• Amos 7: 7-17

In this third of five visions, Amos sees the Lord lower a plumb line directly into the midst of the institutions, laws, practices, values and customs of Israel and finds them out of balance.  Amos declares that the royal dynasty will end with the disgrace and death of the King, Jerobam II, and the desecration of the holy sites (“high places”).  The high priest in Bethel reports the prophecy of Amos to the King, who tells the prophet to leave and earn his living as prophet in Judah.  But Amos responds that he is not a prophet for hire, but a common laborer who is obeying God’s call.  Amos then repeats his warnings, and now adds a prophecy that the high priest’s wife will be raped and become a prostitute.  Similarly, Israel will be divided and sold off to an “unclean” nation.

• Psalm 82

God declares that God will take a stand among any and all competing gods for one overriding reason– justice for the poor and the destitute is not being upheld.  God expresses disillusionment with any other gods, who stumble around as if they are in the dark.  They will die one day, “like humans.”  The psalmist concludes with a cry to God:  “Arise, O God judge the earth for You hold all the nations.”

OR

• Deuteronomy 30: 9-14

Moses concludes his farewell speech to the people he led out of slavery into freedom, (which also concludes the Pentateuch), with assurance that they will prosper as along as they observe God’s commandments and “because you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”  The speech identifies an assumption that characterizes biblical narratives as unique:  God’s rules are not remote, transcendent, esoteric, difficult to understand or improbable to observe; they are “very near to you… in your mouth and in your heart….”

• Psalm 25: 1-9

The psalmist expresses confidence that her enemies will be “shamed” because she trusts in the Lord’s ways to inform her and to instruct her.  She also trusts that the Lord will not hold her youthful indiscretions against her, because the Lord is kind and willing to “guide” offenders.  She is confident because the Lord leads the lowly in justice and teaches the humble the Lord’s ways.

• Colossians 1: 1-14

(We commence reading most of the “Letter to the Colossians” today and the next three Sundays.)

Whether written by Paul himself or a mimic in his style, the “letter” to the Christians in Colossae opens with the standard greetings, encouragement and assurance of prayerful support for them.

• Luke 10: 25-37

Mark and Luke include episodes (with characteristic variations, of course) that present Jesus quoting the Torah in response to questions about the essence of the Law: love God and your neighbor as yourself.  But Luke provides a story that provides an unforgettable interpretation.  A man traveling to Jerusalem through Samaria is robbed, beaten and left on the roadside for dead.  A priest sees him in the gutter and walks by on the other side of the road.  Soon after a Levite does the same thing.  Finally along comes a Samaritan who not only tends the man’s wounds,  but he also puts the man on his own animal to take him into town and arranges for room and board, promising the innkeeper that that he will return to pay off any additional costs.  Which of these fulfilled God’s commands, Jesus asks.  “The man who showed mercy,” his listeners respond.  Jesus says: “God and do likewise.”

In his wonderful translation and commentary on the Pentateuch, (The Five Books of Moses, New York: W.W.Norton, 2004), Robert Alter amplifies a vital point from the closing address by Moses when he writes:

“The crucial theological point is that divine wisdom is in no way esoteric– it has been clearly set out in ‘this book of teaching’ and is accessible to every man and woman in Israel.”  “The Deuteronomist, having given God’s teaching a local place and habitation in a text available to all, proceeds to reject the older mythological notion of the secrets or wisdom of the gods.”  “The mythological era, the Deuteronomist now proclaims, is at at end, for God’s word, inscribed in a book, has become the intimate property of every person.” (p. 1029)

The psalmist takes up an ancillary theme in Psalm 82 (which is not the appointed responsory psalm to the reading from Deuteronomy, but for the reading from Amos), when she observes that “other gods” stumble around as if in the dark, but God speaks and acts decisively always with the same passion– justice, especially for the poor.

John Drury has written with such insight over his illustrious career about Luke’s gospel, including a short essay he contributed to that splendid collection by Robert Alter and Frank Kermode, The Literary Guide to the Bible.  About what he calls “Luke’s parable section,”  which includes the story of “the Good Samaritan,” Drury observes that Luke insists “the one thing needful is not endurance nor the penetration of supernatural secrets but the resilience to face up and cope with the problem in front of one’s nose.” (p. 434)  The antihero in Luke’s story is an anonymous Samaritan, a people whom Jews in the South regarded as apostate and unfit by religious standards.  But, by responding to “the problem  in front of one’s nose” with simple, basic tangible human decency, he fulfilled God’s law, which the priest and the Levite failed spectacularly.  Now we see he is the real hero in Jesus’ story.

Following comments about last Sunday’s propers (9C), we continue to live with this stubborn, biblical insistence that simple, basic everyday justice and compassion meet God’s only and unique priority, which Jesus upholds in the gospels as well, (especially in Luke).   This insistence undercuts everything else about religion.  It is the true ‘measure’ (like the plumb that Amos saw), against which every theological debate, church controversy, as well as every social and political issue must be measured.  Sometimes it has been said that the challenge today is to make religion ‘relevant.’  The challenge is just the opposite: how do we live up to these biblical injunctions, which are as stunningly, uncomfortable  ‘relevant’ as ever!