Prophets and plumb lines. . .

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 10B, preached on Sunday, July 11, 2021.

    How much is the life of a prophet worth?  Well, ask them.  Ask Isaiah who was, according to tradition, sawed in half by Manasseh, King of Judah.  Or Jeremiah who dodged death several times before being stoned by his own people.  Or Ezekiel who is said to have died in Babylonia, killed by Israelite exiles.  Or Micah who is said to have been killed by Joram, Son of Ahab.  Or ask John the Baptist.  Now, perhaps, you know why Jonah ran and other prophets were reluctant to accept the Lord’s call.  But is it only the fear of death?

    Amos frames the whole thing in the first reading for today.  The job of the prophet is to be a plumb line.  Now if you have watched any DIY shows on TV, you know that a plumb line is a weighted line that shows you how crooked something is.  If you are smart, you will heed the warning of the plumb line and straighten up what is crooked.  If you are not, your house will eventually fall in on itself and be destroyed.  The prophets were those who spoke this kind of warning to the crooked in every generation.  But nobody wants to listen to a prophet.  Not then.  Not now.  Not you.  Not me.

    None of us wants to be warned of our sins.  For a time Herod had protected John the Baptist – not because he welcomed his voice or repented but because he knew that John’s accusations were true and that John was sent by God.  For a time this uneasy tension between the desire to shut John up and distance himself from God’s wrath worked.  That is, until his eyeballs began to tickle his loins and Herod could not stop himself anymore.  His adulterous wife Herodius and his lecherous desire for his own step-daughter conspired to unbalance what had been kept in check.  And John, the plumb line, had to go.
    
    That is how we all feel.  The only Law we want to hear is the Law that points out the sins of others.  When the Law gets too close to our own sins, we cry foul.  We would rather excuse our crooked thoughts, words, and deeds than have them exposed.  That is why the shadows of denial are so attractive to us and why the light of God is so fearful.  His Light exposes what we want kept secret.  The plumb line is actually a help because it keeps things straight and narrow, solid and good.  But to sinners, the plumb line is a bother.

    Let the pastor preach God’s goodness and how God loves us and what good gifts God gives us and how bad it is to judge others and we are crazy happy.
But let that same pastor preach the Law unflinchingand we are offended.  Nobody wants a pastor to start talking about uncontrolled sexual desire or cohabitation or pornography or lust.  Nobody wants a pastor to point out lies or cheating or stealing or vulgar words or pride or a thousand other sins.  EXCEPT to point out how they are at work in others.

    But that is the point.  The only truth a liar tells is when he admits he is a liar.  If you say you have no sin, you deceive yourself and the truth is not in you.  Or, to put it more bluntly, if you deny your sins you are a liar.   The most truth that is ever on your lips is when you confess that you are a sinner, that you have sinned in thought, word, and deed, by the evils you have done and by the good you have left undone.  That is the plumb line of the Law pointing out your crooked ways and that is the Holy Spirit leading you to hear and heed the voice of truth.

    God takes no pleasure in pointing out your crooked ways.  If He did, there would be no Savior.  No, it pains the Lord more than it pains you to square up your life according to the plumb line of the Law.  But it has to be done or the Savior will mean nothing to you at all.  Jesus said it.  Only the sick desire a physician.  Only the guilty desire relief.  Only sinners desire forgiveness.  Only the accused desire a Savior.  God speaks through the prophet the plump line of the Law to point you to the only one who can tear down what is crooked through forgiveness and then square you up with His righteousness.  In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.  That is what St. Paul is talking about.

    We hate the prophet because we think he is only interested in making us look bad, in trotting out our sins from all their hiding places.  But the prophet is not interested in seeing us condemned but in seeing the Gospel planted within us, in seeing us forgiven of our sins, and in seeing us build our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit, straight and tall.  Everyone of us wants a clear conscience but no one gets a clear conscience by hiding their sins away.  Everyone of us wants a good life and a life of goodness but there is no good apart from the new life Christ builds in you by His Spirit.  The prophets God sends to us are sent in love.  He does not send the prophets to condemn us but to redeem us, not to send us packing but to restore us as His own baptized people.  John was not killed because he spoke the Law but because Herod refused to hear the Law or hope for the Gospel.  So his frenzied effort to keep his sins hidden led him to even greater sin.

    Dear people, loved by God.  The plumb line of confession that begins our worship points us to Jesus whose mercy forgives us and whose grace builds us up in righteousness.  His goal is not to make us sorry and fill us with regret but to make us new and fill us with faith.  No pastor wants to assume the prophet’s mantle and speak the Law to you.  But any one who would stand in the name of God and not speak the Law is no pastor.  The pastor, like the prophets before him, speaks the plumb line of the Law so that Christ can tear down your failed righteousness and build you up in His righteousness, and present you to His Father in heaven as a completed new creation, a building wherein the Holy Spirit dwells, and a fitting temple for which God to dwell within. 

    Just as sin cannot be left hidden and dealt with, neither can sin be fixed by declaring it no longer sinful.  There is only one answer.  Repent.  Confess your sins.  Believe the Gospel.

    May the Lord grant us the courage to hear, the conviction to confess, the faith to believe, and the will to do the works of God.  For if the building is straight, the plump line cannot say anything against what is built.  And if Christ is at work in you now, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight, you have nothing to fear from God.  Not today, not tomorrow, and not on judgment day.  Amen.