The plumb line day4

God told Amos to set out a plumb line and use it to judge the people. Plumb lines are interesting things. Tie a piece of string to a weight of some sort and let it hang down. Gravity works to create a straight line with no deviance.

So simple, a child could use it.

Plumb lines are still used today by carpenters and construction workers, because they’re inexpensive, effective and completely reliable. There’s no room for some relativist carpenter saying something ridiculous like, “Well, what’s plumb for you isn’t plumb for me.” There are no pluralist carpenters saying, “Let’s take a poll to see whose plumb is the real plumb.”

Plumb is plumb. Gravity doesn’t lie.

Christians are fond of using the analogy of the plumb line. And in an age of relativity, where objective truth is often downplayed for the sake of political correctness or popular opinion, Christians should feel the need to advocate some sort of standard of right and wrong. Usually, we equate God’s Word, the Bible, with the plumb line.

And that’s okay in most situations. But that’s not what this story tells us. According to Amos, plumb is something else. Plumb isn’t God saying, “Read My book.” Plumb is God saying, “Treat others the way you treat Me.” God even goes so far as to say, “The way you treat others is the way you treat Me” (see Matthew 25.31-46).

So simple, a child could do it.

Are there hungry people? Feed them. Sick people? Heal them. Lonely people? Befriend them. That’s how God plans on judging His people (and He refuses to judge on a curve like Israel was hoping).

You may have gained all the knowledge you can squeeze out of the Bible. You may attend lots of church services, volunteer to serve on committees and sell cookbooks for your women’s ministry. But do you have God’s heart for the poor and marginalized in your own society? That’s plumb.

Later in the Story, one of Jesus’ closest friends writes, “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3.17-18).

Do we love people? Do we really, really love people? This isn’t about feeling warm fuzzies for them or getting choked up when we see late-night infomercials about hungry children. Does our love for them really show in our actions? Having the right beliefs and values (days 2 and 3) are of little good until they begin to direct and change our behaviour.

What if everybody took God seriously on this one? What if God’s plumb line of compassionate behaviour toward widows and orphans and strangers began to take root in you? In your small group or your whole church? What if everybody in your neighbourhood or in your school began to plan and act to feed the hungry, heal the sick, visit the prisoner, clothe the naked?

If everyone jumped in and started acting according to God’s plumb line, we might just see God’s kingdom come, His will being done on earth as it is in heaven, the upside down turned right side up, the crooked set straight.

 

God of glory and grace, You have spoken timeless truth through Your servants the prophets, and through them You have called and inspired Your people to be concerned about the things that are of concern to You. You have revealed Your compassion for the poor, the orphans and widows, the destitute and the oppressed. Please enhance my compassion for these people as well and show me the specific things You would have me to do in order to manifest the Spirit of Christ among the needy. Let me not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. Open my eyes to the opportunities You have already placed before me, so that I will become an agent of grace and reconciliation to those whom You love. Let me make a difference in this world by being faithful and obedient to Your heavenly calling.

In Jesus’s name, Amen

The plumb line day3

It takes chutzpah to do what Amos did. He delivered a message that he knew would be unpopular, and he delivered it with prophetic force. He called the people back to the way things were supposed to be from the very beginning.

God’s dream has always been for a community of people who can relate to one another correctly, and that means demonstrating compassion. Throughout the centuries, however, some of God’s people have demonstrated a remarkable ability to receive acceptance and grace from God while doling out immense portions of rejection and condemnation to their fellow humans.

We’re supposed to be kind, but we’re often among the most hurtful and apathetic people around. The need for justice in our society is unfortunately far greater than is found in most Christian circles.

Amos railed against the people of Israel who cared more about their own comfort than they did about others. He made no bones about it, using intentionally inflammatory language. In our day, we prefer a more diplomatic approach.

Now, there’s a time for diplomacy. There is a time to be tactful. But there is also a time to stand up and call people to stop going in the wrong direction. Amos was a simple man standing firm in the face of fierce opposition. We could use more folks like that, people willing to deliver unpopular messages with such boldness. Unfortunately, Christians who are most willing to deliver hard words are often sorely lacking in compassion. In fact, there are some who willingly volunteer to be the stick God uses to smack people with.

The reason the way we deliver the message is so important is because how the message is delivered is part of the message itself. God’s message, especially here through Amos, is fierce but it’s really a message of compassion. Amos brings a sharp rebuke, but it’s a rebuke directed toward a people who have failed to look after one another, to care for one another, to make sure no one goes hungry and no one is lonely, to bring orphans into families and make sure widows aren’t being taken advantage of.

It would be terrible for the message of compassion to be negated by the lack of a compassionate messenger.

And yet that is precisely what happens all too often.

Somehow, we must strike that delicate balance between boldly stating our convictions and gently offering compassion to those who are most in need of hearing them. It will be tricky, but maybe you could start right now by asking God for a little chutzpah and a little gentleness at the same time.

 

Dear Lord, in the prophets and apostles whose words are recorded in Scripture, and most fully and clearly in Your incarnate Son’s earthly ministry, You have perfectly balanced the combination of truth and love. I also want to speak Your truth to my generation and to do so in a gracious and loving manner. Keep me from the poles of cold orthodoxy and warm sentimentality. I ask for the courage to be forthright and honest when it is needed and for the compassion to consider the needs of others before my own. In Your way and through Your guidance, may I become a source of blessing to people who are in need, and may I be increasingly concerned about the plight of the lost, the last and the least.

In Jesus’s  name, Amen

The plumb line day2

Obviously, the similarities between Amos’s time and our own are startling. This book feels like it has been ripped from today’s headlines, and its message carries a stinging rebuke for the consumerist mindset that is rampant in our own society. Because of this, there are some vitally important lessons we can learn from this little-known part of God’s Story.

