Amos Week 1

“The Plum Line”

Amos 7:7–14 NRSV

This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass them by; the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.” Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos has said, ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.’ ” And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.” Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees,

The word of God, for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

I. Introduction

Have you ever sat and wondered what influential figures from the past would say about our current state of affairs?

It those voices were here today, what would they say?

How would they feel?

More importantly, how would we respond to what it is they are saying.

There are times when I sit and wonder, what the prophets and forefathers and foremothers would say about the condition of our world today.

What would they say about the poverty worldwide?

What would they say about children not having access to clean water?

What would they say about the ways we love or refuse to love one another?

What would they say about the lack of world peace?

What would they say?

What would people like Martin Luther say?

George Whitfield?

John and Charles Wesley?

Mother Teressa?

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King?

What would the saints say?

I think that we sort of know what they would say.

I think that they would say exactly what the prophet Amos is saying in his writing.

Ah...the prophet Amos.

One of those prophets who said a lot in a little time.

Amos is a unique prophet.

He doesn’t get recognition or admiration that Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel all get.

But this prophet said so much in a short period of time.

We don’t know much about the prophet Amos other than he was a herdsman from the southern kingdom of Israel, Judah, and he was called by God to prophecy to the people in the Northern kingdom of Israel.

Amos does exactly what God tells him. He goes north and begins to say what thus says the Lord.

He begins by talking about other neighboring nations of Israel and talks about how they were evil and that God would rain down judgement on them.

Now at this point the people are receptive to Amos’ words because he’s talking about how evil some of Israel’s rivals were.

And what Amos was saying more than likely caused those listening to him to stand up straight and proud wit their chests out.

As a matter of fact, the first three chapters of Amos’ writings are talking about God’s displeasure with nations other than Israel.

They reavel in God railing against the other nations.

But Amos’ proclamations begin to shift.

And if you sit down and read the book of Amos in it’s entirety, you will see in chapter 4 how Amos goes from talking about God’s displeasure with the neighboring nations to his displeasure with Israel.

It is at this point where Amos’ words are no longer welcome.

As a matter of fact, everything that Amos says from tat point on is tailored for Israel.

But it lends the question, why did God call Amos to go and prophesy to the Northern Kingdom.

Amos gives us the answer in his writing and yes, it is the usual stuff that gets the Israelites in trouble.

They have built more “high places” for false gods.

They still very much observe the Jewish religious rituals but here’s the thing.

They were going to the temple and offering sacrifices to God but the very people who were offering sacrifices were also mistreating those living on the margins:

The poor

The orphan

The widow

(We will get into all of that next week)

The things that those in power were doing to the most vulnerable in that society were so attrocious that it caught God’s attention.

They treated the poor so bad that God felt the need to call the prophet to get the people back into right relationship with God.

As a matter of fact, Amos mentions the treatment of the poor more than the idol worship which tells me that they really, really had to be mistreating the poor.

Amos mentions the phrase “trample on the poor” 4 times in this writing.

As a result of all their sin, God is angered.

He gives Amos series of visions.

Here in chapter 7 we see three of those visions.

In the first vision Amos saw the land being devoured by locusts. This image that Amos saw was so disturbing that he pleaded with God to spare the people and God relented.

He then saw a second vision of the land being devoured by fire. Amos again pleaded with God to spare the people and God relented.

In the third vision, which is our text for this morning, Amos sees God standing beside a wall with a plumb line. Amos wondered what this could mean.

God tells Amos that he is setting a plumb line in midst of his people in Israel and he will never again pass them by.

Now, when I first read this text on Sunday.

I thought to myself, what exactly is a plumb line?

Now, I feel like I should’ve known what it was but I didn’t.

So, I looked up what a plumb was and it is a tool used for construction.

It is still used today.

In Amos’ time a plumb line was a string with a stone or metal weight attached, and it was used by a builder to determine whether a stone or mud-brick wall is vertical. It is simple a tool used to measure straightness.

I’ve taken the liberty to print an illustration of how it possibly would’ve looked in Amos’ day.

 The biblical writers paint a picture of the Lord God using a plumb line to measure the integrity of Israel. In the same way a modern mason might measure the structural integrity of a wall, the Lord God measures the spiritual integrity of the people of Israel.

