Reflections on the 15th Sunday's readings

I remember dad’s book by Dale Carnegie, “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”
Amos could have used a copy – though he probably would have thrown it away in disgust.
Prophets aren’t about telling people what they want to hear.
In fact, Amos’ prophecies against the ten northern tribes are pretty harsh.
He likens the women of Samaria to cows “who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their husbands, ‘Bring something to drink!’" and warns "The Lord God has sworn by his holiness: The time is surely coming upon you when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks. Through breaches in the wall you shall leave…”
Foretelling the horrific destruction of their cities by Assyria.

Now Amaziah did take a page or two from Dale Carnegie’s book.
He’s what you might call a “state prophet.” Or what the OT calls a false prophet.
Amaziah, and the whole group of prophets associated with the royal house of Jeroboam, thought of religion in “civil” terms.
It existed to promote loyalty to the status quo—the royal house and patriotism.
Bethel was the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom, a sort of national cathedral.


Amaziah thought of his own role as that of a court chaplain, whose job was to prophesy “smooth things.”


In return, they were financially supported by the king. A nice arrangement for all involved.
Amos, however, was not a card-carrying member of the prophetic guild; he was an outsider whom God had called to denounce the government for its injustices and inhuman policies.



Amaziah tells Amos to go back to the two southern tribes and prophesy there.

So I'm wondering: who are the “state prophets” today?

One option might be the economic experts who did not foresee that artificially inflated housing prices and speculation on housing wouldn’t at some point collapse. Who proposed that the market would gradually and infallibly “correct itself.” We’ve learned the hard way that they were wrong.
Just last week, however, a world leader observed that
"the conviction that the economy must be autonomous, that it must be shielded from “influences” of a moral character, has led man to abuse the economic process in a thoroughly destructive way."

Another potential group who might qualify as "state prophets" are those pundits on our televisions and radios who speak as though America as a nation can do no wrong – that everything we do and are - is good. Of course, you can critique the political party in power if it’s not your own, but any critique of America as a nation is treasonous language.
For the last 20-25 years to a nationalism that, while clothed in religious language, often, that ratifies, rather than challenges, national goals.

When I listen to Bill O’Reilly, I hear lots of critique of newly proposed taxes, bailouts to try to correct the economic crisis as “wealth redistribution” and “socialism.” And yet, that same world leader seems to presume that wealth redistribution is a good and necessary thing. He wrote last week,
"Lowering the level of protection accorded to the rights of workers, or abandoning mechanisms of wealth redistribution in order to increase the country's international competitiveness, hinder the achievement of lasting development

Who wrote that? Some new Karl Marx? Barack Obama? No, Pope Benedict XVI, in his new letter Caritas in Veritate (Love in Truth, 32) He also observed, "Economic life undoubtedly requires contracts, in order to regulate relations of exchange between goods of equivalent value. But it also needs just laws and forms of redistribution governed by politics, and what is more, it needs works redolent of the spirit of gift." CinV, 37

In other words, economics cannot be governed simply by secular theories. Economics has a moral character to it that has to be informed by our understanding of God as a generous giver and every individual person as His son or daughter.

I’m not just bashing conservatives.
We cannot expect to do God’s will when positions based on Christian morality are automatically excluded from public discourse.
In his letter the pope clearly defends marriage as a union between one man and one woman, and makes a case that not only does this make moral sense, it makes economic sense.
Nor can we address the underlying selfishness that has generated our economic crisis and continue to ignore the lack of respect for life that so many liberals espouse.
“If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of a new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away. The acceptance of life strengthens moral fibre and makes people capable of mutual help.” CinV, 28

Furthermore, the Holy Father emphasizes the importance of a key Catholic concept known as subsidiarity, which basically is the idea that decisions in a society ought to be delegated to the smallest competent authority. He is not espousing an ever larger government edifice that stifles individual human initiative.

