July 13, 2013
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How do I measure up?
Sacred texts:
Amos 77-17
7 This is what I was shown: The Sovereign was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb, with a plumb line in hand. 8 And the Sovereign asked me, “What do you see, Amos?”
“A plumb line,” I replied. Then the Sovereign said, “Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer. 9 “The high places of Isaac will be destroyed and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined; with my sword I will rise against the house of Jeroboam.”
10 Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: “Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words. 11 For this is what Amos is saying: “‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land.’” 12 Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. 13 Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.”
14 Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. 15 But the sovereign took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ 16 Now then, hear the word of the sovereign. You say, “‘Do not prophesy against Israel, and stop preaching against the descendants of Isaac.’ 17 “Therefore this is what the Lord says: “‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword. Your land will be measured and divided up, and you yourself will die in a pagan country. And Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land.’”
Colossians 1:1-14
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
2 To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ:
Grace and peace to you from God our Creator.
3 We always thank God, the Parent of our Sovereign Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people— 5 the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel 6 that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. 7 You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, 8 and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.
9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of God’s will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Sovereign and please the Sovereign in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to God’s glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Creator, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of God’s holy people in the realm of light. 13 For God has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the realm of the Son God loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Luke 10:25-37 25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “‘Love the Sovereign your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
End of the sacred readings.
I have been doing projects around my house. Currently I am building wood frames to make screens for my windows. I am not a person who does well with precision. I majored in social sciences to avoid those only one right answer expectations. As I have been making these frames, one of my father’s expressions kept repeating in my head, “Measure twice and cut once.” My father was a person with deep appreciation for precision. Unfortunately, this was not something he was able to pass on to me. I do find it a bit curious that my late in life hobbies, home repair, sewing, and baking all require at least a passing knowledge of measuring. These hobbies and my success with them have taught me something about measuring. It is not sufficient to just measure. You have to know what to measure, what you want the measurement to tell you, and are there any conditions that will affect the accuracy of the measurement.
Amos has an encounter with God and God reveals to Amos that Israel has been measured and the people have been found wanting. I am told by my study Bible that the words “plumb line” are a guess because the expression is not found elsewhere. It doesn’t really matter what tool was used to measure Israel, what matters is they have not performed as God expected and God is angry. God as understood by those who told the stories of the Hebrew Testament is often angry. It may be more balanced to say God is disappointed and God is pointing out there are consequences when you go off and live in the way that suits you rather than living true to the standard God has set for you. God has established the standard of behavior not as some arbitrary test to rule some people in and other people out or as a justification for God to punish individuals or nations. God’s standards are there to guide us to the outcome of a world of peace, justice, and abundance for all. When I measure a piece of trim, the point is to create a piece that will fit together with other pieces, if I measure accurately but the piece doesn’t fit the measurement might be good but the outcome is bad. I measured the distance between two pieces of trim and cut the piece to go between them but it didn’t fit. There was an obstacle and the trim had to be longer than the apparent distance to accommodate the obstacle. God’s standards are like this, we can’t just take them at face value, we need to understand how those standards bring about the hoped for outcome.
Jesus speaks to this need to understand the standards in terms of achieving the right outcome in the story today about the Good Samaritan. The story begins with a discussion with an expert in the law, a legalist. The legalist wants to pin Jesus down as to what are the rules. Jesus turns the question back to the inquirer. The legalist knows the primary laws are to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. But he wants a definition of neighbor. Jesus tells the story of a person beaten and robbed and left for dead. The story includes a priest and a Levite. These are not random identities. Jesus chose them because they, like to law scholar, would know the letter of the law. It is very likely they avoided the man lying beside the road out of fear that touching him would make them ceremonially unclean. They were concerned about violating purity laws found in the Book of Numbers. Jesus raised the distinction between obeying a standard for the standard’s sake and following the law for the sake of bringing about God’s reign on earth. We are challenged to go beyond the specifics of the law and find the spirit of the law.
We have witnessed the trial of George Zimmerman for the death of Trayvon Martin. The legal system has said there was sufficient doubt that Zimmerman intended to kill Trayvon and that it was possible he was defending himself. I question the self-defense argument because Zimmerman was the one stalking Trayvon not the other way around. Regardless of the legal verdict, it is clear to me the event was a failure to meet God’s standard of how we treat each other. There are two simple rules for us to measure our behavior. Does our behavior reflect our love for God and does it reflect love for the other and for ourselves. Everything else hinges on these rules. It doesn’t matter how faithfully we keep the Ten Commandments, or whether we have memorized Leviticus. If we are not acting out of love for God, others, and our self then we have failed the standard and the outcome will not be what we or God desires. Amen.
