Sermon: Pent. 6 – Proper 10 B - Tucson, AZ ; St. Philips Church; 07-12-09
Amos 7: 7-15; Ps. 85:8-13; Eph. 1:3-14; Mark 6:14-29
Need to rebuild fence or wall in yard at home – old one fell down! Requires much study, preparation, work ahead.
Point: to build or repair a wall takes:
1. A plan, a vision of the wall to be & recognition that existing wall is leaning, fallen, rotted, out of true
Amos story background – N. Kingdom prophet – prosperous times, yet national apostasy and moral failure to live up to and be “true” to the vision of God as a people;
Best of times/worst of times – Amos called out of obscurity – shepherding/tree-trimming!
Prosperity -40 years – King Jeraboam; rich, affluent/ poor, homeless, slaves; business of God; cult and worship out of touch with realities of people. Amos sent with “woe, woe, woes” to warn – repent, wall is falling down!
Imagine – couple of years ago – what if someone had come to us – with prosperous stock markets, bristling economy, money and dept flowing; before current housing and job & economic woes! Failure of people then and perhaps now to live up to standards of law and gospel – justice and mercy is clear. Uses this plumb line and wall image to convey reality to people.
Now becomes a call to let the rain waters of God, which Fr. Blake spoke of last week, “roll down” like a flood of justice and right living, says Amos!
I Bring out tools/ kit for wall building – earliest awareness of Plumb line- imagery – Dad as surveyor – Texas Highway Dept. – oilfield surveying NW. Surveyor’s tools –
Transit, Chain/tape, compass, pencil/paper, log books, slide rule (b4 computers), plumb line with bob on end! Show tools. These tools are common to carpenters, masons, surveyors, etc. St. Philips Phixer’s use these tools also and if you’re interested in helping out around here, they’ll teach you how as well.
Also encountered again in seminary trip to Cincinnati, OH with class before 1976 General Convention where vote to allow ordinations of women took place as we gathered in Minneapolis.
Today, we are being called to think about how we’re doing as a people, a church, a nation, as a wall built by God, meant to stand true, upright, aligned with a moral universe and God, full of God’s image and plan for justice and mercy. Nothing can or should escape God’s measure!
I learned this week of the death of a beloved professor of Ethics in seminary –on that trip with us, I believe, to Cincinnati. Dr. Jack Gessell, of the Univ. of the South died. Worked energetically, joyfully, imaginatively to help many seminarians and people of the church see connection between faith and action. Jack was a participant and leader in Episcopal Peace Foundation and Integrity – Assoc. of Gay and Lesbian Episcopalians and friends. He was passionate for joy and love of God – teaching justice in class or books like his “Grace and Obedience” essays on how the Gospel must elicit social justice.
Clearly, like Paul writing to the Ephesians, Prof. Gessell believed we have the capacity, as well as the obligation, to be true to the Gospel call for justice and mercy. We have the capacity to act on the vision of God’s planned kingdom on Earth, because the Spirit of Jesus has been breathed into us, giving us the tools, the skills and the courage to be upright and just.
During last week’s reading of the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, we had held up before us a plumb line of sorts related to God’s vision of a kingdom – and some of the hopes and dreams of those faithful people who envisioned a government that could measure up to a divinely inspired and just community.
I wonder – How are we doing with that measure?
What similarities and differences do we bear to Amos’ community of 750 BC, or Paul’s’ Ephesians’ community, often divided and not fully cognizant of it’s gifts and call, or of the people of the living encounter with the Plumb line Incarnate, Jesus?
This week and next, our Episcopal folk, gather in Anaheim, Calif., as a body part of the world-wide Anglican communion, to listen and act for God’s measure and plan for the church. Can we, with all honesty, say the words of the Psalmist with one voice?
“ I will listen to what the Lord is saying” and with one will “I will act on it.”
A few weeks ago, I went home to Jackson, MS, to visit my 94-year-old ailing father. I appreciated everyone’s prayers and support of my family and journey home to reunion with a father and servant to me in such a profound and yet simple ways as teaching me the crafts and tools of his trade.
While there, in the still troubled south and a city racked by poverty and racial and social divisions, I got hold of a local African American newspaper that wrote of the annual and state – “Juneteenth” celebrations, or lack there of. As a sheltered, white boy growing up in rural Miss., I had little awareness of the importance and meaning of this festival. The article lamented the “powers that be” which still divide and exploit the fears, prejudices, and poverty of the people of that community and region.
Q - Wonder - How many have heard of Juneteenth before?
Well, on June 19th, 1865, the Emancipation Proclamation got to Galveston, TX and was proclaimed and enforced by militia, a full 2 years after Pres. Lincoln proclaimed it in 1863. Some had not even heard of their freedom’s herald!
The time is now in our states to honor and recommit to emancipation’s end to slavery and oppression of all kinds. The time is now for a rededication to Dr. ML King’s clarion call for Amos’ waters of justice and mercy to roll down!
Today, we might think we’ve come far from such days and such injustices. But I wonder?
We have but to look around – at Jackson, the south, and still much of the country is racially and economically divided – poverty is rampant, budgets are being balanced on the backs of the elderly, the sick, the youth and their education, and many still are outside the mainstream of power and presence in the system of society. Worship on Sunday or Saturday is still the most segregated of hours in the week – in mosque, synagogue, or church.
And – in Anaheim, American Anglicans gather now to weigh the Lord’s call to mission and ministry in the coming 3 years ahead. Yet we are still torn by internal strife and unable to allow the “wall of the church” to be rebuilt according to the vision of God we’ve seen in the prophets and especially in Jesus, a vision we’ve prayed over, discerned, and charted in discourse of several conventions since Minneapolis.
Our church has proclaimed in its Canons of order (rules or measures for building the church of God) that we will not discriminate, exclude, impede, or divide among our brother and sister members called to lay or ordained ministry and full baptismal inclusion, full Spirit-possession as Paul reminded the Ephesians. We have said we will not discriminate based on race, economic or social status, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. It is a canon – you might call it an Episcopal Emancipation Proclamation made 30+ years ago, especially for those outside the margins of mission and ministry in the body. Apparently, many years later, the word has still not reached the shores or ears of many a parish or diocese that full inclusion and participation, in the mission of the disciples Jesus sends out, has been effected in our church! It is a vision that our society still longs to hear and see the measure of.
So, Juneteenth, is perhaps a holiday that we as Anglicans, and as Arizonan’s can appreciate and lift up. It happens in our community and state, and we could also perhaps join in it’s observance next June here at St. Philips. It could thus be an acknowledgement that the wall of our community, our church, and our nation are still leaning and out of true. And it could offer a recommitment to hear and act ethically upon the call to measure and stand true to the vision of humanity and divinity seen in Jesus the Christ – the living Plumb line.
Clearly, we’ve seen the wall of faith and action in the church is more than capable of bearing the likeness and measure of Christ to the world.
Pray then, brothers and sisters, for the church, and for each of us, that we will respond in word and action:
“Speak Lord, for your servants listen!” Amen!
Sources of info and commentary:
Chris Haslam’s Revised Common Lectionary Commentary – http://www.montreal.anglican.org
Lutheran Seminary resource - http://www.workingpreacher.org
The African American Lectionary – http://www.theafricanamericanlectionary.org
Resources on Juneteenth & Dr. King’s sermons on Amos