TAKE A PLUMB LINE, CHRISTIAN

      Amos was a shepherd in Tekoa, a small village just south of Jerusalem, and he had a vision when Uzziah was King of Judah and Jeroboam was king of Israel. It was a time of relative prosperity and peace in the land and many of the people in the northern kingdom of Israel were living well. They ate the best of foods, drank the best of wines, had big homes made of stone, and they were quite pleased with themselves. They were also a religious people who gathered together for festivals and presented offerings to God. At a glance it looked like things were well, but God had a case against them- one that involved justice and righteousness (mishpat and sedeqah).

      Amos received his call while he was tending his sheep in Judah, and he traveled north so that he could present God’s case to the religious leaders of Israel. He prophesied against the way in which the poor and marginalized were being treated in the northern kingdom. He condemned those who had winter homes and summer homes, while others were struggling, and he singled out the entitled women of Bashan, whom he called “fat cows” because they oppressed the poor and crushed the needy. Speaking to the wealthy in Israel. God said, “You bring sacrifices every morning… and you brag about your freewill offerings, for that is what you like to do.” (Amos 4:4) “There are those,” God went on to say, “who hate the one who upholds justice and detest the one who tells the truth.” (5:10) There are those also, God noted, who “levy a straw tax on the poor” and who “oppress the innocent by taking bribes,” while they build stone mansions for themselves. “I hate, I despise, your festivals.” God said. “I will not listen to your harps”… until justice rolls down like a river and righteousness like a near falling stream. “Your beds adorned with ivory (and) and you drink wine by the bowlful,” but you “do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.”
      God presented his case and accused the people of Israel of leaving their worship "at the church door." The people, it seems, were lost in their own sense of entitlement and they had forgotten about their neighbors. However, from the beginning, God had made it clear that true worship meant 1) keeping his commandments and 2) taking care of the widows, aliens, and orphans in their midst. From the beginning, God had called his people to 1) give gladly to him… and 2) to leave some grain around the edges of their fields for the poor. From the beginning, God told his people to honor him in the sanctuary, in the courtroom, and in the market place. Mishpat and sedeqah demanded worship inside… and outside… of the worship center! And now God’s people were living lives of luxury that were funded by bribes, trumped up charges against the innocent, unbearable taxes on the poor, a smug sense of entitlement, and a pervasive lack of concern for the least among them (the very ones that Jesus lifted up in Matthew 25).

      “What do you see?” This is the question that He asked Amos (see 7:7)… and it’s the question he asks us today! What do you see? I see a plumb line, Amos replied. I see you, O Lord, standing on a wall with a plumb line in your hand. “I am setting a plum line among my people,” God concluded, and things are way, way out of plumb. They were out of plumb because the people had gotten drunk on their own wine. They were full of themselves and lost in their own desires. It's a sad story in my view, but it's an opportunity for us to answer the same question that Amos was asked. How are things going for us these days? What do you see, dear Christian… in the world today? Are things plumb or have they gone awry?  Are we rearing our children in the way of the Lord? Is the family circle unbroken? Have we tamed our tribal tendencies? Are we doing better at knowing and trusting our neighbors? Have we broken the cycle of violence? Do we leave some of our crops for the poor and the strangers? Are we, as a people, in good shape physically, morally, and spiritually? Do we really walk hand in hand? Do those who have two coats give one to the person who has none? Do we speak for those whose voices have been silenced? Do we speak truth to power? Does Abel’s blood cry out to us. as it did to God so many years ago? Do we pray for the church? Do we embrace the unloveable and forgive the unforgivable? And when we look into the eyes of the person who may be next to us in a line somewhere, or at table with us, who may or may not look like us; who may be, or not be, in agreement with us- can we look into that person’s eyes and see a child of God?  Or is our vision blinded by stereotypes and our own self interests?

      Take a plumb line, Christian (you and me) and see if things are plum… in the world, in the church, in your family, and in your heart? Amen.