July 20, 2025
Amos 8:1-12
Luke 10:38-42
As I remember the home in which I grew up, I recall two paintings – prints, actually – that adorned the walls. One was a mother and child. The other was a still life of a bowl of fruit. Summer fruit.
Well, actually, it was apples and pears, which in New England are early autumn fruit, but let it pass.
To all of us in the household, it was a colorful illustration of sweetness, of family, of nourishment, of hospitality.
So to me, a basket of summer fruit is a peculiar way to open Amos’ fierce denunciation of the powerful people of ancient Israel. I’m not the only one to find it strange. Pamela Scalise writes at Working Preacher, “The bounty of sweetness from pomegranates, figs, and grapes, the value of olive oil and wine, the long years of care and cultivation to bring fruit-bearing trees and vines to productivity—all these associations with summer fruit anticipate a good word of blessing. God’s word through the prophet, however, announces the end.”
God – or Amos, because it’s clear that part of an ancient prophet’s role was to choose the human words with which to express what they’d heard from God – had a reason to start with fruit that isn’t apparent to us, because we’re reading this text in translation. As Tyler Mayfield writes at Working Preacher, “…the image is likely chosen primarily to create a wordplay in the original Hebrew. The word for ‘summer fruit’ is qayits, and the word for ‘end’ is qets. The prophet uses similar-sounding words to craft a message.”
As a fan of puns, I approve this message.
I also have to point out, along with other commentators, something that every one of us know who live in this climate. If you leave a basket of fruit out for very long, bad things happen, at least from our point of view. From the point of view of the fruit flies it’s not so bad, but few of us enjoy the sight or smell of rotting fruit on the kitchen counter.
Amos’ readers knew that just as well, and Amos’ readers would have been able to make the connection to the national reality of ancient Israel 750 years before the birth of Jesus. Dan Clendenin writes at JourneyWithJesus.net: “He lived during the reign of king Jeroboam II, who forged a political dynasty characterized by territorial expansion, aggressive militarism, and unprecedented national prosperity. The citizens of his day took pride in their misguided religiosity, their history as God’s elect people, their military conquests, their economic affluence, and their political security.” In other words, the nation itself resembled a basket of summer fruit: Ripe. Fragrant. Tasty. Nutritious.
The nation’s prosperity and power, warned Amos, was also the sign of its end, the hidden decomposition that would spread until the color faded, the fragrance fouled, the flavor soured, and the nutrition turned to poison. Why? Because the nation’s riches were founded on exploitation of its citizens.
4 Hear this, you who trample on the needy,
and bring to ruin 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?
We will make the ephah smaller and the shekel heavier
and practice deceit with false balances,
6 buying the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals
and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”
7 The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
Thanks in part to the authors of First and Second Kings, we tend to remember that the primary sin of the ancient realms of Israel and Judah was the worship of foreign gods. When you read what the prophets wrote in their own time addressing the immediate concerns, they did raise that problem. Amos did just that in verse 14 of this very chapter.
But. To Amos, that was secondary.
As Dr. Mayfield writes, “The people’s offense has almost entirely to do with how they treat each other. It’s ethical. Amos 2:6–8 makes this clear:”
If you haven’t memorized Amos 2:6-8, here it is:
6 Thus says the Lord:
For three transgressions of Israel,
and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,[c]
because they sell the righteous for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals—
7 they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth
and push the afflicted out of the way;
father and son go in to the same young woman,
so that my holy name is profaned;
8 they lay themselves down beside every altar
on garments taken in pledge;
and in the house of their God they drink
wine bought with fines they imposed.
To punish these kinds of sins, God announced the destruction of the nation. If that seems harsh, it was. The reality was that God didn’t have to do anything to destroy the ancient realm of Israel. It was destroying itself. The metaphor of the summer fruit was a pun on the end, but it also reflected the not-yet-seen degradation of the nation itself based upon the misbehavior of the most powerful. When those in authority abuse their citizens, when those in power discount the needs of the community, when those of wealth extract more wealth for themselves from those who have the least, those societies cannot stand. They will crumble. They will fall.
The nation of Israel to which Amos prophesied fell about 730 years before Jesus was born, probably about the same time Amos himself died. It fell before the invading army of an enormous empire. Other nations, including its neighbor Judah, survived that great invasion.
But in the northern kingdom of Israel, the basket of summer fruit had fully decayed.
You know, I’d kind of like to stay away from the basket of summer fruit that is the United States of America. I’d like to choose the better part of Jesus, to attend to what he said, and to rejoice in the reassurance of his presence. That’s partially what my sabbatical was about. To soak in the goodness of God.
But then along comes Amos, and I can’t tune him out. As Dan Clendenin writes, “Amos delivered a withering cultural critique. He describes how the rich trampled the poor. He says the affluent flaunted their expensive lotions, elaborate music, and vacation homes with beds of inlaid ivory. Fathers and sons abused the same temple prostitute. Corrupt judges sold justice to the highest bidder, predatory lenders exploited vulnerable families. And then religious leaders pronounced God’s blessing on it all.
“Does this not sound strangely familiar?”
Of course it does. Of course it does. In the wake of Congressional decisions to reduce taxes on the wealthiest and increase the burdens of the poor, it sounds very familiar. In the wake of countless people whose refugee petitions were abruptly dismissed and found Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers waiting in the court hallways to whisk them away, it sounds very familiar. In the decisions to end foreign aid programs while flexing military might, it sounds very familiar.
These choices place the nation on the path of decay. Of degradation. Of rot. These choices imperil the social contract that makes the nation function, that brings people to their jobs every day, that underlies their obedience to basic laws, that helps them trust in the integrity of juries and judges. These choices will inevitably degrade the efficiency and reliability of police forces, the military, and the other public servants who maintain our roads, inspect the food supply, and make sure our medications are safe and effective.
These choices link the prosperity of summer fruit with the heartbreak of the end. These choices do not need God to bring catastrophe in punishment. These choices make their own catastrophe.
Israel’s rulers did not listen to Amos 2700 years ago.
We will need to be loud indeed for our leaders to listen to us now.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric makes changes from his prepared text while preaching the sermon, so what you read here will not be identical to what he said while preaching.
Photo by Eric Anderson.