“This is what the Lord God showed me—a basket of summer fruit. He said, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘A basket of summer fruit.’ “  

          There is something luxuriant about a basket of summer fruit.   Cherries bursting with juice, fingers stained with black berries, watermelon slices dribbling down your checks.   What do you see?  A basket of summer fruit… rich, sweet, luxuriant …and oh so quick to perish.  There is a short window of time when those fruit are at their best…miss that window and they drop from the branch and rot on the ground.

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          Amos was a prophet, but before that he worked in the fields, a dresser of Sycamore trees…a man of the land,  called by God to speak God’s word to those in power in a time of great injustice and inequality.  To remind people of their history, their promises, the covenant they made with God and to bring them back to God’s path.  Amos was there to speak God’s word to them and to remind them of their stories and the life God has called them to lead.

          The stories of ancient Israel, the tales of the Old Testament, tell a repetitive and familiar tale.            A repetitive tale of Righteous living, gradual complacency, blatant ungodliness, the sending of a prophet….the ignoring of that prophet, nasty consequence and heartfelt repentance.  What I call the prophetic circle. 

          The prophets reminded people who they were as people of God and how they were meant to live.  They brought to the forefront the problems of society and where God’s people had strayed, and what the consequences would be for straying from God’s law.

“The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who lives in it,”

          Prophet after prophet tell the same type of tale.  The story of the haves and have nots, those needing justice and those abusing it, and humanity never seems to learn.  A prophet is needed over and again, as we see in scripture and in the headlines.  The injustices in Amos’ time could be the headlines of today’s news.

 

“Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
saying, ‘When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain;
and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale?
We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and selling the sweepings of the wheat.’”

 

          Amos tells us that the desire for wealth had outweighed God’s command for justice.  The desires of the those in charge outweighing the needs of the poor.  That worship and living God’s law was pushed aside for the marketplace and commerce.  Everything that was taught in God’s law was ignored, in the desire for more.

          Bushels of weighted grain were padded with sweepings from the floor.  Weights and measures used to judge fair price of goods were shaved or leaded.  The marketplace went from fair trades to thoroughly corrupt.

          Yet, God had always advocated…more than that demanded, that rulers and governors, should first and foremost care for the vulnerable.  The poor, the widow, the orphan.

It was a religious duty, in fact religious LAW that you never harvest all your field, but leave the corners for the needy.  That you never collect the grains that fall to the ground, because the gleanings are to ensure all have something to eat.

Hospitality.  Justice.  Care for the Stranger and those in need.  These were as much law as attendance at worship or keeping the sabbath.

          This was the word of the Lord.  These are the laws and the covenant that Amos was sent to remind the people of, because the people of God were not behaving as such.

          We recall those stories in our times as well.  Stories of government scandal.  Corruption and racism and terror by regimes far and near.  We know our own stories, of when Canada, when our Church did not live out the laws of God and we reaped what we sowed.  There have been bitter days indeed, in the bible and in our history and in the headlines.

          And as the old saying goes, you never really know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

We never knew we had it so good.  Mostly because we, the church, were the ones who had it good.  We had the stories, the prophets, the word of the Lord to keep our path straight, but we focused on power, authority, numbers, finance and the good ol’ days.

          We neglected our purpose and what it meant to live into God’s mission.  To be a people of God.   Now, we reap the consequences.  Gone are the days when you could assume that ‘those in charge’ knew what they were doing.  Gone are the days when everyone read their bibles.  Gone are the days that ‘Christian values’ actually meant acting as Jesus would act.  Gone is the trust people had in the church.  Gone is the relevance of faith in society.  Gone is the assumption, that a Christian person is a righteous person.

“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.
They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.”

A famine of hearing God’s word.  A prophetic famine.  Amos spoke of this to the people of Israel.    That injustice would be followed by consequence and God’s word would be rare…this is what Amos warns of.

As did Elijah…and Amos…then Isaiah…and Jeremiah… and Daniel… and Malachi….and all those prophets in between and those since.  Over and again we live with feast and famine when it comes to what God has commanded, our ability to hold the coarse, waxing and waning with history.

          Like a basket of Summer Fruit we have had a surfeit of power and prestige and authority in unequal measure and we reap the consequences.  Those who try to keep that abundance to themselves will quickly find it spoiled.  The church is surfeit with church property and no one interested in the faith found in it.

          But just as we receive warnings from our scripture and story, so too do we receive lessons.  That with repentance comes salvation and pardon.  That the famine will not last forever, and those repercussions of unrighteous living will not have the last word.   People will grow thirsty for God’s word, they will hunger for knowing what is right. 

          They long for that basket of summer fruit.  Ripe for the plucking and yet sitting unharvested and under utilized.  The Lord showed Amos a basket of summer fruit…ready to be eaten, abundant and ripe for the tasting now!  Amos knows there is no point in keeping all that summer fruit to himself, it’ll just rot.  Gather it in and put it to good use!  Take that basket and feed the people. 

          Too long people have been trying to fill themselves with things that will not satisfy, wealth, power, gain.  There is a famine in the land… a hunger and a thirst for hearing God’s word. 

          Here in worship we have an abundance, a basket overflowing with God’s word.  Ripe for the plucking our liturgies here and in all our many bibles at home. (which we all should have…and if not see me after church, we have extra downstairs)  We have a cornucopia of God’s word.    

          Not just the sweet, luxurious, easily palatable ‘God so loved the world that he gave his own son’ verses, but those hearty, long lasting, world sustaining ‘Go and do likewise’ verses.  After all there isn’t a famine OF God’s words, God word is all around us and in great abundance; There is a famine of HEARING God’s words.  Someone needs to speak them.  Someone…everyone who has them... needs to gather them in and give them away!

          All these life giving, justice seeking, stranger loving, holy words need to be spoken so that others can hear them.  Hoarded fruit will simply rot.

 

“(People are) wandering from sea to sea and from north to east, running to and fro seeking the word of the Lord”

           People are trying to discern what it is that they are missing.  What it is that they are hungering for and thirsting for.  This is a famine, wherein people no longer hear God’s word, because it is no longer commonly read or spoken to them.  Even we, Good Christians all,  no longer know all God’s stories, God’s history, God’s word.

          God has always advocated for justice, peace, security, safety, hospitality and care for every people, especially the most vulnerable.   These are the words that are needing to be heard…so these are the words we need to speak.  Out loud.  Often.  To all.  Not just on a Sunday.

And to tell the story we need to know the story.

So, drink deep in worship.  Feast on scripture.  The food is plenty, if we choose to share.  This is a famine of our own devising and it need not be.

The word of God is like a basket of summer fruit… or like a zucchini plant…there is always more to share.  amen