"Tight lines" is a blessing fishermen offer each other, a wish for lines taut with the weight of good fish. May God grant that the lines written here be taut with His blessings.
Thursday, 08 July 2010 | |||
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Standards | |||
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At a pastor's gathering this morning, a speaker urged us to
stand up for moral values, the example being his own stance toward a
governor in another state in opposition to a bill allowing gay marriage.
I couldn't help but think of the texts for this Sunday, beginning with
Amos 7:7-17, the vivid image of God's plumb line set in the midst of
Israel, displaying its crookedness in relation to His divine
standards. Yet the anger of the Lord expressed in Amos' prophecy was not directed against sexual immorality, although it surely existed there in the northern kingdom. No, the substance of God's complaint through this prophet is found in chapter 5, Israel's record of injustice and exploitation of the poor. The standard by which God is measuring His people in Amos is echoed by Jesus in the Gospel text for today, Luke 10:25-37, the parable of the Good Samaritan. Asked what the standards are for receiving eternal life, Jesus elicits from one of the Jewish lawyers Jesus' own answer to a similar question, the great commandments: love God and love your neighbor. When, as lawyers will, the man wanted to quibble about the exact application of the second commandment, Jesus responded with a story that hung a living plumb line against our behavior. Will we "go and do likewise," or will the model of the Samaritan show up our spiritual lives as out of kilter? Our epistle lesson from Colo ssians 1:1-14 holds up the same sort of standard in verse 10 as Paul expresses his constant prayer that the work of the Spirit in Christians lives will be such that "you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work. . .." Back to Amos, where the consequences for not measuring up to the standard, for appearing as a building out of true, is destruction of supposed holy places in verse 9. The rest of text is a judgment specifically against the priest Amaziah who tries to quiet Amos. The last verse declares that Israel itself will be judged by exile. When a building ends up leaning, whether through faulty construction or settling into soft ground, it may be the only solution is leveling it and starting over. May that not be the end of our stories either as individuals or as churches or as the Church. May we turn to the truest plumb line of all in the love of Jesus Christ and seek His grace to stand straight for love and justice to all in need. | |||
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Profile |
I am the pastor of Valley Covenant Church in Eugene, Oregon. I love to flyfish and hike along the beautiful rivers in our area. I welcome your comments as I share sermon work in progress and occasional other thoughts.
Thank you for visiting this blog. I invite you also to visit my web page.
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Jim Stanley-Erickson Great job! I look at your blog from time to time, today I was reminded by Brad Boydston. (07/09/10)