Amos 8:1-12
Proper 11 (16) - Year C
Amos 8:1-12 or Genesis 18:1-10a
There is a time for everything – mourning the death of a child and the anticipation of a child – a season of harvest and a season of planting. Whether the child or the crop bears much or little, whether the child or the crop elicits dread or hope – there is the working out, through all the little details, of rejoicing or regret.
In the game of foreground/background, comparison/contrast, where we can measure one against the other and see things in the other's light that would not otherwise be seen, even mixed metaphors have their place.
How do you hold the fragility of a particular harvest, the short-lived summer-fruit so quick to spoil, alongside a beginning of generations, in all their persistence? Here, as we go about the election of people to an office of episcopacy, a part of the personnel question to be addressed has to do with whether, in the life of an individual, election will be the culmination of their career (harvested and already beginning to lose vitality) or the initiation of a generational influence (setting in motion new vitality in the faith gene pool).
How is life in your skin? Beyond the question of age, are you summer fruit or a sower of seed for a next generation?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/july2004.html
Amos 8:1-12 or Genesis 18:1-10a
Our behavior sensitizes us to more or fewer options. Our associations shape our involvement.
So when we participate in deceit we are less able to hear and respond to teachings and opportunities to practice honest dealings. In this way our behavior limits our reception of a word of health and healing and common-wealth. These are "words" of G*D that become outside our usual reception and often require dramatic conversions.
A famine of imagination of how we might have a better present and future than we do is as deadly as a famine of bread or a drought of water.
- - -
let me bring you a little bread
let me under-weigh a little grain
between these two
lie a chasm
requiring
amazing grace
to bridge
let me bring you a little bread
let me pile high a little more grain
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html
The shelf life of fresh, ripe fruit is not long - maybe a tenth of a generation of fruit flies (and that's pretty short).
It is within this length of time that we are to consider the decisions we have made and to measure them against community well-being - internal hospitality. Often we limit an hospitable welcome to a stranger and forget how to love one another. G*D says, "Trust me, you are starving one another - you have lost the SOWF (Substance of We Feeling - from Shikasta by Doris Lessing) - and this will lead to a famine of meaning and dissolution of the community."
So set a ripe fruit out on the counter and start considering where you need to engage the community with an internal welcome - basic hospitality - love of one another - kindness - simple civility. If you do not begin to act on your thoughtful evaluation before the fruit rots, you've not only lost a fruit but you are that much closer to meaninglessness.
Here's the equation we are looking for GM = RM where GM=GivingMuch and RM=ReceivingMuch. This is not just about produce, but relationships.
Amos reveals ourselves to us. We begin to change now or we begin to practice a dirge for what we missed. Enough missed opportunities and we are addicted to missing them so we won't even see the next one.
If you are not going to take the authority you already have to offer a hospitality seminar, I hope you will take your precious time and resources and sign up for one.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/07/amos-81-12.html