Who are the cows of Bashan?

The Bible can be very distressing and, like bad-tasting medicine, is sometimes best left on the shelf. I talked recently to a friend whose study had been concentrating on the book of the prophet Amos. She took a university course on Amos, led a bible study on it, and preached a sermon to her congregation. In other words, she has been giving Amos a lot of attention. But she has also been having to face some uncomfortable questions.

Amos’ explosive condemnations of the wealth and privilege of the kings and ruling class of Samaria have a powerful frisson: we relish God’s judgment upon the wicked, greedy, and exploitative ruling classes. Amos’ oracles of doom, however, are not couched in abstractions; he uses powerful metaphors to convey God’s punishment on injustice and disobedience of the covenant’s moral obligations:

“I will not revoke the punishment

because they sell the righteous for silver

and the needy for a pair of shoes” (Amos 2:6).

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“Hear this word, you cows of Bashan

Who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their husbands

‘Bring that we may drink.’….the days are coming upon you

when they shall take you away

with hooks” (Amos 4:1-2).

But this only gets us halfway through an examination of Amos. In the old days, Bible study was understood to have an explication (which we have briefly done), i.e., what did the text mean then, followed by an application (to which we need to turn now), i.e., towards what decisions and deeds are we being pushed here and now?

When, as a young seminarian, I studied with the Waldensians in Rome, I appropriated their language for this biblical homiletics. The Bible events – understood as "the mighty acts of God" – were called the actum of God which the preacher was required to explain in their historical context. The contemporary meaning being addressed to the congregation was called the verbum (or word) of God. The word of God was not in the Bible but, astonishing as this claim may seem, in the preacher’s exposition of the existential impact of the biblical history on the life of the hearers.

When the Bible study leader to whom I alluded earlier raised this with her class, the pickup was immediate. Amos’ kings and rulers are the One Percent of today. The needy who are sold for a pair of shoes are today’s working poor, the minimum wagers who can’t afford to get their teeth fixed. For the most part, these are not the same people who engage in contemporary Bible study in our largely middle-class congregations who will return to their pleasant homes whose value has undergone an enormous increase in recent years.

By definition, we are not remotely One Percenters keeping company with the Koch brothers. But most among us are in the upper percentiles. Decent jobs and professions, health insurance, pension plans, investment portfolio, winter holidays in Mexico. So as we cast around for contemporary equivalents of Amos’ ‘j’accuse’ we should nervously look more closely at ourselves.