Amos was a little like the guy who showed up for a black tie gala dinner wearing a t-shirt, cut off jeans, and flip-flops. He couldn’t have been more out of place. First of all, he was an outsider. He had come to Israel from Tekoa in the southern Kingdom of Judah, and he belonged not to the recognized prophetic office but was a herdsman and dresser of sycamores (whatever that may have been). But what really made him stand out was what he had to say. His was the lone voice of dissent in a time of unparalleled prosperity, power, and influence in Israel. Life was good, religion flourished, the nation’s boundaries were at their largest, and many Israelites had achieved a modicum of wealth. Popular thought attributed this to God’s pleasure with nation. Amos challenged all of this. The people felt secure; he castigated them for their reliance upon military power as the source of their security. They prided themselves on their piety; he challenged their immorality, their oppression of the poor, and the injustices they inflicted especially upon the powerless. They took pleasure in the beauty and extravagance of their cultic rites; Amos told them that their worship was disgusting to God because it bore no fruit in their lives and relationships. “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me 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.” Again and again the prophet sought to help the people see things as they really were. Again and again he tried to help them see just how wrong they were in a time when they believed they could not have been more right with God and the world. Amos’ image of the Lord standing beside a wall holding a plumb line vividly drives the point home. The plumb line—a string with a weight dangling on the end—was used by builders to insure that walls were constructed on the vertical. “See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel,” declared the Lord. It was the Lord who had made covenant with them to be their God and had called them into a relationship of faith and obedience, but Israel had fallen about as far out of plumb as she could get and the Lord was intent upon executing judgment upon them: “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 a sword.” With talk of a plumb line Amos threatened the party line, and such talk could not be long tolerated. Sooner or later some other crackpot might see himself as the one called to execute God’s judgment and foment rebellion. Someone had to do something, and Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, took it upon himself to do it. He accused Amos of conspiring against the king and warned him: “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah (from whence you came); earn your bread there (that is, do your prophesying there); but never prophesy at Bethel, for it is the King’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.” With those words Amaziah showed his true colors. It was not the Lord’s sanctuary or the Lord’s temple, but the King’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom. Religion was little more than a prop for supporting the status quo; a tool for legitimizing the polices of the king and the life-style of the well to do. Those who ostensibly spoke for the Lord spoke instead for the king and consequently turned a blind eye to the country’s ills. It was neither the first time nor would it be the last time that religion would be used to further the cause of sinful men. Even in this day the church must be ever vigilant that it is not so used by leaders within or leaders without. The greater danger, though, is not so much that the sanctuary and its worship will become the tool of the state but that the values, priorities and world-view of the larger culture will become the dominant force in shaping the faith and values of the faithful and subsequently the community of faith and we become the temple of the culture. This happens not by force or even by conscious design but quietly, unobtrusively, as we individually and corporately stop asking the questions we ought to ask of ourselves, the church, and the culture. The Bible is the plumb line by which we as Christian disciples measure our lives, the shape of our relationships, the things we value, the choices we make, the priorities we set, the moral values we hold. It is the measure for our conduct, and not ours only but those of the world in which we live. The Bible is the plumb line by which we judge the shape of the ecclesiastical life of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the life and mission of First Presbyterian Church. The Bible is the plumb line by which we as Christians measure our nation’s public and foreign policies and the conduct of those who hold public office. It is the standard by which we choose what we will embrace and what we will reject; what we will support and what we will work against. Again and again we are summoned to decide if we will go with the plumb line or the party line. That is, will we choose to conform to the will and purpose of God for us or will we choose, consciously or unconsciously, to embrace and be conformed to the prevailing standards of the world in which we live. In our comfort and security, the voice of Amos calls us to examine where we truly put our trust in life. Is it in our power? Is it in our wealth? Is it in our military might? Or is it in the God who made us, who has redeemed us, and who promises to sustain us? In our wealth the voice of Amos calls us to consider not simply how much we keep for ourselves and how much we give away to benefit others, but also the impact the way we live and the way we spend and invest our money may have on the poor at home and throughout the world. In the place we hold in society, the voice of Amos calls us to strive that justice is not selectively given but that it is administered equally to all. Amos could speak with confident authority. It is a little more difficult for you and me, for we often see things quite differently even as we read from the same book. I am always leery of those who are eager to share with me the “Christian position” on any issue. Who gave them exclusive insight into the truth? Inevitably, even as we read from the same Scriptures, our life experiences, prejudices, nurturing, education, a variety of things shape how we hear and understand the word we read. Reading from the same book Christians can and do disagree on the war in Iraq, the ethical implications of abortion, what makes a family, sexual identity and morality, and a variety of other issues of significant importance. Gregory Wolfe recently wrote in an editorial for Image magazine entitled “Singularly Ambiguous”: “The classical and Judeo-Christian visions (of truth), as I understand them, are under girded by two inseparable insights: through reason or revelation universal moral truths can be discerned, but their application in human affairs is a complex process, fraught with dangers and temptations. In other words, the singularity of truth is always shadowed by the ambiguity of the fallen creatures who strive to incarnate it. And so the cardinal sin in each of these cultures was the same, whether it was called hubris or pride: an overconfident singularity. In the real world the paradox is that truths can come into conflict. Because we are not gods but limited beings, the sorting out of these conflicts is an unending task, one that can end in tragedy or modest, provisional victory.” So what are we to do? Ride the proverbial fence? Take refuge in some doctrine of the Spirituality of the Church, as did my forbears in the southern Presbyterian Church for more than a century, in which the church lives in the spiritual realm and does not involve herself in the secular or political realm? Or speak the truth as we understand it and let the chips fall where they may? After all, the truth does hurt sometimes. Either way ends in tragedy—the tragedy of the church’s voice remaining mute in the face of injustice and other human suffering or the tragedy of the church turning in on herself in self-destructive behavior as one member of the body tears at another. So, then, what are we to do? We are called to speak the truth as we understand it in light of the Scriptures and to work for what we believe is truth, but we do that with humility as we acknowledge that, as St. Paul put it, “we still see as in a mirror dimly.” Our understandings of the truth are always limited. And we do that with love—love for Jesus who is the Truth and because we love Jesus with love for one another. Too often in our debates we focus on the issues that divide us rather than the love that unites us. It is as we speak and live the truth in love that we accomplish the “provisional victory” of which Gregory Wolfe writes. As important as it is for us to speak and to act on our understanding of the truth, it is equally as important for us to listen—to listen carefully and intently to God’s word to us in Scripture; to listen to the voices of others in the church; and to listen even to the marginal prophets among us who may stand out because they sound different, look different, and challenge our status quo. J. Dudley Weaver |