Amos 7: 7-9
This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a
wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the LORD said
to me, "Amos, what do you see?" And I said, "A plumb line."
Then the Lord said, "See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my
people Israel; I will never again pass them by; the high places of Isaac shall
be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will
rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword."
Luke 10: 25- 37
25Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus.
"Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal
life?" 26He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you
read there?" 27He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all
your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." 28And he said to him, "You
have given the right answer; do this, and you will live."
29But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And
who is my neighbor?" 30Jesus replied, "A man was going down from
Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him,
beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31Now by chance a priest was
going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32So
likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the
other side. 33But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw
him, he was moved with pity. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having
poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to
an inn, and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two denarii, gave them
to the innkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him; and when I come back, I will
repay you whatever more you spend.' 36Which of these three, do you think, was a
neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" 37He said,
"The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do
likewise."
God’s prophets are a mighty odd group of people. They upheld
the word of the lord and bad-mouthed the religion that everyone was practicing. They spoke for the poor people and against the rich. They pointed
fingers and they were NOT well-liked.
Elijah was called the troubler of Israel.
Amos was thrown out of the country.
Hosea was called a fool.
Jeremiah got thrown in a cistern.
And tradition says Isaiah
got sawed in half.
It’s amazing that these profoundly unpopular people show up
in our holy book. One of the things we don’t think about when we read the Bible
is that it’s self-correcting. It contains both the Law of God and the exploits
of the patriarchs and kings. But it also contains the critics who worked to
keep Israel on track with God. The prophets insulted kings, predicted
disasters, and shouted curses and woes.
Today we love Moses, Elijah, Isaiah and the other prophets,
but their peers didn’t. So why are they in this great book?
Probably because
people have been making the same mistakes over and over and over again.
The prophets' words are as relevant today as
they were in the Old Testament.
So the next few weeks we’ll explore what the Lord says
through this group with the sermon series: Say What?
We begin with some straight talk from Amos.
Literally.
Amos has a vision of God speaking to him with a plumb line—a
tool that is used to make sure a wall is straight. The prophets are known for using props to get
our attention—like a plumb line or basket of fruit or some bread baked over cow
dung.
Amos and the plumb line remind us that God has standards for
us to meet. Amos tells the people around him that God is holding a plumb line
up to their crooked generation. He’s telling them they don’t measure up to
God’s standards.
Amos shakes his finger at Israel and says your walls are
falling down. Your foundations are bad and you will suffer because of it. He,
and most of the prophets, have two basic messages.
Message #1 You have been unfaithful to God.
The king in Amos’ time made two golden bulls at shrines used
for worship. Remember how bad it is to make golden calves? The Israelites had
already been there and done that when they were waiting for Moses to come
down the mountain. You’d think they would have learned that lesson then. But
no. They did it again.
Does anyone else have that problem? You make a mistake and
swear to do better and then a few days or week later you find yourself doing
the same thing. Yeah. Me, too.
Message # 2 You are not loving your neighbors.
God says of Israel (through Amos):
They sell the innocent for silver,
and the needy for a pair of sandals.
They trample on the heads of the poor
as on the dust of the ground
and deny justice to the oppressed.
Father and son use the same girl
and so profane my holy name.
They lie down beside every altar
on garments taken in pledge.
In the house of their god
they drink wine taken as fines.
Yikes! The people of Israel didn’t see how far they strayed because
many of them were busy building nice houses and living an easy life. They
worked all week. Had a nice glass or two of wine with dinner Friday night, went to
worship on Saturday morning and started it all over again on Sunday.
But God says, Stop—look!
Don’t you see you that you are serving yourselves?
Don’t you notice some people are oppressed?
Aren’t you helping the poor?
Don’t you see the injustice?
Beware, God is telling
them through Amos and the plumb line, your crookedness will pull you down. Your
walls will crumble.
And crumble they did. Israel was overtaken in war. Their leaders were taken captive and moved
them out of Israel. Their wonderful homes and walls and even God’s Temple came
crumbling down.
Amos was right.
I don’t know about you but I feel like I’m seeing the walls
of our society crumbling this summer. We have video footage of people being killed in Orlando, Baton Rouge, Minnesota and Dallas. Because so many
people have smart phones and the internet we are witnessing the horror
firsthand. We are given a new vision.
I have to wonder, Is there something kind of prophetic about
this?
