Prophetic Imagination
a sermon based on Amos 7:7-15 and Mark 6:14-29
by Richard Gehring

            There is an old "Peanuts" cartoon that features Charlie Brown talking with his friend, Linus.  Linus says, "When I grow up, I think I'll be a great prophet!  I'll speak profound truths, but no one will listen to me."  Charlie Brown asks Linus, "If you know ahead of time that no one is going to listen to you, why speak?"  And Linus replies, "We prophets are very stubborn!"

            Our two scripture passages for today tell the stories of two very stubborn prophets:  Amos and John the Baptist.  The two of them lived in very different times and spoke different messages to very different situations.  But both of them paid a price for their stubborn insistence on speaking the message which God had given them.

            Amos lived about 750 years before Jesus.  He was the first prophet whose words were written down and collected into a book that was preserved for us in the Bible.  Our passage for this morning contains almost all the biographical information that we have on Amos himself.  As he tells the priest Amaziah, he was a shepherd and tended sycamore trees when God called him to become a prophet.  This distinguishes him from the "professional" prophets employed by kings to discern God's will for them.

            The first few verses of the book also tell us that Amos was from the town of Tekoa, a few miles south of Jerusalem. But the king to whom Amos directed his message was not the king on the throne in Jerusalem.  It was the king who ruled from Samaria.  At this time in history, the Jewish people were divided into two nations—Judah in the south and Israel in the north.  And, although Amos was a southerner, he was called by God to prophecy in the north.

            God called Amos to declare that the worship which took place in the northern kingdom of Israel was unacceptable.  This was not a particularly new concept.  The Old Testament is filled with harsh words for the northern kings because they have built places of worship at Bethel and Gilgal rather than supporting the temple in Jerusalem.  What is new with Amos, however, is that his criticism is not about where or how the northern Israelites worship God.  Rather, his major concern is that their offering of sacrifices is not then followed by acts of justice.

            The Book of Amos is an almost unrelenting tirade against the rulers of Israel for their lack of justice.  The prophet rails against them for their failure to look after the poor, their lavish lifestyles and their corrupt rule.  In a series of five visions, God reveals to Amos that the northern kingdom will be judged harshly for the injustice of their leaders.

            One of those visions is found in the first part of our passage for today.  God shows Amos a plumb line, declaring that the people of Israel do not measure up and therefore face imminent destruction.  The prophet announces that the places of worship will be destroyed and that the king himself will be judged.

            Needless to say, this sort of prophecy did not sit well with the leaders of Israel.  Amaziah, the priest who oversaw the sanctuary at Bethel, sends a message to King Jereboam, informing him of Amos' harsh and threatening words and charging the prophet with conspiring against the king.  Amaziah then expels Amos from Bethel, telling him to return to his own people in the south and prophesy there.  But Amos replies that God has called him to speak the message to the people of Israel in the north.  He shows no signs of leaving the northern kingdom or of toning down his message of judgment for the people's injustice.

            We don't know what ultimately happened to Amos after his confrontation with Amaziah.  It seems, though, that he continued to preach the message that God had given to him in spite of the opposition he faced.  And, ultimately, his dire predictions were proven correct.  Within about 30 years after Amos spoke the words that we read today, the northern kingdom of Israel was utterly defeated and destroyed by the Assyrian Empire.  The people were forcibly relocated and disappeared from history, becoming the "lost tribes of Israel."

            Although he was despised and ridiculed in his own time, Amos set a new standard for prophecy in ancient Israel.  He was the first to have his words written down, collected and published.  Many more prophets followed this example.  Today, more than 2500 years later, we are still inspired and challenged by the words of Amos and these other prophets whose words we now recognize as scripture.

            Just as Amos marked the beginning of a new era for Jewish prophets, John the Baptist marked the end of an era of prophecy.  John was the last of those who were sent by God to prepare the people for the coming of the Messiah.  Through him, God issued one final, urgent call to repentance in preparation for the beginning of Christ's ministry.

            John's proclamation was a simple, yet profound one, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."(Matthew 3:2)  This was not always a very easy message for people to hear.  When a group of Pharisees and Sadducees came to him, John called them a "brood of vipers" and threatened, "Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees."(Matthew 3:710)  When some folks asked what they should do, he told them that if they had two coats, they should share one, and to do the same with their food.  He told tax collectors not to collect any more than they were required to.  He told soldiers not to extort anyone with violence or threats and to be satisfied with their pay.(Luke 3:10-14)

            And while these pronouncements endeared him to the common masses, the rich and powerful folks understandably felt threatened by John the Baptist.  For some time, though, they left him alone, afraid that arresting him or putting him to death might anger the crowds.  Eventually, though, John's preaching became too antagonistic and too personal for one ruler.

            Herod Antipas was the son of Herod the Great, the ruler with whom the three wise men had consulted, and who had pronounced a death penalty on the male infants of Bethlehem.  The younger Herod had inherited from his father not only a portion of his kingdom, but also apparently his cruelty and immorality.  Herod was married to Herodias, who had formerly been married to his half-brother, Herod Philip.  Herodias, by the way, was also the daughter of another half-brother of theirs, which means that both of the men she married were her uncles.

