The prophet Amos in our lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures envisions a plumb line and hears God say, “See I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people . . .” As Christians, we see Christ Jesus as that plumb line, our model of what is true, sound, perfect, whole and holy, a measure of what our lives can be as we grow in divine Love.

We know Christ Jesus as the Son of God, the Incarnation of God’s Love in the world, and yet the psalmist points out that you and I are: “all of you children of the Most High.” Paul too recognizes our divine parentage as he acknowledges in our epistle lesson that the “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” is “our Father,” which is God’s title that we accept every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer. We are daughters and sons of God, born in this time and place to be a plumb line of God’s Love in the here and now, just as Jesus was in his day. Our response to such truth may well be something like: “Are you kidding?” or “Who Me?” Such is often the answer of those God calls to be a plumb line, or a light to the world, or the salt of the earth. The Holy One is not put off by our flippancy.

The Beloved wants us, each and all, to know and to share hesed, the Hebrew word for God’s steadfast love and mercy. The Holy One fills us to overflowing with Divine Presence so that the abundance of our grace will pour out to any and all who appear on the way, even--and maybe especially—our enemies. Just look at the parable of the Good Samaritan in today’s gospel. Jews and Samaritans were not on good terms—certainly Jesus’ audience would have recognized the tension of seeing the outsider as the hero of the story, as the one who puts God’s hesed into action, rather than their own religious leaders. Jesus was holding the Samaritan up as the plumb line and calls all God’s children to go and do likewise.