Book of Amos

Nothing Minor Series: Summer Fruit

Amos 8:1–12 NIV

1 This is what the Sovereign Lord showed me: a basket of ripe fruit. 2 “What do you see, Amos?” he asked. “A basket of ripe fruit,” I answered. Then the Lord said to me, “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer. 3 “In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “the songs in the temple will turn to wailing. Many, many bodies—flung everywhere! Silence!” 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. 9 “In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. 10 I will turn your religious festivals into mourning and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day. 11 “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. 12 People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.

This is the word of God, for the people of God.

Thanks be to God. Amen

I. Introduction

What is our job as followers of Christ?

What are we called to do and be as followers of Christ?

Our job is simple and Jesus tells us what that job is in Matthew 22:37–39

Matthew 22:37–39 NRSV

37 We shall love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and with all our soul, and with all our mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘We shall love our neighbor as we love ourself.’

The question remains, how does one express a love for neighbor?

If someone was on the outside looking in, how could they tell that we love our neighbor.

That love for neighbor is evidence of the Spirit’s work within us.

In is sermon entitled, “Marks of the Spirit”, John Wesley talks about how the spirit’s influence in our lives will cause us to love our neighbors in deeper and meaningful ways.

He feels that loving neighbor is evidence of the spirit’s witness in our lives.

We extend our worship on Sunday mornings into the community and neighborhoods by loving neighbor.

But what is this evidence that Wesley speaks of?

How will people be able to see that we truly love our neighbors?

How can others tell that the Spirit truly is at work within us?

The evidence of how much we truly love neighbor is through how we treat others, yes, even those pesky people we don’t like.

Showing a love for neighbor could involve saying hi to someone in the grocery store who clearly is having a bad day.

It could be providing a meal for the homeless man or woman on the corner somewhere we pass on our daily commutes.

It could involving showing kindness and mercy to those you disagree with.

It could be showing grace to a loved one who has fallen short of expectation.

In last week’s lectionary reading for the Gospel, Jesus went on to give those who wanted to know what their jobs were as followers of God an example of what God expected of them.

How should they love their neighbor?

Jesus tells the familiar story of the good Samaritan, essentially showing them that they are to care for those they know are in difficult situations.

Imagine being in the crowds as Jesus is telling this story of a Jewish man who had been robbed, beaten, and left for dead.

The closest people that one could conceive to be a neighbor in those days was someone who shared one’s heritage.

Yet, the people in this story who the man would have considered were his neighbors, were actually the ones who passed him up on the road even after seeing him at “death’s door.”

Two men who shared the heritage of the man on the side of the road.

Two men who were well versed in the law

Two men of the church, saw this man on the side of the road and seemingly were moved to do nothing.

They saw a neighbor in need and they couldn’t bring themselves to care for the man simply because they perceived that they had more important things to worry about.

Yet, the person who those listening to Jesus would not regard as a neighbor, the Samaritan man, was actually the person who stopped to tend to the man’s wounds and save his life.

He is the one who was moved to care for someone in need. He was the one who was moved to care for a person who probably viewed him as lower than a dog.

That is what loving a neighbor looks like.

That is how the Spirit works within us to make us new creatures in Christ.

Jesus must’ve known that the people in his day hearts had shifted away from a concern of neighbor.

Jesus must have seen exactly what God showed Amos here in this text.

This idea of loving neighbor should not have been so foreign that an interpreter of the Jewish law would ask Jesus to define, “who should be considered his neighbor.”

The book of Leviticus, yes that book that we hardly ever want to read, and the one that I hated prior to seminary but grew to love during my last semester in seminary, yes that book.

This is a book that we often don’t see spiritual truths about caring for neighbor but if we actually went back to that book, we would see how most of those laws in Leviticus were instituted by God to give an example of how the Israelites should live in community with one another.

Almost a third of the book of Leviticus are guidelines for how the Israelites should care for one another.

It talks about how if their hearts were truly oriented towards God, then their hearts would be oriented to what Jesus called the least of these; the orphan, the widow, the griever, the beggar, the lame, the blind, the death, the tax collector, and yes, even the prostitute.

We often quote this verse in Matthew 22 where Jesus tells us to first love God and then our neighbor but I wonder do we know where Jesus got that command.

If we look at Leviticus 19:18, we see these words from God.

Leviticus 19:18 NRSV

18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord

And there it is right there!!!!

This is what the people that Amos were preaching to and certainly those who Jesus were preaching to should have known.

They should have remembered God’s desire and command for them to love everyone and for legs to be put on that word love as it relates to neighbor.

But as evidenced in our text last week, the people in Amos’ day either didn’t know or didn’t care.

And to be candid, it is evident to God that it is the later because God has called a herder from the southern kingdom to preach to those in the northern kingdom of Israel to remind them of what he commanded in the book of Leviticus.

They were instructed to take care of the orphan and widow

Debts had to be forgiven every seven years.

They were told to respect each other’s property.

They were told to care for the foreigner and do not mistreat or take advantage of them.

They were told not to charge interest on loans.

God instituted all of this as a means for them to show love to one another.

He instituted these laws and guidelines so that the people could get a glimmer of how much their God truly loved them.

