Rev. Kevin M. Pleas

Amos 7:7-15 July 12, 2009

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."

Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, "Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos has said, 'Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.'" And Amaziah said to Amos, "O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom." Then Amos answered Amaziah, "I am no prophet, nor a prophet's son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel.'

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Once, in a small industrial town, there was a man who owned a jewelry store with a big clock in the front window. Every day a man would walk by the store, stop and set his watch by the clock, before continuing on down the street. One day the jeweler happened to be standing in his doorway of his shop when the man came by. He greeted him in a friendly way and said; "I see you set your watch by my clock. What kind of work do you do that demands such correct time every day?" "I'm the watchman at the plant down the street," said the man. "My job is to blow the five o'clock whistle." When he heard this the jeweler was startled. "But ... you can't do that," he blurted out. "I set my clock by your whistle!"

That's kind of an interesting situation isn't it? Each of these men, without knowing it, had been confidently relying on the other for the correct time. It's possible, I suppose, that they were both right; although it's far more likely they were both off. However, without referring to some accurate, external time standard, neither of them really had any way of knowing. And, in all likelihood, no one else in town would have cared all that much, as long as they were more or less in the ballpark.

Until recently, until the advent of modern science and technology that is, being in the ballpark was all the average person ever needed. These days, accuracy is much more important, which is probably why some of the old standards of measurement sound so funny to us. Did you know that a "Digit" was once a standard of measurement? A Digit was about ¾ inch, or approximately the width of a man's finger. An Inch was originally the width of man's thumb, or the length of 3 barley corns. A Palm was 3 inches, the width of man's palm. A Hand was 4 inches, the palm plus the thumb. (Horses, I understand, are still measured in hands.) Then there was a Span, about 9 inches measured across a man's spread fingers, and a Cubit, which was the elbow to the tip of the middle finger; 28 digits, 2 spans, or roughly 18 inches. Whenever I hear the word cubit I always think of Bill Cosby's comedy routine about Noah. God asks him to build an ark all measured in cubits. When Noah asks what a cubit is, God responds, "Hum, let's see, Cubit. I used to know what a cubit was."

One measurement I've always wondered about is an Acre. It turns out that Acre comes from an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning area or field. It was the area that could be ploughed by one ox team in a day, or actually in a morning because the Oxen would need to rest in the afternoon after trudging 11 miles to plough one acre. Of course there are miles, and then there are miles. A Roman mile was 5000 Roman feet or about 4860 modern feet. An English mile was 5000 feet, until that was changed to 5280 feet during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. A Scottish mile was 5952 feet, and an Irish mile came in at a whopping 6720 feet. Then there was a country mile, which was just a really long way.

Today, these measurements seem hopelessly arbitrary. They were sufficient for times when "approximately" was plenty good enough, but as we've developed toward a world-wide community of technologically savvy nations, our measurements have necessarily become far more precise and standardized. We still don't all use the same system, but we can easily convert one system to another, to the level of hundreds of decimal places, with just the punch of a few computer keys.

However, that only works for certain things. When we're talking about length or weight, volume or speed, location or time (of course), we've long since managed to overcome our cultural differences. But what happens when what were trying to measure is moral behavior? What happens is that we can't seem to agree on just exactly what we're supposed to be measuring our moral behavior against.

It brings to mind a song I first heard on one of Roberta Flack's old albums. Let me give you a couple of verses, without actually singing (which should come as a relief to at least some of you.)

Love the lie and lie the love. Hangin' on, with push and shove.

Possession is the motivation, hangin' up the whole-damn nation

Looks like we always end up in a rut.

Tryin' to make it real, but compared to what?

Then there's my favorite verse...

Go to church on Sunday, sleep and nod. Tryin' to duck the wrath of God.

Preacher's fillin' us with fright, tellin' what he thinks is right.

But he must be some kind of stupid nut.

Tryin' to make it real, but compared to what?

Now, leaving aside the aspersions cast on preachers (some of us do deserve it after all) that song carries a great insight. So much of the time, we all seem to be flailing around trying to figure out how to make our lives work. But we don't seem to have a very clear idea of what standard we're supposed to be measuring ourselves against. In the words of the song, we're "tryin' to make it real," but how can we know how we're doing if we don't know what to compare ourselves to? Compared to what? That's the problem. Like my opening story, how can we know what time it is if all we're doing is running around copying each other?

