Sunday, July 11, 2010 Judy Skaggs
Amos 7:7-17; Luke 10:25-37
Do We Really Want to Know?
We continue with our summer preaching series on the Old Testament texts of the lectionary which have focused our attention on the prophets. So far we have heard stories of Elijah and Elisha, sometimes called the “speaking prophets.” There is no book that bears their name, but instead, we find their stories in the books of the kings. Today we begin looking at some of the “writing prophets,” those whose words have been recorded.
We will consider texts from the prophet Amos for two Sundays. Amos was called to speak for God in the middle of the 8th century BCE when Jeroboam II reigned in Israel, the northern kingdom. Amos actually came from Judah, the southern kingdom (as we learned from him in person this morning.) But God’s call was to go and preach to the people in Israel to the north.
The central message of Amos concerns all the injustice he sees. The 8th century was characterized by territorial expansion with very aggressive militarism and unprecedented economic prosperity. Many interpreted these things as God’s favor being graciously poured out upon them.
But Amos saw things differently. He saw that their religion had become private and selfish, that they were worshipping other gods and had built high places for worship. Amos saw that they ignored the poor, the widow, and the aliens among them. Israel’s religious leaders sanctioned a status quo that exploited the weak. Even the priests defended and justified the king’s evil and corrupt reign.
The book of Amos contains a series of oracles against all the surrounding nations who continue to turn away from God. And then the prophet turns to Judah and finally to Israel.
Amos does not mince words, but points out all the ways they have strayed from God’s ways. The words of Amos that we know the best are from this section:
“I hate, I despise your festivals…Take away the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” These became Martin Luther King’s trademark lines that he used in speeches and sermons, calling for justice here in our country.
Like Amos, MLK had a different vision for how the world should be, and he used the words of the prophet to keep reminding us of that vision.
Following the oracles, the Lord shows Amos a series of visions. For these two Sundays we are looking at two of those visions. Let us listen for God’s word to us from Amos 7.
God asks, what do you see? And Amos replies, a plumb line. God is placing this measuring device in the midst of the people of Israel, for they are not measuring up to their covenantal duties. And God says, I will never again pass them by. There seems to be a reference to the Passover many years before in Egypt, when the angel of death passed over God’s people who had marked the door posts of their houses with the blood of the Passover lamb and therefore saved them from death.
But here, God is saying – I will no longer spare my people because of their sin. But instead God will allow judgment to come upon them and they will be sent into exile.
The priest Amaziah begins to spar with Amos. First of all, he complains to King Jereboam about Amos – this prophet is speaking out against you right here in the midst of your people! Amos has said that you will die by the sword and that all of Israel will go into exile!
Then, Amaziah goes to Amos and tells him to go home – go back to Judah and earn your living there. Take your words with you. Don’t prophesy here any more!
And then Amaziah says something amazing. He claims that the sanctuary itself belongs to the king and the temple belongs to the kingdom. Amaziah the priest is claiming that the king has total authority in the worship places. In other words, there is no room for God! Faith has been reduced to nothing but political jargon for the king’s own purposes.
But Amos will not be bullied, and he is not afraid to speak out against empire. He says that he may not be a professional prophet, but nevertheless, he is called by God to speak truth. And that is what he plans to continue to do.
And so the rather cozy arrangement that king and priest have where they are trying to maintain the status quo, has been interrupted by the intrusive word of God from a simple farmer named Amos. And through Amos’ words, they will have to face the fact that God does not see the world in the same way that they do.
Now here is where we come in. In our modern life, most of the time, we are much like Amaziah and Jeroboam – we just want to be left alone, left to live our lives as we please. We are basically good, decent people, aren’t we? Why should God want to intrude in the status quo that we have come to know and love?
But along comes this prophet from 2800 years ago whose words still tell us the truth about ourselves.
Here at UPC we claim the words of another 8th century prophet, Micah. On the front of our bulletin every week, we claim to be a Micah 6 church. We want to follow Micah’s word from God,” What does the Lord require of you? But to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” And through the years we have made a commitment to try to follow those words.
But if we are honest, there are times when we ask that same question – what does the Lord require of us? And quite frankly we really do not want to know the answer.
We pray every Sunday for God’s kingdom to come and God’s will to be done, but do we really want to know what that would look like? Do we really want to know - especially if it means that we might have to change our behavior?
The gospel lesson today is the story of the Good Samaritan from Luke 10. You know the story, but do you remember the setting? A lawyer stands up to test Jesus. “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus asks him what is written in the law. The lawyer answered that you are to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus told him he had answered well, do this and you will live!
But the lawyer wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “but who is my neighbor?” And then, Jesus told the story of the man who was robbed, beaten, and left for dead. A priest passed by; a Levite passed by; but a Samaritan (a foreigner) was moved with compassion, and he put the man on his donkey, bandaged his wounds and took him to an inn. He even offered to pay for whatever the injured man needed.
And Jesus asked, which of the three was a neighbor? The lawyer answered – the one who showed mercy. Jesus said, Go and do likewise.
That lawyer thought he wanted to know how to live, how to walk with God, what the Lord required of him. But was he really ready to accept the answer Jesus gave him? And even when he had the answer, he felt like he needed to justify himself and maybe push Jesus toward a different answer.
But Jesus never relented – if you want to live, you must love God and neighbor. You love by showing compassion; you love by doing justice.
Amos saw a plumb line which was there to show Israel that they were not living by loving God and loving neighbor. And Amos’s message never relents either.
My experience with a plumb line has been when I was trying to hang wallpaper. You use the line to make sure the first piece you hang is completely straight. Then you line up the next piece with the first one and so on around the room. In my experience, however, everything would be great until you come to a corner and often you find that the room is not exactly square. So when you round the corner, then all of a sudden, the paper no longer lines up straight. And at that point you have to decide whether to just keep going a little crocked or to try to plumb the paper every time it is not quite squared up.
I guess that is sort of the way we live the life of faith. We develop devotional practices; we offer our money or our time to the church; we find ways of breathing in and breathing out the Spirit of Christ – in other words, we get squared up with what we believe to be the plumb line of God’s word to us. But as life goes along, we round those corners where things are not quite squared up any more, and we have to decide how we will proceed. Will we just maintain the status quo as we heard that Amaziah and Jeroboam wanted to do – just leave us alone to live our lives as we please? Or will we listen to those ancient words of the prophet and of Christ, calling us to get plumb – to always return to God and to continue seeking justice and mercy and the will of God for our lives?
Friends, let us hope that we can use these ancient words to inspire us to seek God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness. Let us pray that we can free ourselves of attachments that keep us from loving and serving the God who creates us and loves us. May God grant us grace to want to know what God desires for us and then to live toward God’s kingdom and God’s justice. Amen.