Harvest Time

One of the things I loved about living in South Jersey, where I served my first church, was the fresh peaches. I love peaches even more than I love sweet corn. So as soon as they started appearing, I started buying. And every time I went into the local farmer’s market (Puglia’s) I would just wander around gazing on glorious piles of produce - from plums to peppers, apricots and melons, tomatoes and cherries. It made me regret I gave up painting. No wonder so many artists paint still lives. Isn’t it amazing how beautiful they all are? God didn’t have to make them beautiful, you know, they could have been just as tasty and nourishing if they were all sort of a drab khaki color. The beauty is just an extra bonus.

So it was really hard to make the mental switch from thinking of piles of sweet, succulent peaches to Amos’ basket of summer fruit - because his vision is not one of plen-ty. Amos’ vision does not forecast sticky fingers and full stomachs. Amos’ vision signals disaster.

It works better in Hebrew, becausse it’s a pun between "qayets," which means the “summer fruits,” and "qets," meaning “end.” So instead of seeing a basket full of fruit, Amos sees a basket full of “the end.” Like the plumb line from Amos 7, it’s a way of saying that the time is up for the Israelites. A lot of commentators want to make this a basket full of overripe fruit, and use it as a metaphor for the rottenness of their society, but I don’t agree. That meaning isn’t in the text, it’s just an attempt to make up for the fact that the pun doesn’t work in English. I think that what God is showing Amos is that the time of the harvest of the peo-ple is at hand. Scripture is full of agricultural metaphors for people. Probably the most applicable passage is a parable that Jesus told:

"The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the householder came and said to him, 'Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then has it weeds?' He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' The servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' But he said, 'No; lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, 'Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'' ... the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels." [Mt 13:24-39]

So, you see, people themselves are referred to as being a harvestable crop.

But there’s another agricultural metaphor that’s even more applicable. Again, it’s Jesus’ words. This time from

Luke "For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; 44 for each tree is known by its own fruit.” [Lk 6:43-44]

Or, as Paul puts it in Galatians, “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever you sow, that you will also reap.” Or Job 4:8 ...those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same. Or Proverbs 22:8 He who sows injustice will reap calamity... Or Hosea 8:7 For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. Let us see, shall we, what the Israelites have sowed, and what kind of fruit they are bearing.

Hear this, you who trample upon 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 8:4-6]

Amos accuses them of two things: They are accused of defrauding the poor through fraudulent business practices, and they are accused of - not neglecting the Sabbath, exactly, but of disliking it. Of rushing through their religious observances with their minds on other things. This is not just a matter of being distracted, mind you, as all of us are at one time or another. No. They are so unaware of what worship is about that they imagine that going through the motions is enough. Do you suppose they really think that God is satisfied with their superficial obedience? I know a lot of people even now who think that going to church on Sunday is enough to get you in God’s good graces, as if singing a few hymns and sitting through a sermon and dropping a check into the of-fering plate makes up for ignoring him for the rest of the week.