In the beginning when
God was about to create the heavens and the earth, the Bible says the
earth was without form and void. Like a Master Carpenter, God set out to
make a world, a world in the divine image, a world reflective of God’s own
life, a world God would be proud of, a world God would be proud to say, “I
made that!” So God took good care in making that world. All the divine
tools were at God’s disposal. Our scripture this morning refers to one
of those tools of God, one of the tools of the Master Carpenter that God
uses to measure creation. In Old Testament times they were familiar with
this tool (rock on a string). A line with a stone to weight the bottom—a
tool, when used properly, sets the line for the work making sure that it
is straight and true. A plumb line. When God began to create the heavens
and the earth, we can imagine the first thing God did was set a divine
plumbline to establish the proper base upon which the rest of creation
would be built. So God made light, using the divine plumbline to separate
the day from the night. Then God set a dome in the midst of the waters,
called the dome “sky,” separating the waters above the dome form the
waters below. God gathered the waters together in one place and land
appeared. God called the water “seas” and the dry land “earth.” Then God
paused, sighted along the plumbline all that was made and said “Yes,
that’s good.” And God made all the rest of creation: living creatures,
every plant yielding seed, even male and female God created them. God
provided resources, enough and plenty, for everyone. And it was so. God
saw everything that was made and said, “Yes, yes, that’s very good!”
Over 2750 years ago God
called a herdsman, a dresser of Sycamore trees, a common person, someone
from among the poor of the land. God called a man by the name of Amos.
God called him away from his herd, relieved him as a dresser of sycamore
trees whose seasonal responsibility it was to puncture the fig-like fruit
of the sycamore which then released the insects and allowed it to ripen
properly as food for the poor. God called Amos from his place among the
common people and sent him to declare a warning to the leaders of the
kingdom of Israel. What did God send Amos to tell King Jereboam of
Israel? God sent Amos to expose the rampant social injustice that
exploited the poor at the very time that Israel was enjoying great
economic prosperity. Wealthy merchants, lusting for economic power, were
ruthlessly trampling on the heads of the poor and defenseless. Public
leaders, reveling in luxury and corrupted by indulgence, were lying in
beds of ease—unconcerned over the moral ruin of the nation. Law courts
were used to serve the vested interests of the commercial class. Now, in
the midst of their prosperity, the people thronged to their places of
worship regularly, but they could scarcely wait for the services to be
over so that they could get back to their money making. Through Amos, God
sends a warning:
The high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, he
sanctuaries of
Israel shall be laid
waste…Israel shall surely go into exile away from
its land.
From time to time, you see, God, the
Master Carpenter, checks on creation, comes by for the regular safety
inspection, if you will. God examines creation carefully on a regular
basis to see if it is still straight and true. God knows the base was
proper and the original angle clean because that’s the way God made it at
the beginning. In his vision in his time, Amos sees God holding that
divine instrument and God asks Amos, “What do you see?” Amos replies, “I
see a plumbline.” And God saw everything that was made and what humanity
had done with it and God said, “Oh, no, this is not good, this is not good
at all.”
God said to Amos, “See,
I am setting a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel; I will never
again pass them by. I just cannot overlook this any longer, for if they
don’t straighten up, if they don’t turn away from the power of darkness,
they will fall under the weight of their own greed and selfishness.”
Before that generation
passed Israel was indeed overrun by the Assyrian army and carried off into
exile, away from the Promised Land. You see, if you go your own way, if
you prefer the power of darkness, if you deviate from the straight and
true as its is set by the divine plumbline, sin inevitably runs its own
course—sin has consequences that must be faced, consequences from which
even God cannot totally deliver you. It was the long term moral weakness
of the nation that made Israel so very vulnerable—it was that weakness
that spelled their downfall. God sent Amos to warn the King of Israel of
the sure destruction to come.
Yes, from time to time
God, the Master Carpenter, checks on creation. God examines creation
carefully on a regular basis to see if it is still straight and true.
Amos says it’s time—God is right now setting the divine plumbline in your
midst. As God sights along the line originally set for creation and looks
at creation today, looks at your world today, looks at South Roanoke
Church today, looks at you today, looks at me today, what does the Master
Carpenter see? For a good number of years now our Bishops of the United
Methodist Church have shared with us their own understanding in their
initiative, “Children and Poverty.” Just a week ago last Saturday our
retiring Bishop Joe E. Pennel, Jr., introduced to the Virginia delegation
to the Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference our new Bishop Charlene
Payne Kammerer. Having served the Western North Carolina Conference for
the past eight years following her election, she comes to Virginia
September 1. From the news release announcing her assignment one passage
caught my eye:
She is passionately commited to the
Episcopal Initiative on Children and
Poverty and is giving significant leadership in this area across the
church.
Copyright 200-2004 United Methodist Church.
All rights reserved.
Worldwide every year approximately 10 million children die of
poverty-related causes. An increasing number of children in the US suffer
from spiritual and economic poverty, violence, neglect, and inadequate
health care. Sisters and brothers, something is terribly wrong when so
many live in poverty in the most wealthy nation in the world. In our
world right now are more than enough resources to go around to fee
everyone on the planet. That’s the way God made it. But, you see, we are
no different that our ancestors who soon began to keep a portion for
themselves of the plenty in creation. We look out for ourselves so much
more than we look out for others. If we didn’t absolutely have to have so
much for ourselves so many others could have their basic needs met.
So what doe God, the
Master Carpenter, do with a creation so out of line, so deviant from the
straight and true that was set in the beginning? What do you do when your
house is so out of line that the floors sag, the walls crack, the roof
leaks, and begins to create its own slope? You call in a carpenter to
make it right again, don’t you? You shore up the foundation, repair the
cracks in the walls and make the slope of the roof true again.
A little over 2000
years ago that is exactly what God did. God called in a carpenter. The
Master Carpenter became a human being. Don’t you think that Joseph the
Carpenter taught his son Jesus how to use one of these (plumbline)?
Jesus, the Master Carpenter, went from place to place making things right
again. He lived among the poor. His parables were stories drawn from the
everyday lives of the common people. In his healing and his teaching he
restored the outcast their dignity. He fed the hungry and ate with
sinners. He called for the children to come to him. Everyone that the
culture sought to exclude he included. In his ministry the very
foundation of creation began to find is restoration. Even when Jesus
Christ was tried, condemned, and crucified, even out of that tragedy the
Master Carpenter fashioned a new divine tool out of the instrument of his
own execution, a tool that not only reveal how much out of line creation
is but a tool of the Master Carpenter that makes things right again. You
see, God knows if you are not straight and true anymore, you cannot make
yourself right on your own—only God can make you right again. If you but
submit yourself again to the Master Carpenter who made you, you can be
restored. Therein lies the hope of the church, the hope of the world, the
hope of all creation. The cross, you see, has the power to make things
right again.
Through the cross hearts change.
Through the cross we proclaim with the Apostle Paul in his letter to
Colossia,
“He has rescued me from the power of darkness and transferred
us into
the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption,
the
forgiveness of sins.”
Through the cross creation finds forgiveness for all our selfishness
and
greed that has hoarded resources for a few and denied them to
most.
Through the cross Christians find ways to provide the basic
necessities of
life for those who need them.
Through the cross nations find the political will necessary to
distribute
resources equitably.
Through the cross the outcast are restored their dignity, the hungry
are fed,
and the children, all God’s children, find fullness and
wholeness of
life.
You see, it is only
when a broken creation stands humbly before God and yields to he ways of
this (cross) tool of the Master Carpenter can God again see all that God
has made, sight along this line (of the cross), and finally say, “Yes,
that’s good; that’s very good.”
