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Pentecost 6

11 July 2004

Amos 7:7-17; Ps. 82; Col 1:1-14: Lk. 10:25-37
There are two risks involved in talking about the Christian faith.   One is that you make it sound too easy and the other is that you make it sound too hard. 

If you make it sound too easy, you run the risk of people being disappointed when it doesn´t work easily for them; and if you make it sound too hard you run the risk of people not even trying.   A somewhere-in-the-middle position isn´t any good either.

Nor does it do much good to lay down absolute principles that people are expected to follow, because the way people put those principles into practice is going to vary from one person to the next.

Part of the difficulty is to deal with the present. It's not enough to notice what God has done in the past; and it´s not enough to speculate about what God will do in the future, though both of those things may have some importance.   What is essential for us as Christians is to notice what God is doing among us now.

This, I think, is something of the dilemma we face when we set out sermonically with these passages.

Amos 7:7-17
Has Amos given up all hope that people will realise the serious nature of their sin?   It seems so.   Unlike his response to previous visions, Amos here makes no plea for God to spare the people.   He seems to understand that God´s judgment must surely come.

What are his complaints?   The people have chosen to go their own way.   They have turned worship into a meaningless exercise.   They have replaced compassion with cruelty and greed in their dealings with one another.   The powerful ones are especially condemned.   God´s plumb line shows how crooked and out of kilter life, especially the life of the people of God,  has become.

So God´s judgment must come.   But how?   Not by God laying about him/her with a scourge, heavenly or otherwise, but by the inevitable result that must happen when a people lives selfish, unloving, lives that hold no compassion, no justice and no faithfulness to a loving God.   Historically the result has always been that the society crumbles and dies.

Interestingly, when the authorities hear Amos´ preaching, they tell him to get out of the city.   After all, they say, "this is the king´s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom".   But Amos cannot listen to them and keep the plumb line in view.   In V.17 his response is clear and definite.

By what standards are we living in Aotearoa New Zealand?   Where would the plumb line fall?

Psalm 82

"Give justice to the weak and the orphan;
maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute,
Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked."

See Amos above, and read on!

Interestingly, "The Message" version of this psalm talks about "judges" rather than ?gods".   I like it.   It feels as though those who have the power to set things on a course, (not necessarily legal judges), are the ones who should be brought to trial.

Injustice violates the very nature of divinity.   God intends that everyone should have access to the resources that make life possible and satisfying.   Injustice destroys all that.

Who are the "other gods" today, the judges?   I wonder who it is, and what life choices have been made, that make it important for us to have food banks?

Col. 1:1-14
See the prayer: vv 9-14

  • we are now enabled to live in Godīs way  ? it is possible
  • we can live in the light  ? light that is everlasting and inextinguishable
  • we can live in the kingdom of Godīs Son
  • we are forgiven  ? we donīt need to cringe or plead  ? we are!!

Luke 10:25-37
How many times have you tried to preach this parable, and how much did you feel you actually got there last time, and what new place to start have you discovered?

The lawyer is testing Jesus, so when the tables are turned and he is faced with a simple "Then do that", he looks for a loophole, a definition.   What he gets is a story about a man who was despised, quite outside the pale, who is held to be more of a neighbour than those normally respected people.   Note that it´s the word "neighbour" that is used.   "Good" doesn´t appear in the story.   The story destroys any parochial understanding of God.

If you were to transfer Amos´ vision of the plumb line to the characters in, and associated with, this story, where would it fall?   Take care when you decide about the priest and the levite who were responding to what they had been taught was God´s will for them.   Their religion depended on it.

So, how do you love God "with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence"?  (The Message).

God,
let us come into your presence
owning who we are
knowing that we could be more
than we have discovered so far
and trusting that,
because you will love us
with all your passion and compassion
we will live on in the beauty and intelligence
of your forgiven ones.
For the love of Jesus.   Amen.