Sermon (July 14) - No Toolbox is Complete without One

     “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, 18^th 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 21^st 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.