This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news:

Tears of Credibility as Italian minister announces cuts 

AMOS CHAPTER SEVEN

Then the Lord God made me see this sight:

There he was, preparing a locust swarm

It was after the king’s mowing had been taken,

And the main crop was growing up

And as the locusts began to devour the whole green growth, I cried;

Have mercy, Lord, have mercy!

How can Jacob withstand this?

He is so small.

Then the Lord relented,

And the Lord said, This shall not be.

Then the Lord God made me see this sight:

There he was, calling for a trial by fire,

To dry up the deep springs of water.

It had begun to scorch the land, when I said,

O Lord God, stop this, I pray!

How can Jacob withstand it?

He is so small.

Then the Lord relented,

And the Lord God said, This too shall not happen.

7 Then the Lord made me see this sight:

There he was, standing beside a wall

With a plumb-line in his hand.

S Then the Lord said to me,

What do you see, Amos?

And I said, A plumb-line.

And the Lord replied,

See, I test my people Israel by the straightness of this line,

And I will not relent again,

For Isaac’s high places shall be razed to the ground,

The shrines of Israel reduced to ruin,

And I will draw the sword against the house of King Jeroboam.

locusts

The prophetn says that God is torn apart by his people’s unfaithfulness: He knows it must bring disaster but he loves his people. For that reason he prevents two possible disasters from striking the land. Locusts and drought threaten the land but do not destroy it. Amos is interpreting natural events as warnings from God. But his vision presents him with the plumb-line of God’s justice which cannot be evaded. Already a disastrous conflict is stirring.

The plumb-line is a powerful symbol of something which cannot bend or move away from the true. People often hope that this rigorous truth will not be applied to their lives or the lives of their societies. The Christian promise of God’s love is often used to distort the straight line of justice. These attempts are all in vain. Love may be more than justice but it is never less. Individuals and societies stand before the unwavering justice of God. Who can say that the justice of infinite love is less terrible than that of infinite anger? If religious people lose all sense of this plumb-line they are self-deceived and their faith is mistaken

Matthew 22:23-33

23 The same day some Sadducees came to him, saying there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying, 24‘Teacher, Moses said, “If a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.” 25Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother. 26The second did the same, so also the third, down to the seventh. 27Last of all, the woman herself died. 28In the resurrection, then, whose wife of the seven will she be? For all of them had married her.’

Whose wife will she be in the resurrection?

29 Jesus answered them, ‘You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. 30For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 31And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, 32“I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”? He is God not of the dead, but of the living.’ 33And when the crowd heard it, they were astounded at his teaching.

This is the only recorded teaching of Jesus on the nature of resurrection. The attempt by the Sadducees to reduce the concept of resurrection to absurdity reveals that they think of it as an infinite extension of this life. Jesus counters by stating clearly that resurrection life is a mystery-like the angels in heaven-it’s a new beginning not a continuation. This is both comforting and uncomfortable. We like Jesus’ firmness about the promise of resurrection but we want to cling to our myths of being re-united with our families. Jesus teaches that those worldly ties will not be binding.

On the other hand the relationship we have formed with God in the midst of worldly life lasts forever: it is eternal because God is eternal life for himself and all who love him. That love may be explicit in religious faith or implicit in deeds of compassion, commitment to truth and creation of beauty, but however it is established it is a link to a source of life which never fails.

“He is not the God of the dead but of the living” is an extraordinary utterance which deserves more attention than it has received in the Christian tradition. Those who believe it can live with the sober light-heartedness of Jesus.