The Holy Father seems to be speaking right to Americans when he addresses the problems of people thinking only of their rights, and not their duties. He wrote, "A link has often been noted between claims to a “right to excess”, and even to transgression and vice, within affluent societies, and the lack of food, drinkable water, basic instruction and elementary health care in areas of the underdeveloped world … The link consists in this: individual rights, when detached from a framework of duties which grants them their full meaning, can run wild, leading to an escalation of demands which is effectively unlimited and indiscriminate." CinV, 43

What Pope Amos – I mean Pope Benedict – is saying is we cannot live any aspect of our life, especially our economic life, without considering the effect our decisions have on the welfare of others, especially those who are poor and weak.
We must consider the common good at all times, which the pope reminds us “is the good of “all of us”, made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society. …To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity”

The problem with our political parties is that they do not work for the common good – politicians get themselves elected by appealing to our greed, our desire for autonomy, our fears of strangers, our sense of entitlement.
They appeal to our baser instincts, which will always lead to conflict, not cooperation; so we shouldn’t be surprised that our government seems locked in constant bickering.
So as much as we might criticize our government and politicians, we must admit that they are a reflection of us.
In a democracy, our politicians today often function like Amaziah of old – telling us what we want to hear, confirming what we already think and believe.

Pope Benedict is an Amos for today. I suppose his message will be ridiculed widely as economically naïve, or utopian, or simply unworkable. Others, including Catholics, will find reasons to ignore the parts of the message with which they disagree.
George Weigel, an influential Catholic writer, suggests in his analysis of the document that the Holy Father has produced a hybrid document of his own original thinking and stale ideas from the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace which was stung by defeat when in 1987 Pope John Paul II rejected the outline the commission submitted for the social encyclical, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis. Weigel writes, "Indeed, those with advanced degrees in Vaticanology could easily go through the text of Caritas in Veritate, highlighting those passages that are obviously Benedictine with a gold marker and those that reflect current Justice and Peace default positions with a red marker. The net result is, with respect, an encyclical that resembles a duck-billed platypus." So he suggests that, “Benedict XVI, a truly gentle soul, may have thought it necessary to include in his encyclical these multiple off-notes,” (that is, those parts of the encyclical which Weigel recognizes coming from forgiving-but-not-forgetting Commission) “in order to maintain the peace within his curial household. Those with eyes to see and ears to hear will concentrate their attention, in reading Caritas in Veritate, on those parts of the encyclical that are clearly Benedictine…”

and what, Mr. Weigel, ignore the rest? Part of the beauty of the Catholic faith, and the beauty of the Pope's encyclical, is the fact that no matter what our political leanings, we are always challenged by the call to repentance and conversion.

Jesus sent his disciples out to drive out demons, heal people and preach repentance.
The Holy Father is doing just that.
He is authoritatively naming the demons of individualism, selfishness, and callousness to the needs of others that we have enshrined in some of our economic policies.
He is pointing out our addiction to material goods and power, and the healing process will be painful.
And he is preaching repentance of a very pointed kind.
We may feel good about ourselves because we are not fornicating, committing adultery, stealing, killing or lying, but we who live in relative affluence can easily worship golden calves - or greenbacks.
And to be reminded I have to repent of that, and truly change the way I live is a bitter pill.
For the Pope to suggest, among other things, that we must share our hard-earned resources with those who were not blessed to have been born in the most economically advantaged country in the world may well lead us to ask him to leave "our house."

Benedict XVI is asking us to recognize that we must imitate the immensely generous Jesus Christ “in whom we have redemption by his blood,
the forgiveness of transgressions,
in accord with the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us.”
Perhaps like Amaziah we’ll say, “Off with you, visionary. Stay in Rome and do not bother us and our way of life.”

And the Pope could honestly respond, “I am a shepherd, and a pruner of trees.” And our rejection of his words may be the blade that separates us from Christ, to whom we have been grafted by God in our baptism.