We can record and expose things in our society that haven’t
been seen in the media before. Our phones and cameras are shining a light on
occurrences that might never have made the news otherwise.
We, here in small town in Western Pennsylvania, can be
witnesses to a traffic stop in Minnesota that leads to the death of a black
man. We can read text messages from people about to die in a nightclub. We can watch
as people and police officers scramble for their lives in Dallas. We can see
news from cars and nightclubs and police body cameras. And it hard to be a witness.
Today there is no question we mourn for those who were killed
in this week’s violence. But I suspect many of us may also mourn the loss of a
more innocent worldview. Today we mourn
the loss of the way things were before we all became instant witnesses to
crimes committed around the world. Suddenly, our small town and our small lives
are caught up in something bigger.
For so many of us our society looked straight and true for so
long. And new it feels crooked or unstable. But, I wonder: Are we seeing new problems? Or are we finally
witnessing problems that have been there all along? Problems that most of us here
have been sheltered from because we’re not black or gay or a police officer.
In the Gospel of Luke (12:2-3) Jesus says, “There is nothing
concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard
in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will
be proclaimed from the roofs.”
Things are coming to light through our cell phones and other
technology. We can’t unsee the events of the past few weeks. We can’t unknow
the problems in the broader world. We can’t deny that things are off-center. And that
makes us defensive. We want to protect our worldview.
The prophet Amos pointed out the way Israel was off-center. That’s why he
got thrown out of town. People didn't want to know what he saw. But he told them anyway. His message is important, then and now. Amos and
other prophets remind us that to truly love God, we have to love our
neighbors. That means:
There is no room for racism in our hearts or in our culture.
There’s no room for vengeance in our hearts or in our culture.
Nor is there room for indifference in our hearts or in our
culture.
We are to heed the call of the prophets: Love God and love
neighbors. So how do we do this?
Jesus shows us what this love looks like in the Good
Samaritan parable. Remember Samaritans and Jews were enemies. They didn’t touch
or talk to one another.
But, Jesus says the righteous man in the parable was not one
of the Jewish leaders, as we would expect. The priest and Levite both tried to unsee the injured man and walked
right past him. It’s the Samaritan who was willing to see and act.
We can’t ignore the people who are bleeding in our streets, whether
they are black or white or dressed in blue. Whether they are addicts, homeless
or mentally ill. We, too, are called to see.
And when we see, we are called to stop what we are doing and tend
to the wounded around us. The Good Samaritan didn’t just call 911. He touched,
he carried and he even paid the bill for the man—this enemy—so that the wounded
man could recover. Not only did the Samaritan see the injured man, he saw him through his healing.
In the parable, Jesus shows us that ministry is inconvenient
and expensive. A life of faith costs us something.
Today, I think being faithful may cost us our worldview.
We need to listen to the prophets, receive their criticism
and confess the ways that we might be participating in creating an unjust society, even
here in our little town. We need to hold up God’s plumb line to make sure it’s
straight—in our hearts, in our church, in our community, and in our country.
And if it’s not, we need to be willing to admit that something is crooked and
tear it down. Only then can we try again to build it straight.
And really, we’ve been rebuilding churches and our
societies for centuries. Maybe I’m an optimist, but I think that with God's help each time we
do it, we put those bricks up a little straighter and stronger.
With Christ as our plumb line we get a little closer to God’s truth. Theodore Parker
once said the arc of history bends toward justice. God’s justice and truth is
coming. We aren’t there yet, but we are being called to participate in what God is building today.
I can’t unsee the violence of this summer. I can’t unknow the
things that I’m learning about our society and myself. But I can choose a side.
I choose God’s side, even though it’s the costly side to be
on. I choose the side where people are not shot for the color of their skin or
the uniform that they wear. I choose the side where traffic violations are
equally enforced and those who are working to keep the peace don’t need to fear
for their lives. I choose to participate in the merciful, healing, and
justice-oriented work that Jesus started.
And first that means tearing down the way I think of myself and seeing the ways that I’ve contributed to the crooked wall. It means confessing that I've been unintentionally racist. It means understanding that I've benefitted from the color of my skin and the circumstances of my birth. It means admitting to the hardest thing of all: I like my life and it frightens
me to think about what God might need to change in me.
It’s inconvenient. It’s costly. But in the end, it’s what all of us are called to do.
