“Do you
even know what a plumb line is,” she asked in a surprised tone of voice. “Well
of course I know what a plumb line is.”
“Well, do you know that it’s a string with
a weight at the bottom of it to make sure that a wall is straight?”
“That’s what I would have told you if you
wouldn’t have interrupted me.”
Penny just doesn’t get it. She thinks that I’m not up on my tools. But the truth is, I’m not as bad as she
thinks.
Never mind, that the one tool box in our house is her tool box. Never mind that she is the one who remodeled
our kitchen. Truth be told, I know a
thing or two about tools.
When we were first married, we bought a cheap kitchen table and chair
set that needed to be assembled, so I got out the tool box and went to
work. Several hours later and with sweat
dripping from my forehead (it was in the middle of a hot and humid June day,) I
finished the project.
There. See? I
know a thing about tools. Well, that’s
not the whole story. When my dad visited
our apartment for the first time, he took one look at those chairs I put
together, and he said, “You put the seats
on backward. Go get the toolbox.”
I guess that could explain why those chairs
didn’t feel very comfortable.
One year, Penny bought me my own toolbox. Here’s a picture of it. I keep it in my
office.
Can you imagine, if instead of the prophet Amos, it was me standing
there before the Lord in our Old Testament reading?
Amos, chapter 7, verse 8. “And the Lord said to me, ‘Robert, what do
you see?’ And I said, ‘that thing that
you use to make sure that walls are straight.
Not the bubble thing, but the string and the weight thing.’”
I don’t even think the King James Version
would have been able to make that exchange sound better.
Thank
goodness that it’s Amos and not me. Amos
says to the Lord, “Sure, I know what that
is. It’s a plumb line.” Amos got it right. But he must have been wondering, “What’s a plumb line have to do with my preaching
ministry up here in the northern kingdom of Israel?”
And that’s when the Lord points out that the
plumb line is a symbol of judgment upon the people of Israel. The Lord has used his plumb line on Israel
and has found them to be off-centered in being the people the Lord has called
them to be.
And
of course, this message from Amos went over like a lead weight. Pardon the pun.
Amaziah, a Priest in the northern kingdom, ends up telling Amos, “You might as well catch the next plane back
to the southern kingdom because we don’t want what you’re selling. Who invited you here anyway? You can talk till you’re blue in the face
about the drug problem in Lancaster, the high percentage of people living in
poverty, or how half of the population around
here has no church affiliation, but get real, Amos. At some point, people need to help
themselves. And don’t let the door hit
you on the way out.”
Again, if it was me instead of Amos, I might
say something like, “Well, you can’t say
I didn’t warn you.” And leave it at
that. But no. Amos just doesn’t know when to stop.
He
goes on to tell Amaziah, “Oh, by the
way. I may be from the wrong side of the
tracks. But that didn’t stop the Lord
from giving me another message to tell you.”
We
as the readers are saying, “Don’t say
anything else, Amos. You’ve said enough
already. Don’t say what we think you’re
going to say next. Don’t do it. Oh no.
He’s actually going to say it, isn’t he?”
Amos says, “Oh yea. There’s one more
thing. Your wife is going to become a
prostitute and your sons and daughters are going to die by the sword.”
We cringe and we want to say to Amos, “OK,
Amos. Way too much
information. But we gotta hand it to
you. You stood up to them.”
Can you believe these
prophets? The Lord gives them a word of
judgment and they don’t back down.
They call Amos one of the 12 Minor Prophets, but there’s nothing minor
about this mouthpiece of God.
Prophets
by their very nature scare us to a large degree. I was speaking with a member of another
church and he was telling me about his involvement on the staff/parish
relations committee of his church. And
he said, “Yeah. We had a problem with one of our pastors
years ago and we asked for a new minister.”
“What did he do,” I asked, not knowing if I really wanted to hear
this. “He upset a lot of our people because of his anti-war sermons and our
congregation is very patriotic.”
Sarcastically I wanted to respond by asking, “By any chance, did he go by the name of
Amos?”
Amos
wasn’t telling Amaziah something that he didn’t already know. He would have known that the God of Israel
was a God who cared about the poor and the marginalized. He would have known that the people of Israel
were meant to be a light to the world, and not a light unto themselves.
The truth is – we can know something to be true and yet live in a way
that defies that truth about God and ourselves.
So
what Amos is actually doing in his role as prophet, is reminding the people of
Israel of who they are called to be. A
people who are called to be faithful. A
people who are called to change their ways when they fail to be the people God
has called them to be.
