Not Exactly a Kodak moment...

“Not Exactly a Kodak Moment”

 

Amos 8:4-7
8:4 Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land,

8:5 saying, "When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances,

8:6 buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat."

8:7 The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.

 

Last week, we had fun with some images from one of my favorite TV shows, Seinfeld. Billed as a “show about nothing,” it turns out it well-illustrated all five of the lection passages last week by actually being a “show about everything,” just like the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as they both are about relationships. Nothing is as important in life as our relationships, beginning with our relationship with God, followed by a healthy relationship within ourselves, and then, of course, with our friends, family, and significant others. Life without relationships is not only unhealthy, it is virtually impossible. I was pondering last week’s message this week, and thinking of the one “unpardonable sin” mentioned in the Bible, something called “blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.” There are a whole lot of hair-brained ideas about what that is, but I always thought it was pretty simple—a person who just keeps denying God’s attempts to love them and reconcile them, right up until there is no more time left, is probably “guilty” of this “sin.” It isn’t as much a “sin” as an eternal sadness, especially on God’s part. The closest thing I can think of in the human realm  would be a parent who deeply loves a child who gets caught up in an addiction to, say, drugs, and the harder that parent tries to embrace and “save” the child, the more they resist and pull away. I can’t imagine anything as painful as what that parent experiences if that offspring resists until they succumb to the addiction. There is such emptiness in that, and the grief is deep beyond imagination. “Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit” must be like an addiction to resisting the grace of God and pushing God away until there is no more time left. How deeply grieved God must be. You see where I’m going—this “unforgivable sin” is just shutting out the saving power of relationship until there are no more chances to reconcile. 

 

One of the positive things about writing my “retirement sermons” for this blog is that I can do stuff like I just did—share some of my personal ruminations with you from a previous message. I would have never tried that in the pulpit, as it would have been too obfuscating for the current week’s message. I hope that hasn’t happened here, as we look to the Amos passage!

 

What got me off on that tangent was thinking about how light-hearted the Seinfeld message was, compared with the stern indictment of the “minor” prophet Amos, this week! A reminder that “minor” prophets are only labeled thusly because they weren’t as gassy as the “major” prophets with their narrative. Amos is a good example of short and hostile. Major prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah tell stories, use allegory, and do their best to hook the hearts of the reader/listeners to “over hear” what they are trying to say to the people of God on God’s behalf. Minor prophets sent “tweets” more like “yield signs,” or in many cases, just a big, red “STOP” sign. They weren’t so much elegant as “electric,” like a charged cow fence. Unlike the major prophets, who often reminded Israel of the “Kodak moments” when all was well, with an eye to cajoling the people to return to the scene of the nice photo, the minor prophets are one of those hidden traffic cameras that catches you in the act and sends you a copy of the photo of you sinning boldly, with an accompanying “judgment.” Ever see the Mythbusters episode where they tried all of the rumored ways to “beat” one of those computerized traffic cameras? None of them worked. So it is with the minor prophets, and so it is in what we read today from Amos.

 

Amos not so subtly states his charge right up front: God’s gonna’ get you for taking advantage of the poor. He then gives a brief example of how Israel will do this, and then in the last verse warns that God will never forget any of their deeds. When I first read this, my initial assumption that the prophet is saying that angering God by taking advantage of the poor (180 degrees from what God COMMANDS they do for the poor and the “sojourner”) will bring God’s judgment for doing so. But if you read it again, one may come to the conclusion that the prophet is saying that “trampling on the needy” may totally negate God’s willingness to forgive any of the people’s sins. Not THAT’S a serious deal, akin to “blasphemy of the Holy Spirit” in the New Testament corpus. As I related in an earlier message, nothing is as scary as the parable of Jesus where a guy is forgiven a great debt by his master, and then he goes out and has some poor schlep who owes him a five-spot thrown into debtors’ prison because he can’t repay him. This is pretty much what is going on here, only in the future tense. If God restores the fortunes of Israel, and they use this as an opportunity to scam the poor by using smaller containers to sell them grain, and then boosting the price for less quantity, God will be very, very upset with these people and will never forget their sins. Friends, no one wants a “Kodak moment” like that! Personally, I want God to forgive and forget my sins as far as the East is from the West. Amos is not only warning Israel here, but is telling us all what really hacks God off—“trampling on the needy.” Are we guilty of such things?

 

The appeared in the New York Times on Tuesday an Op-Ed piece by an architectural designer by the name of Adam Paul Susaneck, who writes a stirring “expose” of modern “urban renewal.” Susaneck points out that in the 1960s, when urban renewal became a “thing” in most of our larger cities, homes were taken from predominantly Black and Brown people under the process of eminent domain, and bulldozed to create new highways and modern “urban centers” that mostly benefitted white people. Persons of color were inadequately compensated for their properties, pushed out of their homes and indigenous neighborhoods (which were often also bulldozed), and then “redlined” from being allowed to purchase property in the growing “suburbs,” which were mostly becoming homes to “white flight,” or the white people moving out of the cities. Persons of color were either just “sent away” to fend for themselves, or were forced into  government-built tenements that ruined their culture and superimposed its own on them. The unrest and poverty this action created caused crime rates to increase, and civic leaders responded by building larger fences and hiring more police, even going to the point of “militarizing” them. In some cases, where persons of color were not necessarily uprooted, huge new highways and overpasses were built, catering to the growing popularity of the automobile, and cutting off the Black and Brown neighborhoods from the rest of the “renewing” urban landscape. 

