Summer Fruits

July 21, 2019 Amos 8:1-12 Summer Fruits Fifth Sunday After Pentecost Year C Children's sermon: How do you like your banana's? Amos says that life is like a banana. It does not last too long. Amos 8:1-12 Common English Bible (CEB) A vision of summer fruit 8 This is what the LORD God showed me: a basket of summer fruit. 2 He said, “Amos, what do you see?” I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the LORD said to me, “The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again forgive them. 3 On that day, the people will wail the temple songs,” says the LORD God; “there will be many corpses, thrown about everywhere.[a] Silence.” Judgment on oppressors and hypocrites 4 Hear this, you who trample on the needy and destroy the poor of the land, 5 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, make the ephah smaller, enlarge the shekel, and deceive with false balances, 6 in order to buy the needy for silver and the helpless for sandals, and sell garbage as grain?” 7 The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget what they have done. 8 Will not the land tremble on this account, and all who live in it mourn, as it rises and overflows like the Nile, and then falls again, like the River of Egypt?[b] 9 On that day, says the LORD God, I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in broad daylight. 10 I will turn your feasts into sad affairs and all your singing into a funeral song; I will make people wear mourning clothes and shave their heads; I will make it like the loss of an only child, and the end of it like a bitter day. 11 The days are surely coming, says the LORD God, when I will send hunger and thirst on the land; neither a hunger for bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the LORD ’s words. 12 They will wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they will roam all around, seeking the LORD’s word, but they won’t find it. Footnotes: a. Amos 8:3 Heb uncertain b. Amos 8:8 Heb uncertain Farmer Brown came to town with some watermelons. He sold half of them plus half a melon, and found that he had one whole melon left. How many melons did he take to town? You have an unknown number of watermelons to start. We'll call that unknown number "x". The farmer sells 1/2 of his watermelons and another 1/2 of a watermelon. This is represented by the formula x/2 - 1/2, the number he has sold. He is left with 1 watermelon. Now we have our complete formula: x/2 - 1/2 = 1 x/2 = 3/2 x = 3 So that riddle serves absolutely no purpose but to introduce our scripture for the day. It is indeed a scripture about a farmer coming to town bringing some fruit. But his message was not intended to be meaningless, as a matter of fact it is still relevant today. Amos was a farmer who lived just outside the capital city. Obviously, he never moved to the city, he found city folk to be a little strange. He would go to church or temple when he was in town. And bring his offering, but he felt the people were missing the point. They came to church to be seen and not to worship God. The book of Amos is a series of four of these visions, where God speaks to him through the simple things in life. today’s lesson is about a bowl of fruit. Fruit was considered a delicacy – when you had fruit life was good. You had more than enough , and as we all know, you needed to eat it as soon as possible, because it did not last for long. There is no worst smell than rotten fruit – it smells up everything. It is not in this verse, but at one point Amos calls the women of the town cows. All dressed up and looking nice, but rotten on the inside. What was their sin – they took good care of themselves, but there were people starving all around them. It was their job to take care of the people, and they didn’t. It was their job to share, but they didn’t. As a matter of fact the people that they should be helping, they took advantage of them. Amos says that the life of a sinner is a lot like the life of fruit. Once it goes bad, there is nothing you can do to make it good again. Yesterday, I left a banana in my car, waiting to eat it. But by the time I got to it, it was completely black and soft. The heat had cooked it – there was nothing I could do to save that banana. Amos was telling the people that the damage was done. God was already upset, and they would be punished for their selfishniss. This is called a lament – telling the bad news, that they would be exiled for their sin. They would be exiled for their sin. Amos was a simple farmer, but he had a way with words. He spelled out how people were cheating the poor. And it still happens today. For instance at the grocery store, the size of the bag is the same, but there is less in it. When you go to the restaurant, the price of the meal is the same, but the plate is smaller so you get less food. The last accusation really hit home- when people come to church they watch the clock. They are here, but they cant wait for church to end, so they can go back to their lives. Some it is lunch, some it is taking a nap. For those amos is talking about, they waited just enough to get out of church, so they could go back to being a sinner. None of us here – we are the good people. Scripture has a way of interacting with the times. We see different things in it according to what is happening in our lives and in the world. One thing that really stood out to me about this scripture – day will come when hunger is upon the land. Not a hunger for food – but for God. People will look for God and just not find God. That is our world today. More and more people wondering what is going on – every man for himself. No right or wrong, we are all at each other;s throats. What will happen to bring a sense of peace amongst the people. Where is God in this situation. Let me tell you another story about two women. There was a man, whose father died at when he was young. So when he got married, his mother lived with the man and his wife. Unfortunately, the mother and wife did not always get along. It wasn’t that they didn’t like each other, but it wasn’t that they did like each other. So the mother decided to move out on her own. As soon as she moves out the wife gets pregnant. A rumor gets to the mother that the daughter in law is happy that she is gone, and says that good things did not happen until she finally moved out. Upon hearing the rumor, the mother in law, gets mad and says that for the daughter in law to say such things, righteousness must have finally disappeared from the world. An angel is listening to this story and tries to reason with the woman. But the mother won’t listen. So the angel suggest that maybe she should have a funeral for righteousness since it is no longer in the world. The woman agrees and goes to the cemetery to have a funeral for righteousness. Her anger is still not satisfied. So the angel suggest that maybe she should burn the daughter in law and her unborn baby, since they are so unrighteousness. At this the mother-in-law realizes her mistake and begs the angel to spare them their life. The daughter in law too realizes her mistake of shunning her mother and she runs to the cemetery to make up with her and to welcome her home. They both seemed to realize their mistake and to realize that righteousness was not about judging the other, but in understanding one another. This story reminded me of the message of Amos. Amos too seemed to believe that righteousness was dead. There was no hope for Israel, their society had become so corrupt and unfair to poor people that God had no choice but to destroy them. In his prophecy he tells them that the end is near. There is no hope. Things will get so bad, that people will yearn to hear the word of God – and it will not come. They will desperately seek the light at the end of the tunnel and never see it. The good news for us is that day will never come. The good news is that there is always light, there is always hope, there is always Jesus. The presence of Jesus is always here. The thing is that you can’t be so caught up in life that you forget to look for him. Don’t get so distracted that you forget to listen. Jesus reminds all of us that he came into the world to serve and not to be served. Jesus welcomes us to his house- he had already done all of the preparation, all of the work. There is nothing that we need to do – just answer the invitation to leave your troubles behind, to listen to god’s blessed word and to gain strength and calmness for whatever may be going on in life. Hopelessness and the feeling that the end is near come out of our nervousness. It’s not what is going on, it is the attitude in which we experience it. Jesus came into the world to bring us a gift from heaven, that gift is peace and the knowledge that in a world, which says otherwise, everything is okay. Let us be the people who live in Jesus grace- fed by his word enpowered to give to others. Let us pray…. Amen.