The Prophetic Tradition

Deacon Tom Writes,

The Prophetic Tradition

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

The Prophet Amos who speaks to us in our first reading today was a shepherd of Tekoa in Judah during the prosperous reign of Jeroboam II from 786-746 B.C. For several weeks now we have heard him speak of the injustices against the poor and the complacency of the people of his day. Like all prophetic messages, his was very unpopular. Amos told the people that there would be a day of reckoning for how they treated the poor. He foretells a time when God would destroy Jerusalem and send his people into exile. The fulfillment of this prophecy took place in 597 B.C., an event history records as the Babylonian Captivity.

Amos belonged to a very special group of Old Testament authors known as the Minor Prophets. Included in this genre of very irritating people are Hosea, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Prophets were irritating because they delivered unpopular messages. The messages they delivered were not their own, but God’s. Prophets encouraged the people to return to God and be faithful to him. Not surprisingly, these individuals also foretold the dismal consequences that awaited the people of Israel for their prideful disobedience. Inherent in the prophetic message, however, was always a call to turn away from sin and return to the love of God.

It has been thousands of years since the Old Testament Prophets spoke out against the evils of their times. Yet the passage of time has not silenced their message. There are people today who continue to speak those messages that no one wants to hear. The message that the poor are being treated unjustly, that immigrants are being exploited, that people are being victimized by unjust wars, that we today, like the people of Amos’s day, or like Lazarus in today’s gospel, do not see the injustice and suffering of those around us. It seems that the real sin we all face today in our comfort and our abundance is that the poor and the needy have become invisible to us or worse yet, we have become indifferent to the “cries of the poor”. We have pushed the suffering souls to the fringes of our society so that our paths will seldom cross or our eyes will ever meet.

Let us give thanks for the likes of St. Teresa of Calcutta, Nelson Mandela, Thomas Merton, Sr. Helen Prejean, Desmond Tutu, Henri Nouwen, Jean Vanier,  St. John Paul II, Martin Luther King Jr., and Dorothy Day to name but a few faithful and courageous souls whose lives and witness have helped keep the embers of the prophetic tradition smoldering in our times, who have helped enlivened the spirits of so many others to continue to do the irritating work of the prophets who have gone before us. May we listen to their words and respond faithfully to the "cry of the poor".  

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom