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Amaziah's Word to Hispanics
"As we read Scripture we repeatedly see that God
uses the margin to speak to the center. God did speak to Pharaoh;
but spoke to him through the exiled Moses. God spoke to the mighty
Roman Empire; but that Word came out of a despised corner of a
distant province.
Such was the case with Amos, the lowly shepherd
and dresser of sycamore trees from barren Tekoa in the
underdeveloped kingdom of Judah who crossed the border to prophesy
in the richer land of Israel. (Did that make him an illegal alien?)
Out of the backwoods, where sycamores were considered fruit fit for
human consumption, came the shepherd. And he did not speak the words
of the learned, for he knew and spoke only of locusts, and summer
fruit, and plumb lines. But that was not what disturbed Amaziah. In
the rich kingdom of Israel, where some slept in ivory beds and
anointed themselves with the finest oils, there were many who were
as poor as Amos. There were many who performed the hard and lowly
tasks connected with the upkeep of life, so that the few could live
in comfort. What disturbed Amaziah was that this immigrant, whose
accent still rang of the southern wilderness, dared criticize what
was going on in Israel. And that, not only in the small villages or
quietly by the fires of the shepherds, but in Bethel, which was no
less than the king's sanctuary. And so Amaziah followed a
two-pronged strategy. On the one hand, he sent word to King
Jeroboam, accusing Amos of conspiring against him, On the other, he
invited Amos to leave the country; to return to his homeland and
prophesy there, where his words would spell trouble for neither Amos
nor Amaziah.
Amaziah's words have a familiar ring to Hispanics,
repeatedly, when we have spoken of the social evils of this country,
we have been told - sometimes openly, and sometimes subtly - to go
prophesy in our own land. That is particularly puzzling for those of
us whose ancestors were in this land generation before they were
occupied by the United States. But in any case most of us are aware
that there is a connection between such invitations to the Amaziahs
and Jeroboams of the Northern Kingdoms. Things would be safer and
quieter were we to go and speal our radical word down south.
For some odd reason, God has told us to speak
here. And speak we must . And speak we shall."
Voces: Voices from the Hispanic Church
edited by Justo L. Gonzalez, Abington, 1992. Gonzalez is
"dean" of Hispanic Christian writers/thinkers.
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