Church and State - Reflections from Amos 7:7-17, Pentecost 5, Year C
by John C. Holbert on Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Amos was an 8th century BCE prophet of Israel, though, more accurately, he was a southerner, living in the Judean village of Tekoa, then called by YHWH to bring a prophetic word to Bethel, the central sanctuary of the northern kingdom of Israel. Since late in the 10th century, the tiny nation had been divided north and south, a reality that would last some 200 years. Amos spoke his powerful words sometime late in that period, perhaps 750BCE, though more accuracy than that escapes us. His small 9-chapter book has played an outsized role in the history of the land, both theologically and politically. In fact, I wish to demonstrate in today’s essay that the foundation of one of modern democracy’s great pillars is to be found in the text for today. It was not Thomas Jefferson who first promulgated the idea of the separation of church and state, though for the United States of America, his words have been crucial. Still, some 2500 years earlier, Amos presented a similar idea which for his time was quite radical indeed.
Amos’ prophetic journey soon landed him in Bethel, the primary sanctuary of the northern kingdom, Israel. As we shall learn, the king of the north, Jereboam II, who reigned over his realm for nearly four decades, used Bethel as the locus of his religious authority in the land, and the high priest, Amaziah, was the king’s man at the temple. Amos’s words in Israel were harsh and uncompromising, accusing the people of rank injustice against the poor, and announcing that the king and his court were complicit in these acts of evil. Soon, the prophet appears at the door of the sanctuary, perhaps not knowing that the high priest is well aware of the dangers represented by the former Judean shepherd. In fact, Amaziah has already warned the king about this upstart, having alerted the king, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is unable to bear all his words” (Amos 7:10). The word he uses, “conspired,” is one that carries the implication of a cabal; Amaziah claims that Amos is hardly acting alone, but is the head man in a plot against the north and its king.
The priest makes his claims concerning Amos clear by quoting the prophet as having said, “Jereboam will die by the sword, and Israel will go into exile away from its land” (Amos 7:11). In the book we have, Amos never speaks exactly like that, never directly naming Jereboam at all. To be fair, Amaziah, as the king’s priest, could easily extrapolate from the words of Amos a plot against the state, and thus would present a powerful case for his king of the prophet’s genuine danger.
Priest and prophet soon confront one another face to face, and the priest wastes little time in impugning the prophetic bone fides of the furious prophet. “O seer, go flee (back) to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, prophesy there, but never again prophesy in Bethel because it is the king’s sanctuary; it is the temple of the kingdom” (Amos 7:12-13). There is much to note in these words. Amaziah calls Amos “seer,” a word perhaps akin to crystal-ball gazer, or pseudo-prophet. He does not call Amos the well-known word, nabi, that is, “mouthpiece for YHWH.” The priest goes on to demand that the seer go back home to Judah, and “earn bread there,” implying that Amos is speaking for money, and employ his empty words there, because he must not speak at Bethel again, precisely because “it is the king’s sanctuary, the very temple of the kingdom.” Note what the priest does not say: Bethel is plainly not the temple of YHWH, but the temple of the king, Jereboam, the exact temple of the kingdom. One can imagine that Jereboam has a royal chair always ready in the sanctuary, a throne fit only for the king. Bethel is merely an arm of the king’s power, a religious outlet for his royal desires. Anyone, like Amos, who dares question the authority of the king, who would call into question the dictates and desires of the king is not welcome in the sanctuary, let alone allowed to bring a so-called word from YHWH there. Amos represents YHWH, he says, and what YHWH demands is reform of king and nation. Jereboam and Amaziah will have none of that.
Amos replies with famous, albeit difficult words. “I no prophet, nor son of a prophet, but I a herdsman, a dresser of sycamore figs, whom YHWH took from the flock and said, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel’” (Amos 7:14-15). I translate quite literally, since the first part of Amos’s response has no verbs in the clause (a classic Hebrew verbless clause), denying that he is in fact a prophet, nor in the line of any prophetic school, but is merely a shepherd called by YHWH, called to prophesy against Israel, which he now proceeds to do:
“You say, ‘Do not prophesy against Israel; do not preach against the house of Isaac.’ So, thus says YHWH, “Your wife shall become a whore in the city, your sons and daughters shall fall by the sword; your land shall be parceled out piece by piece; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel will without doubt go into exile away from its land” (Amos 7:16-17). Obviously, the very worst thing you can say to a prophet is, “Shut up,” because talking is what they do! And Amos clearly can talk, and what he has to say is hardly pleasant to hear.
No one ever wishes to hear a true prophet, because they nearly always say things we find to be anathema. In 8th century Bethel, Jereboam and Amaziah had things the way they wanted them to be, and Amos’s anger against them was decidedly unwelcome. But so it is when the state wants absolute power and wishes to use the church as its own mouthpiece, spewing not words from God but words that the state demands it say. In our own day, this problem remains pronounced. Our current government desires power, and too many in the church have been compromised to support that power, forgetting that true power in the universe rests always with God and not any state. Amos spoke to this problem all those years ago, and we, too, must either listen to our Amoses, or perhaps become Amos, whenever the state assumes more power and control than it ought to have. We keep church separate from state because the latter is forever desiring to use the former for its own ends, and the former too often wishes to dictate what it is the latter must do to fulfill a restricted and cankered view of the desires of God.