Amos 6

Sometimes Scripture functions to comfort the upset and to upset the comfortable. Amos 6 is one of those passages. In the list of the 7 Deadly Sins, near the top are sloth and pride- the two sins being talked about in this passage. In an earlier post I quotes George Bernard Shaw- "indifference is the essence of inhumanity." And it works right here too. This passage starts with the complacent; specifically, the powerful. They are the ones "to whom the people of Israel come" (Amos 6:1). They are the heroes, the ones who have the power to affect change. But they just sit and ignore the world around (and below) them, cheerfully distracting themselves with parties and lots and lots of alcohol. And the comfortable couches and drunken parties have kept them from seeing that Israel is collapsing. All of their neighbors are more powerful and are still about to be brought into exile by the Assyrian Empire. But as long as the distractions keep coming, they will be fine. It is similar to the days of the Roman Empire, when the empire was collapsing, the rulers would throw festival after festival in the Colosseum, hoping to distract their people into ignoring the disaster they were in. Or perhaps it is like an entire society watching talking heads screaming at each other on the television, ignoring the problems of the people around them. Who knows?

Amos also brings up pride, and this is a place where we see the sarcasm of the prophets. Amos brings up the conquest of "Lo Debar" in verse 13. Before you scramble to a map to find Lo Debar, don't. It literally means nothing. Lo means no, debar generally speaking means thing or word. The pride of the people is misplaced. They have conquered nothing. They believe that they have taken strength by strength, pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and made it happen. But the Biblical stories and the prophets make it clear- that is not how the story really goes. But pride is a unique poison. It blinds, deafens and paralyzes. It rewrites history to favor us, and re-casts our opponents as vicious villains (all defeated, of course).

Pride and sloth are dangerous, yes, deadly sins. They invite disaster and welcome the oppressor. After all, their is no easier opponent to face than one who is lazy but thinks they are unbeatable. And so we are reaching the climax of Amos, the fact that the exile of Israel is coming. The Assyrian army will waltz into Samaria and take the nobles and all the people into captivity. But we will talk about that another day.