The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 12), July 20, 2025

“The end has come.” This is not the kind of happy preaching many people want to hear. It is the
kind of “doom and gloom” prophetic word that needs to be balanced with a pastoral word of
comfort, insight, assurance – but the prophetic word does need to be preached. In these harsh
words there is a prophetic paradox that is deeply embedded in scriptural wisdom.
It is ironic that the Bible, particularly the Hebrew scriptures, contains such harsh critiques of its
main characters, in this case, the nation of Israel. One might think it best to paint over any
failings or weaknesses and present a unified picture of consistent faith – but the Bible is too bold,
and too honest for rose-colored glasses. The Old Testament picture of God’s relationship with
Israel is filled with the ups and downs of real life: failure and forgiveness, regression and
restoration, apathy and acceptance, sin and salvation.
In another powerful prophetic episode of the prophet Amos, God asks, “What do you see?” The
play on words is evident in Hebrew: “I see a basket of summer fruit (qayis)…” Amos answers.
Then the Lord said, “The end (qes) is near.”
The preacher might use the imagery of the text in a graphic object lesson, filling a basket to
display all the best of summer fruit: apples, grapes, peaches, oranges, figs. This visual could be
used to note the irony Amos seems to be conveying – that at the height of this season of harvest,
when the best of our fruit is ripe, the rot has already set in. The fruit is in season; the fruit of our
hands is not.
James Nogalski says, “YHWH then describes the end of Israel in graphic detail that flows from
YHWH’s decision not to withhold punishment any longer. The songs of worship will become
funeral songs, and corpses will pile up everywhere. As if to emphasize the finality of this
decision, 8:3 ends with a single word that leaves no room for the prophet to intercede: YHWH
simply and forcefully concludes, ‘hush.’” (The Smyth and Helwys Bible Commentary, The Book
of the Twelve, Hosea-Jonah, p.343.)
Because of Israel’s continued failure, God is announcing destruction, and their sin is not a failure
to go to church, to pray, or to read their Bibles. The failure of the nation is one of social justice, not of personal piety. It is a message that cannot be emphasized enough in a hyper religious and
highly successful economic climate. Faith, first and foremost, is about our care for the other. God
says it clearly: “you trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land…” The preacher
could employ a myriad of contemporary examples, from discriminatory lending practices to
housing policy to tax subsidies for the wealthy.
Someone has said that in the United States there is no greater sin than to be poor. As did the
ancient Israelites, we continue to make the poor “pay” for their “sin,” and, adding insult to
injury, we blame them for their own misery. God’s call is for justice, mercy, compassion. Amos
tells the comfortable religious Israelites that God will punish them because they have not
remembered the poor. Because they have not cared for the widow, the orphan, the immigrant,
they will have to pay. “The end has come!”
But, in the end is the beginning – for this God who has just announced an end to the chosen
people is also the God who is “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Exodus 34.6). In
our failure is the seed of our forgiveness. It is a failure that will lead the people to hunger and
thirst for “hearing the words of the Lord” – and despite God’s warning, “They shall wander from
sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but
they shall not find it,” like the pronouncement of final destruction, these words should be taken
for their dramatic effect, not literally. God’s mercy always triumphs over judgment. “Blessed are
those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be fed” (Matthew 5.6, emphasis
added).
For Christians, this paradox at the heart of scripture is made incarnate in Jesus, “the image of the
invisible God.” The late Dr. Frank Tupper used to teach in his systematic theology class: “I
believe in God because I believe in Jesus, and not the other way around.” In other words, if we
want to know what God looks like, we look to Jesus – in whom “the fullness of God was pleased
to dwell.” Christians affirm the fullness of God was in Jesus, and scripture makes it clear (even
when the culture does not) that God’s fullness in Jesus did/does not dwell in power and
domination or in lives of ease and success and wealth, but “through the blood of his cross.”
“My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12.9), ““If any wish to come after me,
let them… take up their cross and follow me. For those who… lose their life… will find it”
(Matthew 16.24-25). The Christian gospel is upside down, backwards, a paradox of values. In
the end is our beginning. It is a vision for our time.
Related Scriptures:
For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. Philippians 1.21
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take
up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who
lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world
but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? Matthew 16.24-26
Worship Elements:
A Confession

Just like newborns, whose fingers wrap, instinctively, grasping, grabbing, hanging on…
Sometimes we just can’t let go. We can’t let go of the past. We can’t let go of our prejudice. We
can’t let go of pride and partisanship. We can’t let go of what we know, of where we’ve been, of
what we want. May God forgive our need to claim and to cling, and teach us that the heart of
faith is trust: letting go.
“If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it was, and always will be yours. If it
never returns, it was never yours to begin with.” May it be so. Amen.
— quotation is from Sherrilyn Kenyon, Unleash the Night
A Litany
Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly.”
Yet, advertisements promise us of a life filled with abundances.
“I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly.”
Yet, Holly wood promises a life filled with fame.
“I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly.”
Yet, Wall Street promises us a life filled with fortune.
Yes, the world makes its promises… but Christ came into the world,
That we might have life, and might know what it means to live it abundantly!
from John 10.10
A Hymn
“Hymn of Promise,” Natalie Sleeth
In the bulb there is a flower;
In the seed, an apple tree;
In cocoons, a hidden promise:
Butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter
There’s a spring that waits to be,
Unrevealed until its season,
Something God alone can see.
There’s a song in every silence,
Seeking word and melody;
There’s a dawn in every darkness,
Bringing hope to you and me.
From the past will come the future;
What it holds, a mystery,
Unrevealed until its season,
Something God alone can see.
In our end is our beginning;
In our time, infinity;
In our doubt there is believing;
In our life, eternity,
In our death, a resurrection;

At the last, a victory,
Unrevealed until its season,
Something God alone can see.