"The Plumb Line" - Amos 7:1-15
The central vision in this week’s text from the prophet Amos concerns a plumb line. A plumb line is a simple tool- a piece of lead tied to the end of a string. The lead weight causes the string to fall straight, and when held against the wall of a building it reveals the defects in the wall- how straight or how crooked it may be. When God holds a plumb line in the midst of the people of Israel it reveals how far they have strayed from the straight path, how far from God’s covenant they have wandered. The prophet Amos is made to face the truth about Israel- all the ways they have sinned against God and neighbor.
Facing a difficult truth is not easy- it requires courage, vision, and hope. We are currently undergoing a period of reckoning in our country- a re-evaluation of our history that seeks to confront our collective sins. A fuller accounting of our country’s history of slavery and institutional racism and a similar reckoning with our nation’s treatment of indigenous peoples are entering our public consciousness. To the extent that these accounts challenge our understanding of ourselves and our history they can be unsettling. Changing how we see our history, changes how we see our present, it changes how we understand ourselves. If we aren’t as good or righteous as we once thought, do we still have reason to hope? Are we only to be condemned or is a new way of living possible for us?
The Christian Church has always held that the future is the coming of God’s kingdom. Visions of this kingdom are the plumb line that judge our present and our past. In God’s kingdom all the nations of the earth are welcome, everyone shares in the abundance of the feast, war and sorrow are no more. Believing in this coming kingdom gives us the vision by which to judge our past and our present- to see clearly how we fall short of the kingdom of God. It also provides the hope needed to confront the sins of our past- for God is calling us forward, calling us to turn away from the sins of our past and towards the future of the kingdom. To do this work of turning towards the kingdom we must first honestly confront our past. We must acknowledge the ways we’ve fallen short and our need to change. Not so that we can dwell in despair and self-condemnation, but rather so that we might walk with God one step closer to the kingdom, one step further into the new life promised to us in Christ. Let us enter into this reckoning with our past, trusting that God is with us in this process, that our identity is safe in Christ, and that with the power of the Holy Spirit we will be led into newness of life.
Rev. Andrew Greenhaw