A basket of fruit

Norah Summers July 20, 2025 2 1

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Amos 8: 1-12 (NIVUK)

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.

Wow.

This passage really brought me up short. It could have been written today. Mid-eighth century BC, I believe, and it could have been written today.

Has anything changed?  Are we any better? Any wiser? What have we learned?

Slightly strangely this chapter opens with an image of a basket of fruit. So far so good, for our theme of enjoyment. Fruit is nice, juicy – enjoyable! Then what? Images in preceding chapters are expanded on, but this isn’t. What becomes of the basket of fruit?

I am writing just after Pentecost, when the focus on the Holy Spirit has given cause to look again at the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ — a list that exactly contrasts with this devastating list of sins, failures, and cruelties recorded by Amos.

And now in 2025?

We have dictators orchestrating wars, dealing death and destruction to millions. Do they actually enjoy this behaviour? What satisfaction do they get? How do they sleep in their beds at night?

We have powerful people spreading lies and misinformation. Do they actually enjoy this behaviour? What satisfaction do they get? How do they sleep in their beds at night?

We have people trashing the planet, utterly careless of its beauty, bounty, fragility. Do they actually enjoy this behaviour? What satisfaction do they get? How do they sleep in their beds at night?

What an unsettling passage – even literally in the image of wandering from sea to sea. Can we go back to the image of the fruit? To a cultivated orchard, a Garden of Eden? To care, to stewardship, to a harvest of enjoyment? To the fruit of the Spirit -love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control.

God help us.

Prayer:

Loving God, sometimes we need to be confronted by the sins and failures and cruelties that we inflict on one another. Confront us then with your Spirit, and the fruit that that miraculous power produces.

Read also Galatians 5:22-26.