Amos 7:7-17
7This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. 8And 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; 9the 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.”
10Then 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. 11For thus Amos has said, ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.’” 12And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; 13but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.” 14Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, 15and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ 16“Now therefore hear the word of the Lord. You say, ‘Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Isaac.” 17Therefore thus says the Lord: ‘Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be parceled out by line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.’”
Amos was not even a prophet, but he heard the word of the Lord and was commanded to speak it to King Jeroboam of Israel. Th word was not new, but the same old word. It does not take a prophet or a PH.D or a Pastor to know that if you do build a wall straight, gravity will eventuall bring it down. The plumb line is the gravity line and the gravity line for us, our families, our communities, our nations, our world is the law of God: the law that establshes that which is good (promotes the life of the world) and that which is bad (destroys the life of the world). Simple enough…unless, of course you think you might be the exception to the law of gravity or at least that you can cheat the law of gravity long enough to make a huge profit or exercise an extraordinary power over others and then let the future generations pay the bill.
Forever and ever God told the Israelites and all the nations – take care of the widows and orphans, treat the poor justly, do not oppress. This is to build the wall straight up and down, a wall that does not fall. But, as Amos told Jeroboam: Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals— 7they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way.
A nation that does not build a straight up and down wall is a nation that will fall. Simpe enough. You do not have to be a prophet to understand this much about the faith that was generated by the actions of the god who brought the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt.
The destruction of Israel and of the house of Jeroboam that Amos predicts is not a special punishment sent by God on them; it is the consequence of their management of the nation.
The priest tells the King that the kingdom cannot bear to hear these words (because the truth hurts), so the King banishes the prophet like many in our nationa and many in our church have done. It does not change the consequences. There is an exile that is coming up and a terrible dismantling of a nation that already has forsaken its core values for the pleasures of plundering the poor and making war against the neighbor.
Mark 6:14-29
14King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” 15But others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” 16But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”
17For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. 18For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” 19And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, 20for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him. 21But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. 22When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.” 23And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” 24She went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the baptizer.” 25Immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” 26The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her. 27Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, 28brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. 29When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.
King Herod is at once more wise and more cruel than Jeroboam. At least Herod will admit to finding what John the Baptist to be righteous and he rightly fears to kell the righteous man. His wife does not have such a fear and Herod owes his chances to move up the Roman ladder of power and importance to his wife (being married to his wife’s “house” is a prerequisite for the next step up). John says it is not right (as Amos told Jeroboam) to take another man’s wife which makes Herodias something of a prostitute. So, she asks to take the head off the truth and hjerod, for being one who values his power more than the truth, agrees.
Mark, of course, puts this story early in his Gospel to show why Jesus will die –because the political leaders who oppress the people will always try to behead the truth that such oppression is to live outside the gravity of God’s law. All Empires have one thing in common – the fall – because Empries are not the form of community that god intended for the human community. It does not take a Propeht to know this, nor a Pastor…even a herdman, a dresser of sycamore and a guy in the wilderness wearing camel hide as a pretense for clothing can understand the Empires can only one do thing, in the end…to fall. You can cut the head of John and put Jesus on a cross, but the truth of God’s gravity does not change, go away or stop being operative.
Ephesians 1:1-14
1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus: 2Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight 9he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 11In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, 12so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 13In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.
Plumb Line living is living in God’s Gravity, God’s Truth. You cannot banish this truth, you cannot be behead it….But we can Believe it!!!!
What does it mean to believe or to live in God’s Gravity?
to live in God’s Gravity means to live in God’s Grace, to live according to God’s truth and to dedicate our lives to do God’s will. This is the message that St. Paul shares with the Ephesians who want to know if they can really believe that what God reveals in Jesus can be theirs or whether they are second class citizens, just what some call “God Worshipers”, but not “Chosen People.”
Living in God’s Grace eliminates all the one-ups-manship games that humans play to deny access to goodness, to life, to happiness, to dignity to others. To the claim by some in the synagogue in Ephesus that those who were originally chosen through Abraham have a higher privilege and more access to the blessings of God, Paul writes: 3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8that he lavished on us
God’s gift of life to all people is the center of Gravity that keeps the plumb line right (righteous) so that life can be good. God’s grace takes the con away. There are two basic approaches to understanding the meaning of human life: the good is what you get if you earn it or the good is what you are given in order to share it. The second is freeing, the first makes us a slave.
Living in God’s Truth. The Gospel of John says the Truth sets you free… and, if Jeroboam would have listened he could have been free. Instead, Amos says, he will die by the sword and the people of Israel will go into exile.
Well Herod, he didn’t like the truth either and his wife liked it less. The truth was that it was wrong for him to steal his brother’s wife – legally and morally. But, Herod, he at least appreciated that John was man of integrity. So, he tried to stop the truth from being told, but did not kill John, he only locked him up. Herodius, his wife, however, had a different idea of what to do with the truth – kill it. But Herod knew that John was speaking the truth and, therefore, according to Mark, he feared him as a righteous man and protected him. But Herod was not a man who was grounded in gravity of the truth of God, but rather wanted to please wife and the crowd who demanded he deliver John’s head… then it was the head that he delivered. He could have been delivered from his sin if he had just followed the truth – “If we say we have no sin, the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sin, God is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Pilate found no fault with Jesus when Jesus was brought to him the week of Passover. His wife told him, be careful. But it was politically expedient to crucify a man who was, after all, just a Galilean from a carpenter’s family. “What is truth?” Pilate said.
A PBS Documentary called the “Dark Side” which tries to explain how the current administration could have led the country into a way based on information that proved all to be totally wrong. In the documentary it is noted that several people in the administration knew the intelligence was wrong or not reliable but, they chose not to speak truth to power, but to seek acceptance. About one of the very high officials from the Intelligence Agencies who knew that it wrong, David Kay, a former weapons inspector in Iraq who did know and did say that the intelligence was wrong, gave the epitaph to one of the very high intelligence officers in the administration who chose to remain silent: “He wanted to be a player. He traded integrity for access.”
The Plumb line says that avoiding, denying, suppressing the truth, good, bad or indifferent that it might be…never brings life, only more mistakes, more slavery, moral depravity and eventually ruin.
Do you want a good life, live in the gravity of God’s truth.
Doing the Will of God. The words from Ephesians that we have read today are in Chapter 1. St. Paul is headed somewhere with these word: In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, {12} so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory.
What does it mean to live for the praise of his glory? It does not mean a few “allelulias” and “amens” with arms raised in church. It is quite clear from Amos to Jesus to Paul that to give praise to God, to live for the praise of his glory, means to dedicate ourselves to do the will of God. Where Paul is headed is in Chapters 4,5,6 an excerpt of which reads this way: Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander together will all malice and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as god in Christ has forgien you. ..be imitators of god as beloved children and live in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
In other words, make yourself part of the God’s gravity to help the world build a wall that will not fall.