The first and foremost is this. Don’t mess with the people God loves.

God’s love for people, all people, but especially those who find themselves marginalized by society, is so fierce that mistreating them is something YHWH simply cannot tolerate. He doesn’t seem to be as bothered by people mistreating Him as He is with people mistreating others. He simply cannot let it go on for very long without intervening. Amos’s message makes it sound like God values how we treat other people as much as (if not more than) how we treat Him. And if it’s that important, we’d better listen up!

It also seems that the lower the social status a person has, the more interested God is in how that person gets treated. Children, women, single mothers, foreigners, day-labourers, migrant farm workers, these tend to be the people God stands up for most vigorously, the people who cannot stand up for themselves. God is sacramentally present among the poor.

Amos delivers a message that makes it sound as if God’s own people have become His enemies. The people of Israel are described in the same kinds of terms Amos uses to describe the Philistines, the Edomites and the rest of the pagans living around them. It’s almost as if Amos is saying that the Israelites are no better than anyone else.

Actually, there’s no “almost” about it. From God’s perspective, the Israelites are just as bad as their neighbours, in some ways even worse, because they should know better. And God calls them on the carpet. It’s not the manner or location of their worship. Although their worship has obviously been corrupted, God seems not to mind that so much as He minds the way they are treating people, particularly the widows, orphans and foreigners that He loves.

Hundreds of years later, an “expert” tried to test Jesus’ knowledge of the Law by asking Him, “Which commandment is the greatest?” Jesus couldn’t just offer one; He offered two. “Love God with everything you’ve got, and love other people like you love yourself” (see Matthew 22:34-40).

Jesus didn’t give two answers because He was looking for extra credit. He offered them because the two are inseparably linked in the mind of God. You simply cannot love God if you don’t also love others. In fact, the level to which you fulfill the second command is the level to which you can claim to have fulfilled the first (see 1 John 4:20).

 

Father, I want to pursue a lifestyle of love. I wish to display Your agape to the people I encounter today so that they will see Christ in and through me. Keep me from playing favourites so that I will not succumb to the blunder of viewing people according to their social and economic status. Just as You show special concern and kindness for those who are downtrodden and overlooked, may I also treat such people with special love and consideration. In spite of appearances to the contrary, You have accorded great dignity and worth to all who have been created in Your image, and by Your grace I want to imitate You. I ask You for the power to love the unlovely and notice those who are overlooked. In this way, I will display my love for You in the way I love the people You love.

In Jesus’s name, Amen

The plumb line day1

THE BOOK OF AMOS

 

He didn’t look like much. He was a farmer. He tended some sheep and watched over a grove of fig trees. It wasn’t very exciting, but it was a living.

And then, for some reason only God knows, Amos was called to go to his northern cousins and deliver a message.

The Northern Kingdom of Israel was experiencing a time of economic growth and affluence, a golden age. They lived in large houses and had the financial margin to enjoy leisure activities previously unknown. The people were prosperous, so they figured that God must be pleased with them.

Sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it?

Amos showed up in Israel and wasted no time getting down to business. He delivered a scathing message that was intentionally designed to sneak up on his audience. He began by telling them how angry God was with their neighbours, the pagan nations surrounding them, the Syrians, the Philistines, people from Tyre, Edom, Ammon and Moab. He practically drew a circle right around Israel on the map, naming all of Israel’s major rivals. God was really angry and was finally going to let ’em have it!

Whatever scepticism the people of Israel may have felt toward this southern prophet must have melted away as they heard him rail against their enemies. They had a little pep rally going!

Then it got even better. Amos started to speak out against his own land, the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The people of Israel never expected a prophet to come from Judah and pronounce judgment on his own homeland. This was great! It served to confirm what they thought all along. God was pleased with them and angry with Judah. Judah wasn’t keeping the Law. God was going to destroy them. This was vindication for the Northern Kingdom.

Except the prophet wouldn’t stop talking. If he had stopped right there, things would have been okay. But it turns out that all the stuff so far was mostly a setup for the real message.

The real message was that God was angry and disgusted with Israel. The gap between rich and poor was growing. Wealthy people learned how to work the system and keep the underprivileged in line. God had blessed the people in many ways, and they were using those blessings to indulge themselves rather than to be a blessing to others. Furthermore, they gave lip service to the idea of serving YHWH while blending a lot of idolatry into their worship.

It does sound a little familiar, right?

Amos startled them by suggesting that God wasn’t measuring Israel against the nations around them; He was measuring them with His own plumb line, the Law He had given them. Compared to other nations, they might be able to say, “We’re not so bad.” But when compared to God’s Law, it was easy to see how crooked they had become.

The scariest part of the message from Amos was that while Israel was looking for God to punish the surrounding nations, God meant to punish them first.

Of course, God gave them a chance to avoid the punishment. Amos’s message was a warning, there was still hope for them if they would heed it and straighten up. If they would listen and return to God and do the right thing, they could continue to live in peace. If not, destruction was inevitable.

Amos never got any positive response. The priest at Bethel even told him to shut up and go home! So he finished up his message and then he did. He went back home and wrote down his message for a future generation to read. And the crooked nation continued on its crooked walk toward judgment.

 

Lord God, You have called me to be among the followers of Jesus who will prove themselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation who appear as lights in the world. This is a high and holy task that is difficult to fulfil because of the pressures and obstacles of this present darkness. The world has such powerful lures that seek to seduce me to play by two sets of rules and serve two masters. As I renew my mind with the timeless precepts and principles of Your Word, may I see through this web of deception and not mistake material abundance for Your blessing. In Christ, I want to become increasingly different from my culture so that I will treasure the goodness of Your kingdom above the goods of this world.

In Jesus’s name, Amen