That’s
why we need people like Amos who will get out that plumb line and show us where
we have gotten off centered.
You know. It’s not easy to stay
centered without the help of a plumb line.
We
Methodists have a built in plumb line methodology in our history. They’re called classes or small groups. John Wesley knew that unless we had other
followers of Jesus assisting us in our journey of faith on a regular basis, we
might not realize that we’re off centered until it’s too late.
“How is it with your soul?” those early
Methodists would ask each other every time they met in those classes. And depending on how each person would answer
that question, the Methodists in that group would either celebrate that
person’s strong faith, or they would offer encouragement and hold that person
accountable to stay faithful in their walk with Christ.
Some
historians have claimed that if it wasn’t for those Methodist classes reaching
out to the people on the fringe and bringing transformation and hope to their
communities, 18th century England would have been ripe for a
political revolution.
One
of our modern day prophets is a man by the name of George Barna, a Christian
research expert who studies the trends and patterns of the Christian faith for
our own day and age. Whenever I see an
article or a new book put out by Barna, I am often tempted to put my head in
the sand, because I know that what he will say, will force me to rethink what
it means to be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ in the 21st
century.
Unlike
little known Amos who was from the single traffic light town of Tekoa, located
just south of Bethlehem, Barna has for many years been a well respected and
well known researcher respected by a multitude of Christian faith traditions.
One of his books is entitled, “Revolution,”
in which he uses several years’ worth of data to foretell a Revolution he
says will impact every Christian in America.
Here are some of the highlights from his book. He claims that there are 20 million people in
America who indicate that they want God to be a top priority in their lives but
who do not find the conventional church as the best way for them to express
their faith. They’re not into going to
church just for the sake of going to church.
They want to be the church.
They make this distinction by saying that they want to be part of a
community of faith filled with other church members who share their same depth
of commitment as followers of Jesus Christ.
Based on his research, he speculates that by the year 2025, just twelve
years from now, the majority of conventional churches will see the number of
people attending church cut in half, unless we make a commitment to reach
people through the use of media, arts, and other cultural forms in the context
of a deeply Christ centered community of faith.
Sounding much like a prophet, Barna predicts that the established church
will by and large, not respond to this opportunity. And he drops a plumb line right next to our
church here at the corner of Wheeling and High Streets and offers five reasons
why:
First of all, it’s a different way of going
about ministry.
Second of all, it requires a change in
thinking and behavior.
Third, it threatens the present model of the
conventional church.
Fourth, it places more power and authority with the people and less with
committees.
And the fifth reason is that decision making
within the church will need to happen at a much faster pace which the present
day church is often not prepared to do.
Barna’s advice to conventional people like me? You don’t have to like it, but you’d better
understand it and begin shaping the church to meet these new trends. This isn’t about a revolution in
theology. It’s about a revolution of
hearts and methods.
The
good news is that surprisingly, I don’t find myself wanting to pull an Amaziah
and slam the door on Barna and say, “Thanks
but no thanks.”
Why?
Because what Barna is telling us is not new information. Just like Amos wasn’t giving Amaziah any new
information. What Barna is telling us
should be leading us to say things like, “Oh
yeah. He’s right. That’s how we Methodists got started in the
first place. Let’s be who we’ve always
been called to be.”
Those early Methodists were nothing less than revolutionaries. They were able to reach people that the
established church wasn’t even trying to reach.
In its early years, Methodism was a movement, not a church.
Frankly,
I’m glad to know that God cares enough about the church that he goes to all the
trouble to send prophets like Amos and Barna our way. Who doesn’t like a good challenge now and
then? And our challenge is this: To be a vibrant and growing church. To be disciples and not just members. To take the church into the community and not
just take care of our own.
Amos
forces us to take a good and hard look at ourselves. He drops the plumb line right before our eyes
to show us if we really mean it when we say that our purpose is to make
disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
After
swaying back and forth, the plumb line finally comes to a stop.
This
week, I invite us to think about where our church stands in relation to Amos’s
plumb line. And what kind of church is
God calling us to be over the next 12 years? Share your thoughts with at least
one other person before the end of this week and then here’s the real challenge.
I
challenge us to take the necessary steps to be the church God is calling us to
be. Let’s ask ourselves, “What do we need to be doing now so that we
can continue to be a growing and vibrant church for the future?” And then, let’s do it.
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