Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 14, 2021
Third Woe
Amos tries to reach us for a third time with his vivid images that paint a scene we cannot ignore, with wonderfully descriptive words that create sights we see even with eyes closed.
The complacent . . . The overconfident . . .
Calneh was a winter residence of the Parthian kings. Nothing now remains but the ruins of a palace and mounds of rubbish.
Hastening the reign of violence . . .
Hamath the Great was a fortress capital of one of the kingdoms of Upper Syria. Its greatness has now faded.
Lying upon beds of ivory. Stretching comfortably on couches.
Gath one of the five royal cities of the Philistines and the native place of the giant Goliath. Its original site has long been lost.
Eating the lambs and calves. Improvising music. Devising their own accompaniment.
Lodebar a place on the east side of the Jordan River whose exact location is not known today.
Drinking wine from bowls. Anointing themselves with the best oils. Not made ill by the collapse Joseph. These shall go first into exile.
Karnaim, originally the city of Og, king of Bashan, appears in Books of Genesis, Joshua, and 1 and 2 Chronicles. The name denotes a place associated with the worship of the goddess Asherah. These ancient names of peoples and places no longer influence our world.
Only a few shall be left. The remnant will remain to bury the dead and to stare out over the rubble.
From Labo of Hamath to the Wadi of Arabah . . . from one end of our kingdom to the other . . . all that is known to us . . . our entire world . . . all this shall be gone.
Can horses run across a cliff? Can one plow the sea with oxen?
What do we do with these woes of Amos? As we continue our Lenten journey, we may want to sit with these images awhile and determine what it is we worship today, what places and people do we think will never fade, what acts do believe God does not see, and how do we ready ourselves to be remnant?
For more on Asherah and her various manifestations in ancient and modern cultures, click on the image above or go to: http://www.ascensionministries.net/theJezebelSpirit/theSpiritOfJezebel.php
The Noontimes 