When I was a kid, family vacations consisted of the occasional drive to Ohio to visit my father’s family. That was before Interstate 80 had been built, and so the journey included passing through Chicago.

My father was always looking for enriching opportunities for his children, and so we typically spent a day on the way to Ohio at one or more of Chicago’s amazing museums. It was at the Museum of Science & Industry that we encountered the giant Foucault pendulum, swinging ever so softly and silently, from a domed ceiling high over our heads.

A Foucault pendulum is, of course, a plumb line. It is, basically, a weight on a string.. that obeys the law of gravity by hanging straight down—regardless of what you hang it from. The one in Chicago is a polished steel orb suspended on a cable from the center of the building’s dome five stories overhead.

And it moves because the earth moves! In other words, the plumb line must obey the laws of gravity and always hang straight down. But because the earth is not a perfect sphere, and because it moves—rotating on its axis as it traces its trajectory around the sun—that building is also moving, and the plumb bob must constantly adjust its position in order to obey the law of gravity and hang straight down.

And so it gently swings, translating the earth’s movement into a highly regular, beautifully precise pattern of movement—on a scale that the human eye can actually see. BTW, you can now watch a video on YouTube of the Foucault pendulum’s movement and pattern.

In other words, we know this planet we call home is, in fact, spinning and hurtling through space at an alarming speed. Yet we detect none of that. It is beyond the capacity of our human senses, our human perspective, our human experience.

But the giant plumb line brings it down to earth. A Foucault pendulum scales it down, transforms it, so that we mere mortals can in fact experience, perceive, see… the very movement and rotation of the earth itself.

How much of that did I understand as a child, standing in that museum looking at the Foucault pendulum? I don’t know. Probably not much. But I do remember awe and wonderment.

And, in striking contrast to today’s Old Testament story, I remember it as a calming, reassuring experience rather than a threatening one. Of course, plumb lines have more than one use. They are a builder’s tool for keeping things straight and upright, and a similar kind of discipline appears to be on God’s mind in this conversation with Amos.

“Look, I am not going to continue to look the other way,” God says. “In fact, I’m going to put myself right there in the midst of my people Israel. I’m going to be a plumb line showing how crooked they really are. And, by the way, their crookedness is going to get them into all kinds of trouble. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”

So.., how do we reconcile these contrasting images of a plumb line? Is it an eloquent translation of God’s creation into terms humans can comprehend, or a harsh discipline that ensures mortal failure? Is it a reminder of the order of the universe, or a measure of the chaos humans inevitably create?

I would say it is “both and”—both eloquent and harsh, both about order and about chaos, both reassuring—for it is evidence that God is among us, and frightening—for it shows how utterly unworthy of God’s presence we are.

Now, doesn’t that sound a bit like Jesus? I mean, in Hebrew Scripture, the prophets were God’s plumb lines. God put them among the Israelites to be spokespeople for God. And through them God conveyed reassuring messages, like “you will be my people and I will be your God.”

But the prophets also called the people to account for their bad behavior. The prophets also spoke truth to power and called on the people to repent and turn back to God when they had strayed, which they did—a lot, just like we do—a lot—today.

So when I read Amos today, when I hear God saying, See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people, I think “Jesus.” Right? God’s son, the only and beloved son, comes to be among God’s people, to call them to repent and to show them the way to be human as God intended humans to be.

So let’s talk about what kind of plumb line Jesus is.

The first thing I would note is that Jesus brought The Divine—a great mystery beyond our comprehension, like the movement of the earth is beyond our comprehension… Jesus brought that Great Mystery to earth in a form we could recognize, perceive, and experience as real.

It is interesting that the early church struggled with who Jesus was and it took a few hundred years for the belief that he was Divine to become doctrine. Today I believe we have trouble remembering he was also human. And that is to our peril, for if we forget that he was human, how can we take seriously his command that we follow him?

Indeed, Jesus spent a good bit more time preaching and teaching about what we should DO, how we should live our lives, than about what we should believe. The Sermon on the Mount, for example, one of Jesus’ most significant and sustained teachings, is not a rundown of Christian doctrine! It’s all about how to live a righteous life: Be the light of the world, Jesus says, reconcile with your brother, do not lust after the spouse of another, do not seek retaliation, do not judge, love your enemies, fast and give alms in secret, pray like this, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And on and on it goes.

There’s nary a word about what we should believe. Indeed, the final paragraph begins with Jesus saying, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” Not believes, but does. Jesus was an action-oriented man.

The Gospels give us many glimpses of Jesus the Plumb Line. Another of my favorites is the teaching we know as “the Good Samaritan.” The context of that story is an interaction between Jesus and a lawyer. The lawyer is up to nothing less than entrapment. He knows perfectly well that some of Jesus’ teachings and practices have been rather unorthodox, and so he asks a question that everyone present knows the “right” answer, the Scriptural answer, to.

It is a question designed to make the asker look pious, even as he is hoping that Jesus will go out on a limb that he can then chop off. “What must I do to be certain I’ll go to heaven,” he asks.

But Jesus doesn’t rise to the bait, nor does he strike back. Rather, he invites the lawyer to share the Scriptural answer everyone knows, and the lawyer obliges: “Love the Lord your God.., and your neighbor as yourself.”

Yup, says Jesus, there you go! Ask a simple question, get a simple answer! Standing there with egg on his face, the lawyer tries again. Surely he can engage Jesus in a face-saving debate if he asks him a truly legal question! So... “Who is my neighbor?” he asks.

And so Jesus tells the story that is one of the most familiar of the whole Bible. Notice that Jesus does not say the Samaritan is “good.” Indeed, Jesus doesn’t say a thing about the Samaritan, what kind of person he is or what he believes. All Jesus talks about is what he does—which is pick up the guy in the ditch and tend to his needs.

On the other hand, the guys who walk by and do nothing—Jesus tells us who they are—a priest and a Levite. We take from these titles that these guys who walk by believe all the right things yet do nothing to help the guy in the ditch. Sadly, it is a lot easier to believe all the right things, to go to church and worship Jesus, than to follow him and do the things he would have us do.

Jesus is God among us, saying over and over again, in every possible way: We are all God’s children. We are all in this together. Not one of you is any better than anyone else. Not one of you is loved by me any more or any less than anyone else. Stand by me. Walk with me. Do the things I do, be the kind of human I am, and you will never again have to ask, “Who is my neighbor?”

That’s the kind of plumb line Jesus is.

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.