“Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall” (Prophet Margins – Part III)

Sermon Title: “Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall”

Good News Statement: God grants us visions

Preached: Sunday, July 31, 2022 at Dogwood Prairie UMC & Seed Chapel UMC

Pastor Daniel G. Skelton, M.Div.

 

Scripture (NRSV): Amos 8:1-12 Today’s scripture reading comes from the Amos chapter eight verses one thru twelve. Listen to the words of a concerned and confused prophet…

The Basket of Fruit

8 This is what the Lord God showed me: a basket of summer fruit. ² 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 spare them no longer.
³ The songs of the temple shall become wailings on that day,” says the Lord God; “the dead bodies shall be many, cast out in every place. Be silent!”

⁴ Hear this, you who trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
⁵ 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 smaller and the shekel heavier and practice deceit with false balances,
⁶ buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”

⁷ The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
⁸ Shall not the land tremble on this account and everyone mourn who lives in it,
and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?

⁹ On that day, says the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.
¹⁰ I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth on all loins 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.

¹¹ The time is surely coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.
¹² 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.

 

This is the Word of God for the People of God; And all God’s people said, “Thanks be to God.”

 

Introduction:

A senior citizen drove his brand new Mercedes to 100 mph, looking in his rear view mirror, he saw a police car behind him, so  he floored it to 140, then 150, … then 170, … Suddenly he thought, “I’m too old for this nonsense!” So he pulled over to the side of the road and waited for the police car to catch up with him. The officer walked up to him, looked at his watch and said, “Sir, my shift ends in ten minutes. Today is Friday and I’m taking off for the weekend. If you can give me a good reason that I’ve never heard before for why you were speeding, I’ll let you go.” The Man looked very seriously at the police man, and replied, “Years ago, my wife ran off with a policeman, I thought you were bringing her back!” The Cop left saying, “Have a good day, Sir”

Two weeks ago, we were introduced to a simple herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees: a normal person who was simply living on the margins and doing his own thing. But then God entered his life, and things began to change. This simple herdsman and dresser of sycamore trees became a prophet. Today we call this prophet Amos. God asks Amos, “What do you see?” (Amos 7:8) and, in that same verse, Amos simply responds, “A plumb-line.” For those that may have forgotten, a plumb-line is a device—usually a piece of string with a weight attached to the end of it—used for determining the true vertical line of a structure. Essentially, a plumb-line is what we would call a modern-day level. God is calling Amos to check the vertical line of Israel, to check how level or straight the line from earth to heaven is for the people of Israel. Remember, the people of Israel have wavered from their faith a time or two. They made a golden calf and worshipped idols; and they even rebuked God’s commands. God needs Amos to see what is really taking place, what is really happening on earth with the people of Israel.

What is happening is that their plumb-line has become frayed, loose, crooked, and quite possibly kinked or knotted. Their once firm and vertical foundation is beginning to lean and crumble. Essentially, their faith is beginning to weaken; and God needs Amos to see that. God needs Amos to warn the people. God needs Amos to help restore the people of Israel. God needs Amos to see below the surface. God needs Amos to look into a mirror and see the changes. Two weeks ago, God, through Amos, invited us to see the world around us and to check our own faith, and today, God is calling us, through Amos again, to look inside what we see when we look into a mirror. “Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall…” is what Amos is saying today as he hears and witnesses the fall of Israel. Amos sees a basket of summer fruit—once ripe and beautiful—withering away. Have we become a basket of summer fruit…once ripe and beautiful…but slowly fading? The time has come to look in a mirror and see what God needs us to see.

 

Opening Prayer:

            Let us pray… Dear God of vision, today, we think of your creation. We think of the ground beneath us, the air surrounding us, the water that flows through us. We are in awe of the way a seed can grow into nourishment for our bodies, the way life comes forth from what seems so small. Draw our attention to your creation, so that we might praise you for your incredible gifts! May my words fall to the ground as Your words settle in the hearts of all those before me. In Your name we pray, Amen.

 

Body:

To me there’s nothing more exciting than the season of summer. During summer, we find ourselves being outside more, taking mini or extended vacations, and working on projects that were added to a legal pad of paper while we were sitting inside on those cold wintry days. Summer brings excitement to our life: this excitement could come from the idea of taking vacations, watching the flowers bloom, seeing people outside, or knowing that some really great people of birthdays during the summer! Whatever it is, summer brings excitement!

Growing up in a somewhat farming community, I’d often head to the farmer’s market in Davenport, Iowa, with my mom on Saturday mornings. On a few occasions, myself and my cousin would sit under a tree in the farmer’s market and play music as people shopped. The farmer’s market was packed with murmuring, quickly moving patrons loading up on special items that larger commercial grocery stores couldn’t seem to secure or duplicate. There seemed to be a more down-to-earth feel to the farmer’s market. It looked like a warehouse for food but outside. There would be an array of meats just waiting to be cooked. Then there would be the greens of every type. Let’s not forget green beans, squash, sweet potatoes, and then some.

