Sermon on July 12, 2009
Sermon for the Episcopal Church of St John the Baptist, Capitola,
given by Rev. Steve Ellis
The Episcopal Church of Saint John the Baptist welcomes all to worship God and to share Christ's love in the world. We are a parish family committed to provide liturgy, Bible study, music, counseling, and Christian education for children, youth, and adults, and to equip all our members for life and for service to others.
0 Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know end understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them: through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Old Testament Lesson
This is what the Lord God showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the LORD said to me, "Amos, what do you see?" And I said, "A plumb line." Then the Lord said, "See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people lsrael; I will never again pass them by; the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate. and the sanctuaries of lsrael shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword!"
Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of lsrael, saying, "Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of lsrael; the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos has said. 'Jeroboam shall die by the sword and lsrael must go into exile away from his land.' "
And Amaziah said to Amos, "O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah. earn your bread there, and prophesy there: but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom."
Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet's son; but I am a herdsman. and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people lsrael!"
Amos 7:7-15
Psalm
1 The earth is the LORD'S and all that is in it, '*
the world and all who dwell therein.
2 For it is he who founded it upon the seas *
and made it firm upon the rivers of the deep.
3 'Who can ascend the hill of the LORD? " *
and who can stand in his holy place?"
4 'Those who have clean hands and a pure heart, *
who have not pledged themselves to falsehood.
nor sworn by what is a fraud.
5 They shall receive a blessing from the LORD *
and a just reward from the God of their salvation."
6 Such is the generation of those who seek him, *
of those who seek your face, 0 God of Jacob
7 Lift up your heads, O gates;
lift them high, O everlasting doors; *
and the King of glory shall come in.
8 'Who is this King of glory?"
"The LORD, strong and mighty,
the LORD, mighty in battle."
9 Lift up your heads. O gates:
Lift them high O everlasting doors *
and the King of glory shall come in
10 'Who is he this King of glory?" *
"The LORD of hosts,
he is the King of glory."
Psalm 24 Page 613. BCP
New Testament Lesson
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to US the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ. as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will. so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.
Ephesians 1:3-I4
Gospel
King Herod heard of the demons cast out and the many who were anointed and cured. for Jesus' name had become known. Some were saying. "John the Baptizer has been raised from the dead, and for this reason these powers are at work in him" But others said "It Is Elljah." And others said," It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old "
But when Herod heard of it, he said. "John. whom I beheaded, has been raised:" For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because Herod had married her. For John had been telling Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have your brothers wife. "And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man. and he protected him. When he heard him. he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him.
But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. When his daughter Herodias came in and danced. she pleased Herod and his guests and the king said to the girl, "Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give i.t ' And he solemnly swore to her, "Whatever you ask me I will give you even half of my klnqdom."
She went out and said to her mother 'What should I ask for?" She replied, 'The head of John the Baptizer. '' Immediately she rushed back to the klng and requested, "I want you, to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter." The klng was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her. Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John's head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.
Mark 1314-29
Sermon
In 750 B.C.E. there were two Hebrew kingdoms under one covenant. Two tribes lived in and around Jerusalem, and ten lived in the Northern Kingdom, called Israel. This is the time of the prophet Amos and I want you to ask two questions with me this morning. The first question is, Why would a farm-hand and poet from the Southern Kingdom take himself North to denounce the way the Northern Kingdom was living? The second question is, "Why should we care?"
Amos must have been one of those people who thinks with the newspaper in one hand and his Bible in the other. News traveled in those days only with travelers, and the elders sat in the gates of each village to meet travelers and to discuss problems, even to hold court.
Amos must have been very distressed at what he heard about happenings in Israel. The news in those days was, that as nomadic chieftains became village elders and hereditary elders began to move to the cities, they left behind the role they'd always played, taking care of all their people, but they took with them the privileges and the taxes traditionally owed their families, and they kept the land they owned in the villages. Taxes don't stop, but benefits do.
A wave of foreclosures began. Lower middle-class farmers began to lose their land, their livelihood, their homes. They'd borrow for seed or livestock, and if there was a bad harvest, an illness - their land was the only collateral they had, and they'd end up being sharecroppers for the landlord. And still they had to borrow sometimes, and if there was another bad harvest their only collateral was their own bodies, so they'd be reduced to indentured servants until they'd paid off the debt.
Amos knew the covenant. All the Hebrews were supposed to respect one another's God-given dignity, from the least to the greatest. They owed one another this respect, and the mercy and generosity that went with it. But the bonds between people were dying, they no longer knew each other, and so they thought more of what they could get, and less about how their brothers and sisters lived. A people who no longer felt their covenant obligations to one another were in Amos’ mind no longer a healthy people, and any enemy would have an easy time with them.
Amos had a vision of God holding a plumb line. Apparently God was a workman, like Amos, measuring a wall to see if it was straight. And God said to Amos, I'm not passing by Israel's wickedness in silence any more. The people will be attacked by other nations, their king will be captured, they will be scattered among the nations.
When Amos went North to say this, he was not welcome. Those who were doing fine thought him a fool, but they were bothered enough to accuse him of treason, and tell him he had to leave.
When John the Baptist told King Herod and all the people to mend their ways, because the Messiah was coming, he said they should show good faith in business practices, in friendships, in marriage (he especially said that one to Herod), that they should show generosity, mercy, steadfastness in all their dealings. Herod liked to listen to John, and took him seriously, even though he was imprisoned as a enemy of the state. But Herod's family resented his call to repentance so much they asked for and got his head on a platter. I wonder if they felt vindicated then?
Our idea of justice is more abstract: we think of law enforcement and of courts. Israel had those things, to a degree, but they were a simpler society and they relied more on direct relationships, and a covenant that said they had mutual obligations to one another, even to the foreigner living in their community. All were to have a chance to earn a decent living, to be included in the councils of the community. Without that they would not be recognizable as God's people. And when they let that erode, Amos called it violence against their brothers and sisters, and violence against the covenant.
Now to the second question: "Why should we care about a crisis of foreclosures on the farms and homes of the middle class that happened 2750-some years ago? Why should we care that so long ago people were making loans they knew would often lead to foreclosure, when they were forbidden by their own covenant to the harsh terms of those loans? Why should we care about a society that stopped practicing its covenant and let the less-well off be destroyed or even enslaved by an illness or a bad harvest?
Amos might tell us that the size of the gulf between the richest and the poorest is the measure of the relationship, of the responsibilities that the people know they have to one another. It is the measure of their willingness to treat one another as children of God, as brothers and sisters. He might tell us that the strength of those relationships is the plumb-line by which God measures the people, their uprightness. I think he would tell us that, if we don't have that vibrant back and forth of mutual obligation in society, we are not a healthy people.
My hope is that we have the courage to hear God's love, even when it is stem and demanding, and school ourselves to be just and upright and related to those with whom we share our common life. Those who grow and pick our food, those who cook and clean, those who work in stores, those for whom we work, those who teach us, those who govern us - all of them have a right to our respect and goodwill, and we have a right to theirs. If we can know this as a part of our faith, work at it as a part of our practice, we will be a healing gift to our community.
Decency matters more than we know. Quiet people who feel their obligations and live them are the yeast that leavens the whole loaf, and they not only please God, but also do far more to preserve society than we may realize.