Delivered on Sunday 27 January 2008 in St George's Chapel

Amos 3:1-8

I don't suppose Amos was a student of logic but in today's reading he gives us a list of what we might call if-then statements. You know the kind of thing: if you put your hand in the fire then, as sure as eggs is eggs, your hand will get burnt. And essentially - although you have to do a bit of mucking around - these are the kind of statements made by Amos. So for example, he has 'if a lion roars in the thicket then, as sure as eggs is eggs, he has captured his prey'; 'if a trumpet sounds in the city then, as sure as eggs is eggs, the people get frightened'; 'if a lion roars then, as sure as eggs is eggs, those who hear it are afraid'. In total he has nine such statements; nine 'as sure as eggs is eggs' pronouncements.

But what are they all about? The answer is rather troubling and far from comfortable. What Amos is really saying is this: 'if you do certain things then, as sure as eggs is eggs, God will punish you'. He drives that point home by describing the clear consequences of some everyday events. When some things happen then there are definite consequence. So it is in our relationship with God. There is no doubt that Amos has in his mind a picture of God the judge. And that's a picture we aren't often asked to contemplate. We hear a lot about 'God is love'; we hear relatively little about 'God is judge'. Yet both the Old Testament and the New are clear that God is indeed our judge.

Alright, so God is judge. But what, in this instance, are the Israelites guilty of? Amos is speaking sometime in the eighth century before the birth of Christ. It's a time of great prosperity. There are folk with both winter and summer houses; these houses are wonderfully constructed and are furnished with fine ivory decorations; [1] and in these houses are the most magnificent banquets, with choice meats, wine, and music. But there are also very poor folk. And as Amos sees it, the rich are only rich because of the way in which they treat the poor. Or as he puts it himself, the rich 'hoard violence and oppression for themselves'. To put it bluntly, this is a failed society; failed because it fails to live up to covenant requirements. Yes the covenant does indeed promise prosperity to Israel but it is a prosperity based not on violence and oppression; 'instead' Amos tells the people 'let justice flow on like a river and righteousness like a never-failing torrent'. [2]

You can imagine the reception Amos got. To begin it he was rocking the boat and to make matters worse he wasn't even from around these parts, he was a blow-in. Those who heard him, scratched their heads, thought he was out of his tiny little mind, and continued with their same old ways. But Amos had the last laugh, if laugh it was, for before very long the mighty Assyrians arrived and that was the end of summer homes, ivory chairs and Chateau Batailley. The 'I'm all right Jack' attitude ended in catastrophe; for as sure as eggs is eggs, judgment had indeed arrived.

Of course, the reluctance to critically self-evaluate, to contemplate a real change in living patterns is not something restricted to the Ancient World. Take for example, a statement made only a short number of years ago by Ari Fleischer, one of President Bush's spokesmen. He was asked if America would do something to reduce its energy consumption. 'That', said Ari, 'would be a big no'. And he went on:

The President believes that it's an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy-makers to protect [it]. The American way of life is a blessed one ... The President also believes that the American people's use of energy is a reflection of the strength of our economy, of the way of life that the American people have come to enjoy. [3]

In these words you hear the same kind of prosperity that Amos audience were well used to. They will have remembered those fantastic promises laid down in Deuteronomy.

[If you the people of God follow my statutes and commandments] you will enjoy long life. ... You will have houses full of good things you did not provide, cisterns hewn from the rock but not by you, and vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant. [4]

These are fantastic promises but they are part of a bargain - the good stuff only comes about if the commandments are followed; and those commandments are choc-a-block with instructions about how to care for the poor. And this is the problem Amos is pointing to. Sure, there are many who enjoy the good things but that wealth has been achieved by - and I quote:

Giving short measure in the bushel and taking overweight in the silver, tilting the scales fraudulently, and selling the refuse of the wheat; that we may buy the weak for silver and the poor for a pair of sandals. [5]

Amos may well have been speaking well over two and a half thousand years ago but he would have muttered a quiet 'I told you so' if he had read the papers this week. Monday greeted us with the highly publicised comments of Sir Stuart Rose, the chief executive of Marks & Spencer. He made the claim that the UK is fast becoming a very divided nation: the rich who live inside the M25 - and the rest. [6] Then there have the recent reports of clothing made for Western consumption, clothing made by children for paltry pocket money. [7] And then last year, the rather shocking report that big pharmaceutical companies had performed clinical trials on around 400,000 people living in poorer parts of the world. [8]

Now I don't know the details of these three instances and even if I did I probably couldn't understand them. But what I do know is that every economic system - whether ancient or modern - is frail; it is open to abuse. The system we enjoy finds its theoretical roots in the work of eighteenth century Scottish economist Adam Smith - you know chap, he's the one who supplanted Edward Elgar on the back of the twenty pound note. Anyway his book The Wealth of Nations is widely considered to be the most important book ever published in the field of economics. And in it he unashamedly tells us that our economic system is constructed on self-interest! He says: 

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. [9]

A system that is blatantly fired up by self-interest is a system that needs to be doubly careful to ensure the well-being of the disenfranchised, the poor, the marginalised. The self-interest must be balanced - somehow and everywhere - with an interest for the other. That is exactly Amos' point. And although his words are long gone in the wind, and although his words were painfully fulfilled; they are still not exhausted. As sure as eggs is eggs.

[1] Amos 3:15

[2] Amos 5:24

[3] Clive Hamilton, 'Building on Kyoto', NLR, 45 (2007), 91-103 (p. 93)

[4] Deuteronomy 6:2 and 11

[5] Amos 8:5-6

[6] The Guardian, Monday, 21 January 2008, p. 24.

[7] http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2200573,00.html

[8] Kaushik Sunder Rajan, 'Experimental Values', NLR, 45 (2007), 67- 88 (p. 69).

[9] Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations