Speaking the prophetic voice

Amos stands in the line of prophets who hear the voice of God and deliver it to kings, nations and peoples. In today’s readings, Amos stands up to king Jeroboam. The Message continues,

“But here’s what God is telling you:

Your wife will become a whore in town.

Your children will get killed.

Your land will be auctioned off.

You will die homeless and friendless.

And Israel will be hauled off to exile, farm from home.”

John the Baptizer’s words to Herod were not far off. Herod had made Herodias a whore of adultery, both in putting away his own wife to take her, and by taking her from his brother Philip.

Let me hear what God the LORD will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts.

The psalmist says that to hear the voice of the God is a thing of peace. It is for those who would heed them. For Jeroboam, and Herod and Herodias, it meant death and desertion.

The church fathers have much to say about the sin of Herod’s oath. A thing as simple as the hasty slip of the tongue can lead to so much ruin. Sin upon sin compounds to John’s murder.

Peter Chrysologus said of his death, “For then did the old greedy dragon taste in the head of the servant what he so thirsted after – the passion of the master.”

Chrystosom notes that John’s murderers fail in their effort to silence his tongue. “For each person repeatedly reading this Gospel says: ‘It is not lawful for you to have the wife of Philip your brother.’” To this day the prophet continues to speak.

• What is our responsibility to speak to the sins of others? When do we become judgmental or assume the role of the Holy Spirit?
• What do we learn from the actions of Herod about our own weaknesses?