            John, understandably unhappy with this rather sordid situation, has publicly denounced Herod and called him to repentance.  Herod has responded by arresting John and throwing him in prison.  He could not, however, bring himself to actually have John executed.  For one thing, there is the matter of John's popularity with the crowds that I mentioned earlier; and Herod was unpopular enough among his subjects already without executing someone they considered a prophet.  But the Gospel of Mark also tells us that Herod himself actually regarded John as a holy man, and that he liked to listen to him, even though the king was quite puzzled by what the prophet said.

            Herodias, however, is less concerned with what the crowds think and less enamored by John's preaching.  She wants John dead.  And on Herod's birthday she sees her chance.  Her daughter, Salome, dances before her stepfather at his birthday party.  Herod is greatly pleased by what he sees.  Some commentators suggest that there may even be some sexual connotations here—that Herod is aroused at the sight of his stepdaughter/niece/ grandniece dancing.  The king, in a fit of passion, declares that he will give this young woman anything she wants, as much as half of his kingdom.

            Salome consults with her mother on what she should request.  Herodias, seizing the opportunity to get rid of the stubborn prophet that has been badmouthing her, has her daughter ask for his head on a silver platter.  Herod is appalled at the request.  It had obviously never crossed his mind that she might want such a politically dangerous thing.  But he has made an oath in front of us guests, and cannot turn her down.  So he immediately orders the executioner to carry out her wishes, and John's head is brought to the girl while the party is still going on.  Thus the career of the last great prophet before Jesus comes to a sudden and gruesome conclusion.

            John the Baptist and Amos of Tekoa were two prophets called by God in different times and places who both faced opposition.  Amos was removed from the temple at Bethel and probably arrested for his preaching against King Jereboam and the Samaritan priests.  John was imprisoned and executed because he dared to speak out against King Herod, as well as the Pharisees and Sadducees.  But in spite of the opposition and persecution they faced, both prophets stubbornly refused to change or stop proclaiming their message.

            But what drives them to such a steadfast refusal to give in is more than the stubbornness that Linus speaks of with Charlie Brown.  The driving force behind the determined prophesying of Amos and John is the call of God.  They continue to do what they do and say what they say because they are convinced that this is what God expects them to do and say.  It's not that they enjoy being unpopular or get some thrill out of imprisonment or harbor a secret death wish.  No sane person welcomes any of these hardships.  What motivates these prophets is rather their personal encounter with God which matters far more than any persecution they may face as a result of their faithfulness to God's call.

            True prophets proclaim gloom and doom not because they are by nature gloomy, pessimistic people.  Instead, prophets are critical of what they see around them because they have caught a glimpse of what God desires.  They have tapped into God's own consciousness and have begun to see things in a whole new way.  Prophets are not satisfied with what is because they are so deeply in touch with what could be.  Their criticism comes not from a deep pessimism but rather from a clear vision of hope.

            This ability to envision a better world which God desires is what Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggeman,  calls "The Prophetic Imagination."  In a book by that name, Brueggeman contends that the task of the prophet is actually twofold:  to critique the current situation as it runs counter to God's ideal, and then to energize the community toward change.  This, of course, is a very difficult task indeed.  One can easily see how Amos and John ran into trouble as they tried to carry out such a task.  It is not very reasonable to expect that a large group of people will be able to capture the vision of God's intention when there are so many alternative visions that contradict God's.

            For example, it is considered unrealistic to proclaim peace in a world of violence.  It is thought to be impractical to seek simplicity in a world of materialism.  It is believed to be nonviable to strive for true community in a world of individualism. But Brueggeman contends that "We need to ask not whether it is realistic or practical or viable but whether it is imaginable.  We need to ask if our consciousness and imagination have been so assaulted and coopted . . . that we have been robbed of the courage or power to think an alternative thought."[Walter Brueggeman, The Prophetic Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), p. 44]

            "The prophet engages in futuring fantasy.  The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined.  The imagination must come before the implementation.  Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing. . . .  It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing alternative futures."(p. 45)

            It is that sort of prophetic imagination that allowed Amos and John and many other prophets to be unpopular and impractical.  And it is that same imagination that we need to allow ourselves to experience as well so that we, too, can join the prophets who urge us on to a new reality as envisioned by God.  For we are indeed called to envision with the prophetic voices of our time what God's new order might look like in our homes, our places of work, our community and certainly our church.

            As we look back at Amos and John the Baptist, it may appear at first glance that they failed.  Amos was most likely banished from the northern kingdom and had to return to his sheep and sycamore trees in the south.  John was beheaded by a petty tyrant whose wife held a grudge against him.  These are hardly what anyone would consider to be great successes.

            But from the perspective of God and the hindsight of history, we can declare both of these prophets very successful.  Their words and visions continue to be remembered thousands of years later, while the kings they opposed have faded nearly into oblivion.  Their actions are still an inspiration and a challenge to hundreds of millions of people around the world while the kingdoms that sanctioned them ceased to exist shortly after those actions were performed.  As ridiculous and far-fetched as their imaginative pronouncements appeared at the time, God saw to it that they came true.

            Let us therefore strive to imagine and envision the glorious future that God has for each one of us and for our world.  We may not ever see the fulfillment of our vision, just as few prophets lived to see their own predictions come to pass.  But we can stand assured that God will ultimately win out, that the visions imagined through God's Spirit will one day become a reality.  And it is that hope, that vision, that imagination which allows us to stubbornly and faithfully live today.