The Cost of Cantaloupe

Cantaloupe can have far-reaching implications.

We were on our way to our son’s college graduation rehearsal, followed by the blessed event itself, in the Florida Panhandle. We were 1 1/2 hours from our destination and a nearly an hour ahead of schedule – that is, until we were detoured onto a local road as the result of an accident on the highway, which was closed for miles. A chemical spill, we wondered? 

 

It was lunchtime on a weekday, so the detoured highway traffic mingled with the local traffic in a scenario that instantly revealed the four-lane road wasn’t the ideal choice for a detour. We nudged ahead inches, occasionally even feet, at a time. We watched the clock. Twenty minutes became 30 became 45. Getting nowhere slowly, we pulled across the road into a Chick-fil-A. We would grab lunch and go, hoping traffic would retreat somewhat by the time we got our order.

“We were detoured onto this road because of some big accident on I-10,” we told the manager as he rang up our order. 

“Yeah, I heard about that on the news,” he said. “A cantaloupe truck swerved around another vehicle and overturned. The highway is covered in cantaloupes.”

Cantaloupe. Five thousand pounds of cantaloupe, in fact. The fruit of the trucker’s labors was still visible in the median the following day as we observed workers replacing long sections of guardrail along the northbound lane. (For those who are wondering, according to news reports—yes, it made the news— the trucker had minor injuries, and the other driver was somehow unharmed. The cantaloupes were less fortunate.)

Think about these cantaloupes for a minute. First, a guy loses his pickup to an out-of-control semi. Second, a semi driver loses his truck and all his cargo, and most likely, his job. Third, thousands of drivers—including fellow truckers—get thrown off schedule. Were they going to graduations? Weddings? Funerals? Critical doctor’s appointments? Fourth, local drivers unexpectedly find themselves in a lunchtime traffic jam when their road becomes a makeshift highway. Fifth, the price of cantaloupes is probably going to soar, as if it’s not high enough already. You have to think about these things.

Some people will experience longterm consequences of the cantaloupe catastrophe. The trucker certainly will. But even 5,000 pounds of cantaloupe pale in comparison to the fruit of another choice made thousands of years ago.

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”—Genesis 2:16-17

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.—Genesis 3:6

He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden He placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. – Genesis 3:24

The wages of sin is death.—Romans 3:23

Thousands of people suffered because of cantaloupes, but billions have suffered because of the sin born in the garden. Sin brings death, the kind of death that results in eternal separation from God. But it also brings a different kind of death. It brings death to relationships, to trust, to peace, to prosperity, to hope. It poisons marriages, families, work relationships, churches.

Sin is sin. All of it separates us from God. All of it can separate us from those we love. All of it has consequences. But certain sins have greater power to destroy, and the power of sin to destroy is further amplified by personal power. The ripple effects of sin can become a tsunami of destruction and pain.

For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost.—Luke 14:28a

How much habitual sin could we avoid if we actually counted the cost? What will be the cost to our marriages and families? To our witness? To our careers? To our longterm goals? 

When you are tempted to swerve to the right or to the left, consider the cantaloupes, my friends— if you can afford them.