Aside from the meat venders and those selling greens of every type and those selling flavored honey, there was one part of the market that was rather serene, at least visually. That was the location of the summer fruit displays. The fruit was beautiful: decked out in an array of colors, shapes, and sizes! The fuzzy peaches, sharp yellow bananas, the bright red apples, the deep purple grapes, the colorful mixture of lemons and limes and the juicy red strawberries, and the heaps of watermelon. Simply by going to the farmer’s market, I gained an excitement for summer that remained stored up for eight months out of the year. During the summer, we all get a chance to see God’s creation at its fullest.

Looking back at those many trips to the farmer’s market, purchasing fruit was a ritual. I’m sure at some point if you came to visit my family and opened the fridge on a summer day, there would be nothing but fruit inside! My mother even created a fruit basket that sat on the table. However, fruit doesn’t last forever. Sooner or later that summer fruit basket began to rot, smell, and collect flies. What was once ripe and beautiful began to wither away and become useless or as the Apostle Paul would like to say, it became “rubbish.” The excitement of summer dwindled away with that fruit basket.

While conversing with Amos, God notices that the people of Israel have become a basket of summer fruit that has begun to expire and rot. Knowing Amos was a bit of a farmer himself, God brings this narrative in a way Amos could thoroughly understand it. To God’s question, “What do you see?” (Amos 8:2), Amos mentioned a fruit basket and possibly all the enjoyable things related to it came to his mind. But God didn’t see just ripe fruit. God saw fruit that was on its way to being rotten. This fruit didn’t have long before it began to be no good. God likens this scenario to the people of Israel. God sees the injustice; God sees the oppression; God sees the inequality; and God sees the rottenness of the people. If God were to hold up a mirror to the people of Israel and asked it, “Mirror, Mirror, on the wall what do you see?” the mirror would probably go black, complete darkness, no reflection; that’s how bad, how rotten, the people of Israel had become.

God unfolds for Amos the plan of judgment.  God said, “The end has come upon my people Israel” (Amos 8:2). They have trampled on the needy (8:4), brought ruin to the poor (8:4), and sold the poor for silver and sold the needy for a pair of sandals (8:6). Because of the actions of Israel, everyone who lives there will “mourn…and be tossed about and [will] sink” (Amos 8:8). If this wasn’t enough, God extols, in verses nine thru twelve, “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 all loins 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. The time is surely coming…when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread or 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, seeking the word of the Lord but they shall not find it” (Amos 8:9-12).

Because Israel had let their basket of summer of fruit become rotten, because they had let their faith dwindle, God is going to bring devastation and death upon them. The people of Israel have lost their faith and God has lost His hope for these people. If only they would have taken the time to look into God’s mirror, maybe things could have been better? Maybe there could have been light and life instead of darkness and death? Maybe they would have noticed what was happening around them, that their faith was becoming corrupt and rotten?

Are you noticing what is happening around you? Is there darkness in our world today? Is there rottenness happening outside our doors? Is there a basket of summer fruit withering away on our table? What would God see today if He held up a mirror before us? Amos is asked by God, “What do you see?” But we are asked by Amos, “What are we going to do about what we see?”

Before we can refill any basket with ripe fruit, before we can restore our faith, and before we can bring justice to this world and to our community, we must look inside ourselves and ask ourselves, “What do we see?” In 1937 Walt Disney Productions released its first full length traditionally animated film starring a female and seven dwarfs. Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs not only changed the film industry but it brought forth a concept that most of us struggle with today, and that is being able to see ourselves for who God needs us to be.

In the film, the Queen stands before a giant mirror and asks, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” To which the mirror responds, “Thou, O Queen, art the fairest in the land.” Then one day, the mirror said to the Queen, “Snow White, O Queen, is the fairest of them all.” Well, Snow White became the object of the Queen’s hatred. The Queen couldn’t stand to have someone fairer than she. Of course, the story wouldn’t be the same if the Queen actually made an effort to be fairer and gentler than Snow White. What if the mirror had told the Queen that she wasn’t kind enough? In actual fact, Snow White was prettier than the Queen, but let’s imagine that the mirror had listed the five things that the Queen needed to do in order to be the fairest in the land? Would the Queen have listened? I’m going to suggest that the Queen likely wouldn’t have listened to the mirror. She would likely have thrown a rock at the mirror and continued believing she was the fairest of the land.