 

I attended Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, located in East Liberty. Back in the 1960s, urban renewal there meant closing off the downtown, building a multi-lane “circle” of roads around it, and putting all the parking out of the city. The theory was that persons could drive to the “renewed” East Liberty, circle the downtown in your car, park it in one of the new “outer rim” parking areas, and then walk into the new “urban mall” on foot. Honestly, it wasn’t even a practical theory then, but it’s what they built, and businesses downtown began to fail, because people weren’t willing to navigate the traffic patterns and often didn’t feel save walking into the downtown, especially at night. Even the police couldn’t drive into the center of the city, which gave way to rising crime rates. In the ensuing years, East Liberty almost died. Sometime just before I attended Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in the f1980s, downtown East Liberty was opened up again, and with traffic flowing, it began to recover. However, much damage had already been done to the fabric of the city, and persons of color had again been displaced or “cut off” by this urbanization.

 

If Amos were alive today, he’d be taking his message of “trampling on the needy” to city councils and these “urban planners,” offering his strong warning. I wish I could share some good news that we have learned from these “urban renewal” projects of the 60s, but NO, the article by Susaneck covered a variety of BRAND NEW urban projects going on around the country that will potentially be just as destructive to neighborhood cultures and persons of color as those of the earlier era! He “lowlights” a big urban road project going on in Houston, one of the nations fastest growing cities, that will cut off or destroy several large, predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods. The Biden administration, invoking the Civil Rights Act, has placed a freeze on the project, but since the infrastructure bill that was passed frees up billions of dollars for “urban renewal,” this may be nothing but a “finger in the dike.” Oh, and East Liberty? A number of low-income high-rise apartments have been raised to make way for an upscale “regentrification” of that area, and low income persons—most especially Black persons and families—are being forced out again. “Urban Renewal” is just one huge example of how we continue to “trample on the needy,” to make way for better life and higher profits for “the chosen.” There are more.

 

Car companies are “upsizing” their vehicles again. Ford, GM, and Chrysler are all killing off lower cost, small sedans in favor of SUVs and trucks. And even as we push for more electric cars to help save the environment, all of these “new designs” are far more expensive than, say, a Ford Focus or a Chevy Spark. And with the vehicle shortage brought about by the COVID pandemic, used car prices are through the roof. Who is mostly being affected by this? Again, low income persons! The continued popularity of automobiles has also marginalized public transportation, making it less and less viable. And how to the “needy” among us travel when it’s too far to walk? You guessed it—the bus.

 

Check out the grocery store shelves. Inflation aside, we see more and more food being packaged in smaller packages, but with escalating prices. Bacon, for example, is really expensive, and much of it is packaged in 12 ounce packages, instead of one pound ones. Likewise with cereal, laundry detergents, and certain other staples. “New and Improved” usually means “you get less and will pay more.” Again, it is the low income persons who suffer the most.

 

If we turn the binoculars around and look at the “macro” picture, we might hear Amos’ warnings aimed at the larger question on income and wealth inequity. The systems we have built—at least here in the United States—are designed to make it easier for the already-well-healed to become even bigger “heals,” while it preys on the middle class and the poor. Much has been written about the “shrinking middle class,” but what is really happening is that those on the upper half of the traditional middle class are fighting to move into the more monied group at the top, because they don’t want to slide into the “needier” group below. Unfortunately, the “lie” that is being proffered, that “anyone” can be financially successful, is pushing something it will never deliver, and those who do not make it ”up,” will most assuredly fall down, and this is especially true of the traditionally marginalized groups such as women and persons of color. The “system” we have evolved gives a wonderfully “high tech” look to “trampling on the needy,” doesn’t it? Keep your eyes open, people. When you hear someone extoling the virtues of how “anyone” can be a great success in America, look at the color of their skin and the content of their bank account. Amos and Martin Luther King, Jr. will both be rolling over in their graves.

 

How do you think God feels about all of this? Amos would say, “Not too good.” So would Jesus, I’m afraid. When he talked about “causing the little ones to stumble” and “not giving a cup of cold water to the least of these,” what do you think he was saying? My educated guess is that 99.999% of you reading this message are middle class folk, and probably mostly white. What can we do? We certainly can give to charity and volunteer to help those less fortunate, but we’re probably not going to make too many waves in the sea of poverty, as we just don’t control the lion’s share of the resources. But we can VOTE, and we are the largest voting bloc in the country! What if we acted like righteous persons and started putting people in power who would work for fairness for all of God’s people? Voting for those who have a plan for creating more equity in America, and giving everyone a chance at a quality education? Stood up to protest against “urban renewal” projects that displace low-income persons and persons of color? Organized to expand widely the “privilege” we have enjoyed as white people in middle class America? Might we head off the judgment Amos warns of? 

 

I know this: it IS time to stop putting persons in power who “practice deceit,” as Amos says—those who claim to be for all the people, but who clearly represent those with enough money to keep them in power, and who are “colorblind,” but in the most prejudicial way you can imagine. We in the middle class can do that, but we must be willing to move out of our “bubble.” Oh, and remember, that “bubble” is protecting less and less of us, as our “power” is being drained off to feed those at the top of the Darwinian financial and political ladder.

 

If we continue to grieve God with our “trampling of the needy,” we will at some point pass the line of “no return.” We will have “blasphemed the Holy Spirit” to the point that we run out of time to fix things. I don’t know what that will look like, but between pandemics, financial crashes, and runaway inflation, maybe we are seeing a sample of it? Let us “turn from our wicked ways” and seek reconciliation with the Divine, AND the Divine in our fellow human neighbors, before it’s too late.

 

Not exactly a “Kodak moment,” is it? 

 

PRAYER: Dear God, help your people heed the words of the prophet Amos and wake up. Prompt us to get over ourselves and fulfilling only OUR desires, that have resulted in “trampling the needy” all around us. Show us the wisdom to reverse the trends that make this worse; give us the “want to” to make it better for all of your beloved people. In Jesus’ name. Amen.