Old Testament: Amos 7:7-15 (Pentecost 8: Series B)
The message of Amos comes home to us as we reflect on the prosperity in our land, our good life, our comparative comfort which are no guarantee that God looks favorably on our ways of living.
Around 760 B.C., God called the prophet Amos away from his merchant trade and sent to, “Go, prophesy to My people,” in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Amos would be considered a second career pastor today. His was certainly an alternate route to ministry. However, God used all the life experience of this later in life prophet to create vivid images to draw people back to the LORD.
The message Amos was sent to proclaim was that God was going to make an end of the Northern Kingdom. This is the Word of the Law. But then God situates an image in the midst of that law. He sets a plumbline in Israel, which is a cord with a weight on the end that is used by carpenters and stone masons. But it was more than a tool for building. It is “a line directed to the center of gravity of the earth: a vertical line.”[1] God sets a line like a carpenter which comes from Him down to the center of the Earth. He is pointing to the central thing, something which would come from a later and greater prophet than Amos. He would be another prophet who was Himself a carpenter’s Son, God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. At the cross, Jesus would point to the gravity of sin’s atonement and, finally, be buried in the earth. Jesus would gloriously come out of the grave three days later to show us the centrality of God’s mercy for sinners.
Amos was sent to reveal for Israel how they were crooked, not upright, not square with God. In much the same way, Jesus would come to atone for our crooked, turned-inward condition called sin. Only Jesus brought us into a right relationship with God when He justified us on the cross. There He brought us into line with God. At the empty tomb, we are made right, or righteous, freely on account of Christ alone.
Israel, under the reign of Jeroboam I, prospered economically, enjoyed a sweet life, elaborate dwellings, leisure, and wild living. They felt they dwelt in God’s perpetual favor, so they even loved to turn church into a party as well, a place to celebrate their wealth, all the while avoiding the harder conversation about sin. But they disobeyed God because they were indifferent toward their poor neighbors, who suffered under debt, slavery, injustice, and cheating in the marketplace. God had forgiven Israel frequently in the past (7:1-6), but now His patience was at an end. He would “never again pass by them” (verse 8). King Jeroboam would die, and Israel would go into exile in Assyria.
They seemed to never learn this lesson. It would not be until Jesus would die and be exiled into His tomb that we would see this whole problem turn around. The message Amos was sent to announce in, of all places, Bethel, where King Jeroboam had his mega-church with its two golden bulls and revamped style of worship, was: Turn to God. Amos’ preaching was a direct challenge to the rule of the king, said the priests at Bethel. However, Amaziah does not attribute Amos’ words to the Lord. He tells the king, “Amos is saying...,” making it Amos’ words, not God’s Word. Amaziah does not believe Amos has been sent by the LORD. So, it is the word of a human being against the Word of God. That is an age-old confrontation still present in our day. Strangely, Amos’ answer defends his right to prophesy in the name of the LORD because he was “called by God” the same as any other. Sure, he did not belong to the regular track, residential students like the “sons of the prophets,” and he is not a professional prophet earning his living by prophesying. He is an alternate track, bi-vocational, second career prophet simply under a call from God. But it is the divine call which levels all our hierarchies in ministry. Whether you received an alternate route education of some kind or went through the bona-fide, residential Seminary track, the only thing that makes a minister is the divine call (see Article XIV of the Augsburg Confession about the call).[2] God simply called Amos saying, “Go. Prophesy,” and Amos obeyed. That is the Word of the Lord.
God simply called Amos saying, “Go. Prophesy,” and Amos obeyed. That is the Word of the Lord.
The message of Amos comes home to us as we reflect on the prosperity in our land, our good life, our comparative comfort which are no guarantee that God looks favorably on our ways of living. It also causes us to look hard at our worship to see if there is anything worthy of correction in us. The prophetic Word is a word of Law for us today too. Where are our self-made idols even in how we “prefer” to prepare people for ministry? We have to look to Christ. He is our only hope. He who would cleanse the Temple in public and then in three days raise it up again. He who would call unpolished people to be His apostolic band marching down history proclaiming the Word of God. Christ, who was sent to care for the poor and bankrupt sinners such as us. Amos points us to that plumb line which drives us to the heart of God seen clearest in Jesus alone.
For this sermon you could explore the multiple images from Amos to craft multiple experiences of the text. The “Multiple Image Structure” may suit you best, but you could also just choose one image and develop it into a single experience as well. We will explore the Multiple Image Structure for this sermon:
“This sermon structure uses two or more images in the sermon to signal movement or development to the hearers during the course of the sermon. Each image is associated with a particular thought or experience for the hearers and the sermon moves from one section to another by moving from one image to another.
In working with more than one image, the preacher needs to determine how the images hold together as a set of images. Do they have a thematic or stylistic coherence? Working with images that are too widely varied in style or subject matter can create confusion for the hearers, as the images work to break apart the sermon rather than hold the experience together as one intentional meditation upon God’s Word.
Also, the preacher will want a coherent movement between images during the sermon. That is, as the preacher moves from one image to another, there should be a logical or experiential appropriateness to such movement. This could involve movement within a metaphorical field, typological movement, a dynamic reversal, or the development and/or contextualization of God’s mission.
Finally, as the preacher integrates the images into the sermon, he can choose to work inductively leading from an image to the statement of an idea (that connects to the text, to the theological confession, to evangelical proclamation, or to the lives of the hearers) or deductively, beginning first with a statement of the idea and then entering into the image as a way of developing it for the hearers. A variety of inductive and deductive movements can generate a continuing interest in the flow of the sermon.”[3]
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Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out out 1517’s resources on Amos 7:7-15.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you in preaching Amos 7:7-15.
Text Week-A treasury of resources from various traditions to help you preach Amos 7:7-15.
Lectionary Kick-Start-Check out this fantastic podcast from Craft of Preaching authors Peter Nafzger and David Schmitt as they dig into the texts for this Sunday!
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[1] Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2003.
[2] Robert Kolb, Timothy J. Wengert, and Charles P. Arand. The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000. 46.
[3] https://concordiatheology.org/sermon-structs/dynamic/imagistic-structures/multiple-image/
