“And beside every altar they rest upon the clothes given in collateral, in the House of God they drink wine taken as penalty” (Amos 2.8).
Jesus, in Matthew’s Gospel, uses the analogy of a house built on sand to describe those foolish enough to ignore his teachings. I think, in a way, Amos is describing what some of that shoreline real estate looks like.
Most of us are familiar with collateral and fines. Collateral is something valuable enough that if the lendee defaults, the lender will not be out the full value of what they’ve loaned. Lenders, while holding the collateral, understand that it is not theirs since, when the debt is satisfied, it will be returned.
Penalties or fines are a means of discouraging bad behavior with the threat of economic loss. Let the meter run out downtown, and you’ll pay a fine for illegal parking. Don’t pay your credit card bill on time? You’ll pay an additional amount in penalty.
But this is not what we see here. Those who have lent people money treat the collateral as if it is their own property. It’s almost as if they don’t expect that they’ll have to return it. As if they have offered up a loan they know cannot be repaid.
How much do you have, after all, if all you have to offer are your clothes?
And these bottles of the wine? They aren’t what someone’s been saving for their next promotion or Thanksgiving dinner, this is what they drank. Wine was not a luxury for those of Amos’ day but an essential. There’s no kitchen faucet, no municipal water management that filters out the parasites and bacteria that could make you sick. Fermented drinks were safe and could be mixed with the water from the well to purify it. To not have wine meant gambling with your health.
The picture Amos paints for us isn’t just about sin but about an economic system that is unsustainable. The wealthy are gathering more and more wealth, taking it from those who have almost nothing. This is unjust and cruel, yes, but it’s also a recipe for collapse, a picture of a structure sitting upon sand. What happens when those who have so little have nothing? When they are so destitute that they fall sick and die from exposure and thirst?
This top-heavy economy, Amos warned, is leading to disaster. The homes where they enjoy the plunder of those beneath them will soon collapse upon them. The economy they’ve cultivated will fail, leaving them all with nothing.
It’s almost as if the exhortation to care for the poor, the least of these is more than just a moral imperative. It’s as though there is a consequence for the society, the nation that neglects the foundation on which it has built itself.
You might even think that prophets from Amos to Jesus understand something the foolish—who think themselves wise—have failed to grasp. It’s like they knew how fragile the economies of such a system, such a nation can be.
Makes you wonder about our foundations, doesn’t it?
Jesus, help me to share what I do not need. Help us understand the difference between need and want.