B, Pent 6 Proper 10 - Amos 7:7-15 "Amos and the Plumb Line"

Amos was a simple man. He wasn’t a highly educated professional, sent from the city to tell the country folk “how to do it.” Rather, he was a farmer of figs and a shepherd of sheep outside a town called Tekoa near Bethlehem and Jerusalem in Judah. Like most of us, he was not high on formal education, but he was made capable by the classroom of life.

This simple grazier and orchardist was called to be God’s prophet, a seer, a man called to see things from God’s point of view and proclaim them to God’s people. But Amos wasn’t called to be a prophet to his fellow Judeans. No! He saw what God wanted him to see and was called to take this word of God to the northern kingdom of Israel, to Bethel, King Jeroboam’s self-appointed centre of worship for the Israelites. Amos was sent to those who were known as Samaritans after Jeroboam, son of Nebat, had split the north from God’s appointed rule under the line of David and Solomon. But more importantly Amos was sent to the northern kingdom which had been cut off from worshipping God at his earthly presence in Jerusalem, and therefore, worshipped in the makeshift evil traditions that Jeroboam set up in Samaria and Israel after the split from Jerusalem and Judah.

Amos was not a professional prophet or priest; he was a simple man with a simple message and he was sent to the northern kingdom’s prophets, priests, and King Jeroboam II to project the clarity of God’s word upon their corruption.

Hear what God allowed Amos to see and what he called him to proclaim to the northern Israelites as we hear the text Amos 7:7-15: The Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb, with a plumb line in his hand. 8 And the Lord asked me, “What do you see, Amos?” “A plumb line,” I replied. Then the Lord said, “Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer. 9 “The high places of Isaac will be destroyed and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined; with my sword I will rise against the house of Jeroboam.”10 Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: “Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words. 11 For this is what Amos is saying:”‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land.’” 12 Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. 13 Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.” 14 Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor a prophet’s son, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. 15 But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’

You could imagine what kind of reception Amos received. Like a NSW state of origin supporter tell the Queensland state of origin team how to play football, Amos was not received with great delight. Amaziah the professional priest at Bethel quickly cries to King Jeroboam II, that Amos, the Judean prophet, has infiltrated their ranks and was seeking Jeroboam’s demise.

But this was not the word or thoughts of Amos. What Amos declared was God’s word and judgement over a people who had long been rebellious against God. And we know what he saw and said was right, because in time it happened, and the kingdom of Israel together with the line of kings who ruled in the sins of Jeroboam, son of Nebat, were put to the sword by the murderous and cruel Assyrians and taken into exile.

When Amos took God’s word to Bethel, Amaziah the priest continues in the sins of King Jeroboam and all the other kings and priests of Israel right through to the present king, Jeroboam II, and he said, “Don’t prophecy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.” (Amos 7:13)

Amaziah was right! It was the king’s temple and kingdom; it was a temple of evil not a temple of God. The country was buried in corruption because the Israelite kings had continued in the unauthorised and unholy ways of Jeroboam — who had built the shrines, appointed priests other than the Levites, instituted his own festivals, offered sacrifices himself on the altar — and in doing so led God’s people into crookedness and dishonesty so that the corruption flowed from the palace to the paupers. The people were turned away from God and his system of welfare, so that the people were against each other and king after king was assassinated.

Everyone was acting dishonestly in Israel. The poor were being ripped off. Cheating, skimming, boosting the price, and selling the dregs in place of the regular product was common in the market places of Israel. God was sick of the constant crookedness which took place amongst those he had chosen as his people, and God was grieved at the happenings in the Samaritan temples and high places where his holiness was constantly desecrated.

So Amos dropped the true measure of God, the plumb line of God’s word, and it quickly showed the Israelite’s way as being as crooked as a dog’s hind leg! Amos held God’s plumb line against the sanctuaries of Samaria; against the high places of Israel; and against the kings who had robbed God of his authority. And against the truth of God’s word, God’s holy plumb bob — the kingdom of Israel, the kings of Samaria, and the corruption of the country was so crooked, it was only a matter of time until God did the inevitable and demolished Israel and what it had become.

So in these days as we refurbish the church at Miles, and as we come together to hear God’s word in his house, at Dalby, Chinchilla, Downfall Creek, Meandarra, and Wandoan – to name just a few; we should ask of ourselves a few questions: Whose church is it? In whom or what do we as a church place our trust? Are our bodies our own temples? Are our church buildings our own little kingdoms? Are the sanctuaries in which we worship ours? Is our church about serving others in love, or about getting our own way — enforcing our rights on others?

God drops his plumb bob into our midst too. Not just his word as in the days of Amos! But the Word made flesh, his Son Jesus Christ. Next to Christ our seemingly straightest and truest efforts are still crooked; as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.

The judgement, under which we stand, shows us that we like, all of Israel, all of Judah, and all of humanity, are corrupt and crooked, and unable to measure up next to God. Because of our sinful nature, we are unable to create our “own ways” of pleasing or worshipping God.

But that’s not the end. Christ didn’t come to condemn. His sinless perfection is not before us to curse us into eternal death. No! Jesus’ perfection is given to us as a gift when he predestined you and me to be saved, when he died on the cross for all people, despite oure sinfulness. He gives us the forgiveness and holiness we can never find and takes our corruption and crookedness to the cross. He takes our best efforts, which are still filthy rage to him, to the cross, and gives us the free gift of salvation, which cost God the Son his life.

And even today the true plumb line of God’s word remains in us. In his word God calls us to repentance, continually calling us to trust that he is ridding us of the sinfulness inherent in our lives, and calling us to have faith in the forgiveness he offers us for the sake of Jesus Christ who comes to us in God’s word by the power of the Holy Spirit.

How do we know that we have been chosen by God? How do we know that all people are chosen by God? Because his word tells us so in Ephesians 1:13-14, “…you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.”

Trust God’s word—the gospel of grace, Jesus’ death on the cross—as your salvation, and trust this good news as the means of salvation for all people, as we go telling them and including them in Christ, as they too hear the gospel of their salvation. Amen