ends there have been dated to about this time early in the sixth century B.C.

The beginnings of Jewish prophecy are found from about the time of Saul and then David, the first Jewish kings, more than 1000 years before Christ. There were two types; (a) the seers or clairvoyants, like Samuel; and (b) the ecstatics, associated with a local shrine, who would often utter words they felt were not their own, under the influence of music and frenzied dancing. Amos was at pains to explain that he did not come from one of these groups, but was a shepherd from a small village on the edge of the desert of Judah, who had been called by God himself to give out his grim message of impending doom for the northern kingdom of Israel.

For us today a prophet is someone who foretells the future and Our Lord certainly saw himself as the Messiah whom the prophets had said was to come. Many prophets and righteous people had desired to see what the disciples were seeing (Mt. 13.17), Jesus explained.

In their own day the prophets preached, taught and often used symbolic actions to make their point. Jeremiah wore a yoke on his shoulders at one stage and Isaiah went naked; something Francis of Assisi did briefly early his career. They called their people to repentance, emphasising what God wanted and often pointing out the unfortunate consequences of not doing God’s will. The call to repentance and right conduct, God’s uncomfortable demands in the here and now were more central to their work than foretelling the consequences of present activity.

It is consoling to remember that we belong to such an ancient tradition, going back over 3000 years, dedicated to the worship of the one true God, belonging to a community which has enjoyed a special covenant or relationship with God since then; a community of individuals and families trying to do the right thing by God and one another, who often had to struggle with circumstances much more difficult than our own.

In today’s reading we hear of Amos’ expulsion from the college of prophets at Bethel, the royal sanctuary, the national temple. He was not too perturbed because it was God, not any group of humans, who had told him to prophesy to the people of Israel.

Amos believed strongly in the importance of the one true God, Yahweh as He is called, the Lord of the physical universe. The priests at the sanctuaries of Bethel, Galgal and Dan are wrong on two important counts. They are encouraging lip service, a formal performance of worship rather than a true religion of the heart. They have forgotten that election as God’s people brings with it significant obligations.

More significantly in these sanctuaries foreign deities, false gods are being worshipped. A type of syncretism, a mixture of the true and the false, a smorgasbord, with the priests making a variety of offerings was being practised. Today the bits and pieces may be different, but we know too about à la carte religion.

Amos also vigorously denounces the leaders of Samaria for their oppression of the poor, their greed and their sensuality. He believed they had no sense of justice, no awareness of the rights of the defenceless poor.

Amos believed that if the sinners repented, God would save them. “Seek me that you may live” is God’s central call.

However he concluded that he was speaking to the deaf; speaking to a brick wall, as we used to say. As a consequence the Day of the Lord was coming, a new and terrifying day of wrath. And in fact the Assyrians did come and destroy Samaria, the Northern Kingdom of 10 of the Jewish tribes in 721. Only the southern remnant of Judah was to survive into the future as the Jewish people.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.