These laws that God put in place were radical in that time.

No other nation were commanded to love one another.

They weren’t commanded to care for the orphan, widow, and poor.

These laws were also given for the people to stand out among the other nations.

To show the nations that they served a God who cared for the most vulnerable and a God who loved his people.

But something happened.

The people got wealthy beyond their imagination.

They began to worship other gods and as and maybe this caused them to abandon and forgot what God told them to do as it relates to loving neighbor.

They began to over harvest their fields without leaving even a morsel for the orphan and widow despite having more wealth than they knew what to do with.

They began charging unreasonable interest on loans.

They began selling orphans and widows into slavery.

They were taking the poor to court to steal their land.

They weren’t just neglecting the poor but they were mistreating them and as a result, the poor got poorer while the wealthy got wealthier at the expense of the poor.

And they were doing all of this while going to the synagogue every Sabbath praising God as though they were righteous.

Think about what we would say about someone who was very active in the church on Sundays and Wednesdays but during the week, they put poor people out of their homes and they are cruel and heartless to those living on the margins.

God revealed all of this to Amos and it caused Amos to say one of the most famous lines in this book. In Amos 5:24, Amos writes

Amos 5:24 NRSV

24 But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Amos is essentially telling the people that there is no righteousness without justice.

In other words, to follow God, you have to be about the work of justice.

And when I say justice, I am not talking about how we use the word from a judicial sense. I’m talking about it from a sense of improving the lives of others.

Just as God called the Israelites thousands of years ago to care for the most vulnerable among them. God is calling us to do the same.

God is calling his church to care for those most vulnerable. He is calling us to participate in the business of bringing about justice to a broken world.

God is displeased with the people of Israel.

They aren’t being who he called them to be.

Amos has preached and he has preached but the people still don’t take heed.

In fact, they become resistant.

God sees this so he tells Amos to tell the people that God has rendered his judgement down on Israel.

He gives Amos this vision and in this vision Amos sees a basket of ripe summer fruit. Amos sees grapes, plums, pomegranates....you name it, Amos sees it.

God asks Amos what he sees and Amos tells God a basket of ripe summer fruit.

God then tells Amos that the end has come upon his people, Israel.

Now in reading this, I said to myself, what in the world does a bowl of summer fruit have to do with what God is saying here???

I mean that’s a rather strange image.

God is essentially saying that the kingdom of Israel is ripe for judgement.

Just as ripe fruit will ultimately spoil and come to an end, the kingdom of Israel is at its end. The time of judgment has arrived.

God is essentially saying you are not doing what I created you to do. You are not being who I created you to be and as a result, we need to do a hard reset.

We need to start over and I am going to take away the very thing that seems to be corrupting you. I am going to take away from you that which is your birthright in hopes that I will get your attention and that you will return to me.

I am going to send you into exile. I am going to allow this other nation to conquer you and maybe then you will get your act together.

Maybe then you will see my heart those who are on the margins.

If I take your wealth, maybe then you will love your neighbor deeper.

Not only am I going to exile you but I am going to bring about a famine in land.

In Amos 8:11, Amos says,

Amos 8:11 NRSV

11 The time is surely coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.

God is not sending a famine from the traditional sense of the word.

God is not talking about a scarcity of food and water.

God is talking about talking about a famine of himself.

The people will not hear from God.

God will be silent for a period.

They will have no direction from God simply because they refused to heed God’s warning.

I don’t know about you but I couldn’t imagine a life where God is silent. I couldn’t imagine having no guidance from God. I couldn’t imagine having no one to turn to.

And all of this is happening to them simply because they care more about accumulating wealth than they do about caring for and loving neighbor.

My sisters and brothers, that is a lesson for us on this morning.

I believe that we can learn the same lessons and I believe that what Amos is saying here is applicable to us on today.

We live in a world where financial security is a big deal.

It is easier now more than ever to obtain wealth and that is evident by the record number of millionaires and billionaires in the world.

But there is also another number that is on the rise.

Food insecurity among children is high.

There are those in the world who don’t have clean drinking water.

There are children who know that it is a real possibility that they may become orphans because they live in a war-ravished land.

The homeless populations seem to be growing because the cost of having shelter is beyond expensive.

There are children right here around the corner from us who don’t get a meal after 11:00 am during school.

God is calling the church, his people to be good neighbors. He’s calling us to love our neighbors with fervor that passes all understanding.

Now here me when I say this, there is nothing wrong with obtaining wealth.

Afterall John Wesley instructed those within the Methodist movement to make all that you can, spend all that you can, save all that you can, so that you may give all that you can.

So, obtaining wealth is not an issue.

However, obtaining wealth at the expense of our neighbor is a problem.

The issue in this text was not about the people becoming wealthier than they ever had before.

The issue in this text was obtaining this wealth by taking advantage of the poor.

The issue was them being so greedy that they wouldn’t even leave a morsel for the orphan and widow.

The issue was them charging interest on a loan when the loan didn’t even put a dent in their pockets.

The issue was flaunting their wealth and not caring about the quality of life for those who were most impoverished.

Friends, Jesus gave us the example in his story of the Good Samaritan. We are to love God and love our neighbor with every fiber of our being. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.