With that in mind, this ancient vision of the prophet Amos begins to make sense. Earlier this week I was visiting Helen and Paul Putnam. Helen asked me what I was planning to preach on this week. When I told her I was wrestling with Amos, she immediately shot back, "Who's winning?" I thought that was pretty sharp of her. The truth is the jury is still out. Amos isn't the easiest guy to appreciate. In this morning's passage, God comes to Amos in a dream. God is standing by a wall that, we're told, was originally built with a plumb line. That is to say, the wall was built so that it would stand up straight and vertical. But now, when God holds a plumb line up against the wall, it's clear that it has begun to lean over. The wall isn't as straight up and down as it once was. Clearly, God wants Amos to understand that this image is a metaphor for the people of Israel, who were once built into a nation, straight and true, but who were no longer living up to their original standards. The nation that was built to be a light to all nations, had become corrupt and complacent, and God wasn't going to take it anymore. "The sanctuaries of Israel" would be laid waste. Israel would go into exile away from their land.

It's not a pleasant message. Neither is it surprising that some of those Amos brought it to weren't very happy. Amaziah, in particular, a priest of Bethel under King Jeroboam, goes running off to tattle. "Amos," he tells the king, "is a threat to the nation. He speaks treason. He claims your kingdom will be put to the sword and your people will be taken off in exile." A mere twenty years later, Amos's prophesy turned out to be true, but at the time it was most unwelcome. Amaziah tells Amos that he should take his prattle elsewhere, but Amos says, "Look, I'm no prophet. I'm not doing this to earn a living. I was minding my own business tending to my herds and trees when God dragged me aside and told me to deliver this message. If you've got a beef, why don't you take it up with Yahweh.

Now, obviously, this is all ancient history, and unless you happen to be a student of history for its own sake, it can be hard to imagine what it has to do with us. I find though, in my wrestling, that I keep being drawn back to that image of God's plumb line. When Roberta Flack asks the question, "Compared to what?" this is the answer given to us by faith. God holds a plumb line in the midst of the people. God knows what is straight and true and what isn't. God is that standard of measurement against which all our moral behavior must be held, assuming of course that we actually are people of God. These days, an awful lot of people are not. And I have to say that in light of a church that is often moralistic and absolutist about what they think God wants of us, we shouldn't be surprised when people turn their backs on the church.

The problem is, when we reject the views of a higher authority, on what is right and what isn't, all we're left with is a great big collection of personal opinions. Charles Colson, in a book called, The Body, (Word Publishing, 1992, p. 162-163.) talks about this in a very interesting way. Colson writes:

At one time, Francis Schaeffer says, he shared a platform with former cabinet member and urban leader John Gardner, during which Gardner spoke on the need to restore values to our culture. After he finished, a Harvard student asked him: "On what do you build your values?" Gardner, usually articulate and erudite, paused, looked down, and said, "I do not know." I repeatedly encounter the same reaction. When I have contended before scholars and college audiences that in a secular, relativistic society there is no basis for ethics, no one has ever challenged me. In fact, in private they often agree.

Folks, I've never been good at being moralistic. I don't think I have anyway. But in this case I'm afraid Colson is right. Our society is mostly secular and relativistic, which means that we often trade away the authority of God in favor of "everyone's entitled to their own opinion." We have only to look at our recent economic meltdown to realize that it doesn't always work out so well. Of course, I personally believe that knowing "the mind of God" is more art than science. Unlike the black and white notions some people have, I don't think God ever intended our moral values to be absolutist. Life is more complicated than that.

But in those situations where we're left wondering what might be our best option, what makes the most sense to me is to hold our choices up against the example of Jesus. I believe it was Jesus who best understood not only God's mind, but also God's heart, which makes him the perfect candidate for the role of God's plumb line. And despite all the negative press the church has gotten recently, so long as we continue striving to measure our choices against the faithfulness, compassion and self-sacrifice of Jesus, we will continue to be the community his Spirit brought into being.

Amen.