The Lesson of the Plumb Line

      We do not like to talk with any degree of seriousness about consequences, especially if those consequences involve personal penalty and punishment. Most of us do not like to be criticized or judged. We find it much easier to sit in judgment of others than to accept a critique of our own lives and behaviors. However, there is no escape from the reality of a God who loves, gives grace, and shows mercy, while handing out judgment. In the Old Testament relationship between God and the Jewish people, we can find no find better example of a God who is patient, forgiving, and gracious. We can also find examples of judgment.

      In the little book of Amos we find God speaking to his servant about the judgment that will soon fall on the Jewish nation. In the seventh chapter, we find God measuring the actions and intentions of the people with a “spiritual plumb line.” When a builder uses a plumb line, a weight tied to the end of a string, it is hung from a “center,” from a point that is true and straight. The wall is then measured and built by the plumb line, as it hangs straight from the true center. God tells Amos that his people had been built by God’s true standards, they had once been centered on him, but they had allowed themselves to begin leaning away from the “center,” away from God’s standards. Now, they must be judged, punished, and brought back in line with the center.

      Micah 6:8 gives us those standards, “…just what does God require of his people? To do justice, to love mercy and kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” The people had lost their divine center by centering on other things.

      Dr. Dennis Kinlaw tells a story that fits into this vision of Amos and the plumb line. There is a castle in Scotland with a dungeon cut from solid rock. The dungeon, which serves as a prison, is shaped like a bottle or a triangle, narrow at the top with sloping circular walls. Once a person is dropped in the opening at the top, there is no escape from the total darkness. All prisoners placed there quickly go insane, except one. For several weeks, this prisoner was able to keep his right mind even in total darkness and the circular dungeon with no unchanging point of reference. When taken out, he shared his secret. In his pocket, he had six small pebbles, and when he felt mental panic, he would count his pebbles by moving them one at a time from one pocket to another. There were always six. With that unchangeable point of reference, which was found outside of himself, the man was able to keep from losing his mind. His existence depended on an external point that never changed.

      Kinlaw continues by saying “the key to one’s self is not self.” Without an external point of reference outside of our selves, we simply wander aimlessly searching for fulfillment. We need an unmoving true center, a point from which the plumb line of God’s unchanging standards will hang to measure our lives and keep us straight. That unmoving center is found in the person of Jesus Christ.

      As a church, we can have hope in the words of Jesus as he judged the church at Philadelphia in the first chapter of Revelation. “You have been true to me and kept my teachings. I have held up the plumb line of holiness and you are found to be a holy people. You have kept me as the center of your existence. I will bless you beyond measure, here on this earth and in everlasting life.” So we ask ourselves, “Are we who we say we are? Is my life consistent with God’s standards? How well does my faith walk measure up to God’s plumb line?”    

Rev Tim McConnell Long’s Chapel UMC February 10, 2013