"Hear this, you that trample on the needy,
and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
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,
buying the poor for silver,
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and selling the sweepings of the wheat.'
The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds." [Amos 8:4-7]
People before things.
Preserving life before clutching onto stuff.
I used to say to that to my kids when they were little, when they were getting buckled into their seats in the car and didn't want to let go of the fifteen toys they wanted to take along with them for the ride. I used to tell it to them on their birthdays when they were more interested in opening presents than in saying hello to their friends or relatives who had come for their party. I still tell it to myself when I start dreaming about some big purchase I want to make for myself, rather than how the money could be used for clothes for my kids or their savings for college.
And the prophets were saying it twenty-eight centuries before the words ever came out of my mouth: people before things. Preserving life before clutching onto stuff. Love your neighbor more than you love your money. It is worth it go out on a limb for the sake of other people, and in God's eyes, the folks on the margins of society are more important than managing my profit margins.
And so maybe we do need to hear these ancient and sharply-pointed words from the prophet Amos, which many of us heard this past Sunday in worship as the first reading. Maybe what we need is to consider the prophet's claim, like we are children clutching onto toys instead of getting our seat belts buckled, that human beings matter more than having things, and that it is more important to preserve people than profits.
In Amos' day, there was no such thing as a 24-hour-a-day convenience store, no Walmart at which you could buy everything from light bulbs to leggings to linguine at any hour of the day, and not even the notion of a hospital emergency room with round-the-clock staffing to help when your kid is up with a spiking fever in the middle of the night. There was instead the memory that sometimes business all shut down so that people could have a day of rest--both the bosses and the employees, the managers and the entry-level workers, the full-blown citizens and the immigrants, foreigners, and refugees who lived among them as well. Everyone was supposed to get sabbath rest, and quite often there were businesses closed every month to recognize the turning of the moon's phases as well. That was just the regular rhythm of stopping work for the sabbath day, and the monthly celebration of a new moon, and it was expected that everyone would close up shop, not to impress God, but simply because God knows we need rest and play along with our work and money-making.
And yet, there were folks in Amos' day who were so bent on making more bucks that they didn't care who it hurt (Amos calls it "trampling on the need" and "bringing to ruin the poor of the land") or who they cheated (Amos charges them with some sneaky and questionable tactics for doing their business) or even whether it was a commandment from God (like keeping sabbath). They were itching to open their doors again to make more money, even if it came at the cost of other people's lives and livelihoods. They were more interested in their own profits than in rest for their workers--and of course, if you're the boss, you have a certain amount of implied leverage if your employees all fear that you'll fire them if they should speak up against their practices.
And God said it was downright abominable.
Why was God so upset? Why don't the prophets want to let the tycoons get back to business? And why isn't God cheering the CEOs on for increasing their profits and their efforts to improve the national economy? Doesn't Amos know that if their businesses do well it means increased offerings and sacrifices offered to God?
The answer is simple: God has always valued restoring life over making profits. God has always insisted that the point of existence cannot be bound to the value of your 401(k) or the close of the stock markets. God has always believed that people are more important than things. And God won't be bribed into thinking otherwise even if the ones chomping at the bit to get back to commerce say they are motivated by piety.
I wonder what Amos would say to us in this moment. Or maybe that isn't quite right. Maybe I have a pretty solid guess what Amos would say... but I'm nervous about admitting it. It is very easy--VERY easy indeed--to start finding ourselves in the same sandals as the Ancient Israel Chamber of Commerce and wanting to maximize our profits over everything else in life. Pretty quickly, too, we find ourselves offering all sorts of justifications for why making more money is more important than caring for our neighbors, for paying workers a living wage, or for making sure our businesses are not causing harm through shoddy merchandise or toxic chemicals in the manufacturing process. I suspect Amos would remind us on all counts of that same truth: people before things. Preserving life before goosing profits. Loving your neighbor is more important than making a buck.
Look, nobody is saying that it is morally wrong to operate a business--and obviously, lots of work needs to be done in our society round the clock, in a way that Amos never had to deal with. So I'm not here to call for bringing back the old "blue laws" to make businesses close on Sundays or put limits on when you can buy booze at the supermarket. I'm not here to pretend that making enough money to provide for your family isn't vital to all of us--pastors need to eat and feed their kids as well. (Being a pastor is like being self-employed in a lot of ways, except that you can't just "work harder" to increase revenue.) But Amos and the other prophets do tell us that our God is always more interested in bringing people to life than in bringing people to wealth. And they would remind us that there have been times before when the ironclad expectation was that the people, rich and poor alike, would value each other more than their chances to make more money. Even if it meant closing their businesses up for the sabbath when they could have been open to customers. Even if it meant a smaller bottom line at the end of the fiscal year.
The question to ask as the people of God is always, "How can we best save and preserve life?" or "How can we seek the common good of all?" before asking, "What will make me the most money?" Sometimes we just need a prophet like Amos to come along and remind us of what matters... and of who we are called to be. For our God, the real "bottom line" is not how much money we can make for ourselves, but how there can be enough for all to feed their families.
May God indeed raise up such prophets... and may God indeed restore us to life, even if it costs us disposable income.
Lord God, raise up the voices who will speak your word to us and help us to see what matters as you see things... and then give us the courage to live in light of your priorities.
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