Let the Herdsman Speak

A Meditation on Amos 7:7–17

… but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom [Amos 7:13].

Virtually everyone has heard of Isaiah or Jeremiah, those prophets with long scrolls and soaring visions. But Amos? Probably not. He’s one of the so-called “minor” prophets, tucked quietly into the middle of the Old Testament. His book is short, but his message still cuts deep.

Amos was a herdsman and tree-trimmer from the southern kingdom of Judah—ordinary work, nothing priestly about it. One day, without training or appointment, he heard God call him to go north, to Israel, and speak a hard word: that the nation was off course. That the poor were being trampled, the courts corrupted, and the worship hollow.

He delivered that message at Bethel, one of Israel’s most important religious centers. And there, he ran headlong into a man named Amaziah—the high priest at the sanctuary. Amaziah had no patience for this outsider’s rebuke. “Go back to Judah,” he said. “Take your words elsewhere. This place belongs to the king” [Amos 7:12].

It’s an ancient confrontation, but it still speaks. You see, Amaziah wasn’t a villain. He was doing what many of us try to do: preserve something good. He believed in his sanctuary, his people, his work. But he had become deaf to the possibility that God’s judgment might begin not with “them”—but with us.

A Clash of Commitments

Amaziah didn’t oppose God. He sincerely believed he was serving God—preserving the sacred spaces and traditions that gave the people meaning and order. His temple wasn’t a sham; it was a site of memory, identity, worship, and hope. That’s what makes this story so unsettling.

When Amos appeared—rough-clothed, unsanctioned, uncredentialed—he didn’t offer reform or renewal. He didn’t suggest minor corrections. He carried a vision of collapse. God had shown him a plumb line, a tool used to see whether a wall is straight. But some scholars suggest the Hebrew word might instead point to a pickaxe or even a sword—something not for measuring, but for tearing down. Either way, Amos’s message was clear: things were no longer just a little off. The foundations were crooked. The structure could not stand.

To Amaziah, this wasn’t prophecy—it was conspiracy. “Amos has conspired against you” [Amos 7:10], he warned the king. In his view, this southern outsider wasn’t offering correction; he was threatening the whole system. And so Amaziah tried to send Amos away—not because Amaziah hated God, but because he couldn’t imagine that God might be speaking through someone like Amos, against something like Bethel.

The Amaziah Church

Here, I think the text comes uncomfortably close to home. Because we tend to identify with Amos—the truth-teller, the righteous outsider. But what if we’re not Amos? What if we’re Amaziah?

Many mainline churches today see themselves as prophetic communities. We champion justice, speak out on behalf of the voiceless—unless they’ve not yet been born—call for inclusion and compassion. We imagine ourselves standing at the margins, confronting power. But in our sincerity, we may have stopped listening. We’ve become so sure that we are the prophetic voice that we can no longer hear critique ourselves.

When a dissenting voice rises, it’s often met not with reflection, but with quiet dismissal: You’re not from here. That’s not how we talk. That’s not who we are. Or in Amaziah’s words: “Go back to Judah… never prophesy again at Bethel.”

The irony, of course, is that we’re often quick to apply the label Amaziah to others—conservatives, traditionalists, evangelicals—those who guard their sanctuaries too tightly. But are we willing to consider that we, too, may be guarding a sanctified status quo? That our own deeply held vision of justice might have grown deaf to correction? That we might be using “prophetic” language as a shield against prophetic listening?

When Justice Becomes a Slogan

Our churches speak often of justice. We write liturgies about it. We march under its banners. We claim to stand with the marginalized and forgotten. But justice—real justice—costs something. And too often, the justice we proclaim doesn’t match the protections we quietly demand for ourselves.

We say our borders should be open to the world—then spend thousands on electronic security systems to keep our own sanctuaries locked and safe.

We champion freedom and personal autonomy—while barely speaking of the one million unborn children whose lives are ended each year, shielded by a vocabulary of rights that drowns out their cries before they’re ever heard.

We speak of hospitality, but often only toward those who affirm us.

We speak of welcome, but quietly guard our pulpits from dissonant voices.

We speak of inclusion, but only within the lines we draw ourselves.

These are not easy matters. They are costly, complicated, and often painful. But if we will not even allow ourselves to name the contradictions—if we will not listen when Amos shows up from the south with dirt on his shoes and a word that doesn’t flatter—then we have stopped being prophetic. We have become something else.

The Question That Haunts

The prophetic question, then, is not simply: Do you speak the truth? It is:

Can you hear it when it comes from someone outside your frame of reference? Even if it threatens something you love?

Amaziah’s mistake wasn’t hostility. It was certainty. He couldn’t imagine that God would send a shepherd from the south to question the very system Amaziah believed he was serving faithfully.

And that’s our danger too. Not corruption, but deafness. Not malice, but overconfidence. Not hatred of prophecy, but the quiet belief that it no longer applies to us.

I write this as someone who must ask: Where am I Amaziah? I worship within a Presbyterian congregation that, while more conservative than most PC(USA) churches, still won’t discuss certain uncomfortable topics. I know the boundaries. I respect them. I benefit from the community while accommodating its limitations. Am I preserving something good, or am I protecting a sanctified status quo? When the herdsman shows up at Blacknall with an uncomfortable word, will I be the one saying, “That’s not how we talk here”?

Let the Herdsman Speak

Amos didn’t seek power. He didn’t build a movement. He didn’t apply for ordination. He was, in his own words, a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees. But God took him. And when God speaks, it doesn’t always sound like we expect.

Sometimes it sounds like an outsider.
Sometimes it sounds like a critic.
Sometimes it sounds like a voice we’d rather send away.

But the test of faithfulness isn’t how well we defend our sanctuaries. It’s how willing we are to listen when the herdsman speaks.