It is often used in the metaphorical sense to give a moral assessment of Israel’s kings, of the nation’s adherence to the covenant, and of the justice and righteousness expected of the people.

In today’s text, God is setting the plumb line to measure all three of these things.

Israel is at a time of peace and prosperity, yet God’s assessment of them and their moral character is such that requires God to bring out the plumb line.

And despite the peace and prosperity experienced by Israel at this time, they are probably more morally corrupt as a nation as they had been at any time.

Their kings, Uzziah and Jeroboam II, were wicked and cared nothing about God’s way.

They were trampling on the rights of the poor

Their worship was hallow

They were worshipping various gods.

They were not living into their covenantal promises made to God.

God is holding up the plumb line to this nation and their not plumb. They aren’t straight or leveled, no where near it.

This is the beauty of this metaphor used by God in his vision to Amos.

You see, when I first read this text, I was placing emphasis on the plumb line. I was placing emphasis on the instrument used to measure the wall.

But as the week continued on and as I pondered what this text might mean for my family at Leavell Woods, I thought to myself, what if I am focusing too much on the wrong detail.

What if in fact, this text is not so much about the plumb line, that is the tool that God is using to measure the spiritual integrity of the people as much as it is about what is actually being measured?

Is it possible that more attention should be given to the wall than the instrument?

Everything points to the wall being the most important thing in this text.

The instrument is used to measure the fitness of the wall not the other way around.

Israel is the wall being measured in this text.

A wall may erode and get out of alignment for many reasons. A settling foundation is a major reason why a wall or building structure may be out of alignment.

Anyone who has spent any time in an older home has walked over an uneven or creaky floor, applied extra pressure to open or close sticking doors, noticed cracked or bowed walls, or repositioned loose bricks on fireplaces or stairs.

“Oh, you know how these old houses are. That is a function of settling.”

Hearing that explanation, we accept the quirks of the old home and do not give it much more attention … until the evidence of the settling home becomes so pronounced that we must take action.

When a visitor trips on uneven floors, when the ceiling collapses because of a crack in the wall, or when someone suffers from a health condition due to mold growth precipitated by missing bricks, we call a professional to correct the structural damage and preserve the integrity of the home.

The building professional assesses the damage and begins the work of fixing the problem before it gets any worse.

And that professional will usually offer some advice about the maintenance of the home to avoid future problems.

Like walls that have endured over time, as humans go through life, we may lose our steadiness. 

The Israelites lost their steadiness.

For one of the few times in their existence, the people of Israel didn’t have to worry about foreign powers ruling them.

They didn’t have the pesky Philistines at their doorstep.

They didn’t have worry about neighboring countries bothering them.

They had more wealth than they could imagine.

They honestly probably didn’t see a need for God.

As a result, they let down their guard and even went so far as to worship other gods and give them credit for their success.

They basically began to ignore the covenant they made with God.

They didn’t even worship God with the same intentionality as they once did.

And all of this was evident through how they treated the poor and most vulnerable among them.

God sees this and he says, “You know, they were more faithful to me when they were the little fish in the pond.”

“They were more faithful to me when they had to depend on me”

And remember in Deuteronomy the covenant that God made with the people.

He told them that the land was tied to their faithfulness.

The people were no longer faithful and as a result, God would bring the Assyrians to take the land from them.

My sisters and brothers, this message from Amos is one that is not just for the people of Israel. It is for us as well.

As I mentioned earlier, like walls that have endured over time, as humans go through life, we may lose our steadiness. 

In truth, we are not always consistent in our faith practices. We live through major disappointments that challenge our faith.

Our hope may be built on a firm foundation, but over time, we may experience our hope “leaning” unsteadily to one side or another.

Over time, our spiritual houses may weaken and become less precise.  

So it is with our spiritual walls. This Amos text reminds us of the need for maintenance to preserve the integrity of our spiritual foundation.

Before the Lord God shows up with a plumb line, there are some things we can do to realign and maintain the integrity of our spiritual walls.

When we notice cracks in our foundation, uneven floors, or misalignment in our relationship with the Divine, we can consider (re)instituting daily prayer and meditation, engaging in practices of love and gratitude, and attending to the care of our neighbors, among other correctives for modern believers.