Victims of Circumstance
In today’s first reading the priest at the Israelite shrine of Bethel tells Amos to leave the premises, to go back where he came from – because of his disruptive prophecies. And you get the impression there’s nothing more that Amos would have liked to do – go home, get back to dressing fig trees and herding sheep.
Back then he was a nobody, attracting no attention. He fit into his environment, remained a face in the crowd. He was defined by his circumstances – or to put it roundabout, his circumstances defined him. He was identified by tribe, family name, job, status in society just like everybody else. If there were anything truly personal about him, it was hidden beneath layers of circumstance (his lot, his happenstance, his kismet, his fate). Indeed he may not even have known himself any deeper than by his circumstances – name, rank, and serial number.
The same could be said of the apostles Peter, James, John, and Andrew in the Gospel reading. Anonymous fishermen, up early, nets readied, off to sea, dragging, hauling in, returning . . . small businessmen, laborers. Identity? Jewish, male, speaking a certain dialect, extended families, politically indifferent or in harmony with others of some party. They were unconscious victims of the circumstances into which they had been born and raised – whose limited horizons confined their minds and hearts, their full awareness even of themselves.
That is – until God called Amos and Jesus called the apostles out of their merely circumstantial lives, filled their minds and hearts with meaning, convictions, a deeper self-awareness that led them to speak out, to cross horizons, to invite a narrow-minded world to become an ever broadening kingdom of grace and justice. Instead of living static lives, their discourse reduced to boring clichés, they were sent forth to transfigure conventional wisdom, to leave behind their “baggage”, to travel light, drive out demons, heal a sick society – never pausing to argue – just keep moving. In other words: demonstrate what it’s like to live a real life.
Of course as we listen to these readings about Amos and the apostles we rarely think that these characters mirror ourselves, that it is we, who like them (in their prior anonymity) may be victims of circumstance, that it is we who have not so much chosen but absorbed the stereotypes of our culture, adopted the fashions prescribed by custom (how long has it been blue jeans!!), thought the safe thoughts, accepted our neighborhood’s definition of whom we must avoid and whom we must befriend. Vatican II may have jet propelled a whole generation at a faster pace into a wider, deeper sense of our creed, our destiny, of awareness . . . but it’s not long before we slow down, settle into a familiar calm – though maybe not as deadly as that of the Ancient Mariner: Day after day, day after day, / We stuck, nor breath nor motion; / As idle as a painted ship / Upon a painted ocean.
Are you just a face in the crowd – or do the examples of Amos and the apostles catch your attention today and stir you to challenge, like them, whatever is complacent about yourself, to travel lighter than ever before in your life upon a wave of new found interest in or even curiosity – or even enthusiasm for the Good News of Christ?