The people of Israel are just like the Queen. They were set in their ways believing that they were the fairest in the land, but then the mirror, God, told them the truth. I bet they wanted to throw a rock at the mirror and pretend that nothing was ever said after hearing what God was going to do to them. Have you ever been told the truth before but didn’t want to believe it? Have you ever found yourself wanting to throw up your hands in disgust and wanted to storm away? Have you ever wanted to throw a rock at a mirror because you didn’t like what you saw? The mirror on the wall says a lot about who we are from the outside, but the longer we stand in front of it—the longer we allow God to be in our life—the more we begin to see what is inside us. Essentially, we begin to see what God needs us to see. We begin to see the ripe summer fruit of the basket. We begin to see our faith blossom and change the world. We begin to see the creation and image of God that resides in our heart. When you look into a mirror what do you see?

I have often wondered what this world would be like if mirrors were placed in random locations, on street corners, or even in parks. Would people stop to look at them, to see themselves how God sees them? To take a moment to reflect on what was before them? What would it be like if we placed a mirror at the entrance of our church and simply put above it, “God created this reflection.” Amos, a simple herdsman and dresser of sycamore trees, is asked, “What do you see?” And to this question, Amos simply responded, “A basket of summer fruit.” Amos saw the devastation and pain of the people of Israel: he saw them from the outside. But in the process of reflecting on God’s question, Amos began to see below the surface of himself: he began to see himself as a prophet, as someone created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) to do God’s work.

In life it’s not always easy to see below the surface. There are a multitude of distractions in our life. We are afraid to see below the surface—to lift up the covers, to open our eyes, to see what God needs us to see. But God needs us to see below the surface: to see the injustices of this world, to witness the pain that is taking place, and to see the needs of those around us. God needs us to see what is reflected in His mirror of creation. “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, what do you need us to see most of all?”

 

Conclusion:

God turns to Amos to help us make our faith ripe again. Amos isn’t a superhero or a well-known public figure in his community. He’s a herdsman. He’s a dresser of sycamore trees. He’s not seminary trained. He has not been commissioned or ordained. Amos doesn’t even have a license to preach. But he has an enormous job. His job is to give a message that people don’t want to hear. His job is to invite people to see what God sees not just from the surface, not just from 30,000 feet, but from within themselves.

Amos is on the margins, but has found a way to impact an entire city. Amos is like us: living in a small community, but yet our actions can impact those both within and beyond our communities. But before we can do that, we must remove the rotten fruit basket from our table, and replace it with ripe fruit of faith. We must look inside ourselves and ask, “What do we see?” We must look in the mirror and allow God to help us see what He created. We must take time to reflect upon what is before us. I wonder what life would be like if we all carried a mirror with us. (In a way we do: we carry a phone that can take pictures of us.) So that, whenever we felt discouraged or worn out, we could pull that mirror out of our pocket, look into it, and say, “God created me. I am great. I am strong. I am fearless.”

When was the last time you looked into a mirror and saw more than a simple reflection? When was the last time you looked into a mirror and said, “I am a creation of God?” When was the last time you looked into a mirror and saw the rottenness of life fall away as new beginnings fed your soul? When was the last time you said, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, what do you need me to see most of all?” The time has come to look into a mirror and to see what God created! You don’t have to be a prophet to change the world: you simply have to be you, who God created. The reflection of this world disparately needs to be lightened up, to witness greener pastures, ever-flowing streams of righteousness, and to experience the amazing grace of God. You can bring this world all of these things plus more because God has put them inside of you. “What do you see” is a simple question with a powerful answer. So again, what do you see when you look into a mirror? “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, what do you need me to see, what do you need us to see, what do you need our church to see most of all?”

 

Closing Prayer:

Let us pray…Dear Heavenly Father, we want to be like Amos—a doer of your word and source of your sight. Lord, help us to see what you need us to see. Help us to see below the surface. And help us to remove the rotten fruit from our lives so that a new harvest of fruit and faith can guide us toward your will. All power and glory is yours, now and forever, Amen.

 

Benediction:

As you go about your week, I pray that God bless you with His eyesight as you strive to see what He needs you to see. “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, what do you need me to see, what do you need us to see, what do you need our church to see most of all?” May God bless your faith and help you see what He needs you to see. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit go transforming lives as you live well and wisely in God’s world. Amen. Amen. Amen.

 

Prayer of Confession/ Prayer of the People

God of Justice,

We confess to you today that we often find ourselves

feeling bitter, distraught, and ashamed.

We far too often fail to take accountability for our sins and wrongdoings.

In an effort to feel better about ourselves, we overfill our plates with tasks,

hoping to atone for our misdeeds.

We confess that we have trampled on the needy, choosing greed.

We confess that we have brought ruin to the poor of the land,

neglecting many parts of your creation.

We confess that we have practiced deceit, fearful of being exposed.