Amos 8:1-12
This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit. And he said, “Amos, what do you see?” And 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 pass by them. The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,” declares the Lord God. “So many dead bodies!” “They are thrown everywhere!” “Silence!”
Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?”
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 dwells in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?”
“And on that day,” declares the Lord God, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on every waist and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.
“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread, nor 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, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.
During a Michigan winter we yearn for the warmth of summer. During the heat of summer we covet a crisp and frosted autumn. In the fall we then lament the passing away of fresh vegetables previously available. Right now spring cannot come fast enough, and six months from now people will be impatient for Christmas. Youngsters want to grow up fast so they can experience more and oldsters would gladly suspend time to grab a little more.
I mention these not to suggest all such thoughts are inappropriate, but to suggest often we are restless and discontent, unsatisfied and forgetful of all God has given us in the present.
St. Peter wrote, “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence …” (2:2-3)
So, here are you and I, as the baptized, in this moment quite literally the beneficiaries of absolutely all things important and needed for life and godliness. Who could want more when there is no more? Hankering for more is foolish because God has given us His all.
One of Aesop's fables you may remember is about a dog carrying a bone. While crossing a stream the dog looks down into the water and sees its own reflection. Taking it for another dog carrying something better, it opens its mouth to snatch the other bone and in doing so drops and loses what it was carrying. Stretching for more, the creature actually loses all.
Dissatisfaction may not seem such a terrible thing compared to other transgressions, but the danger of dissatisfaction is that it is the gateway sin. Hankering was the downfall of mankind in Eden. The serpent didn’t lure Eve and Adam into thievery, adultery, or murder. He seduced them into hankering, and hankering was the breach through which all was lost.
Amos was God's prophet during the reigns of Jeroboam, ruler of Israel, and Uzziah, King of Judah, at a time when both kingdoms were at the peak of prosperity. Not unlike our United States in our cornucopia of possessions. But Amos preached also at a time when people had reached a low point in their devotion to Yahweh, the God of Israel. The people couldn’t wait for the Sabbath to be over so they could squeeze more riches and profits out of the poor for themselves. Hankering for ever greater proceeds, they had no time to celebrate the merciful gifts of God. Dishonest scales, adulterated commodities, fraudulent practices — all were the upshot of hankering for more, and it would soon lead to the forfeiture of everything.
The fact is that a thirst for things, earthy articles of trade and humanly produced objects, can never be enough. To make such things into gods is the height of folly, simply a hankering for more, more, more all the time. And the fact is: we know it. Those who are materialistic know it. Sophisticated and experienced or not in the art of stockpiling, everyone knows it can't last.
It only ends with the fool losing everything. Jesus said as much in the parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:13-20) where the great tragedy is not the loss of the material things but the loss of one’s life.
Through Amos, the Lord said, “Behold, the days are coming, when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread, nor 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, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.”
Amos had seen a basket of summer fruit, emblematic of bounty and blessing. But the hankering of the people made that sign a marker of the end of the harvest, the end of fruitfulness, and the end of plenty.
The greatest gift to us, therefore, is being returned to Christ, to realize that in Him no situation we may face really matters; no station in life is relevant; no status of purse or size of house makes a difference.
The real difference is between contentment in the promises and provisions which God so generously gives us in His Word and that stupid hankering that yields nothing in the end.
St. Paul said it well, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me…. And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Philippians 4:10f)
Isn't that lovely! My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus!
