25th Sunday, Year C, 1st Reading (Amos 8:4-7)

⁴ Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, ⁵ saying, “When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?”—skimping on the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, ⁶ buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat. ⁷ The Lord has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done. ⁸ “Will not the land tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn? The whole land will rise like the Nile; it will be stirred up and then sink like the river of Egypt.

This Sunday’s first reading is from the prophet Amos and concerns the mistreatment and exploitation of the poor. In this passage, Amos suggests that the entire economy of Israel was set up to make it easy to exploit the poor. He sees the nation as full of greedy people who trample the poor beneath them in order to increase their own profits. The link with the gospel for the day is easy to find.

Amos denounces such people both as exploiters and hypocrites. Even when they should be worshipping God, during festivals or the sabbath, all they think about is making more money off the backs of the poor. Certainly, Jesus criticized the same type of behavior saying in today’s gospel, that one cannot serve both God and wealth. The rich of Israel believe they are doing both but, Amos insists, they are only serving their own desire for money. In reality, God is of little importance to them. For Amos, anyone who truly loves God, loves their neighbor. The lack of care for the poor shown by the rich means that, whatever their claims, they do not love God.

In verse five, the prophet writes about ephahs and shekels, which may sound confusing. An ephah was the unit of measurement used for things like grain. Amos here describes various ways of cheating others. Sometimes merchants made the container for an ephah of grain smaller than it should be which increased their profit. A shekel was both a monetary unit and a weight for scales. Some corrupt merchants made the shekel heavier so that customers would think they were getting more grain. Others just shortchanged the poor. All of this abuse made some people so poor that they were forced into slavery. According to Amos, the merchant responsible would sometimes then purchase as a slave the person that they had robbed. These people did see anything immoral about this but rather were pleased with their own cleverness. But, Amos believes, God sees everything and judges the exploiters. He will not forget what they have done.