"I am no prophet, nor a prophet's son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the Lord took me from following the flock and the Lord said to me, 'Go, and prophesy to my people Israel.'" (Amos 7:15)

None of you need me to say that we live in a consumer-driven, acquisition oriented society. And I'm as guilty as anyone about being picky and choosy. I'd love to have the patent on the TV or stereo remote control. Just think of all the things in our life that can be done by remote - so as to satisfy our consumptive urges to pick and choose - or not have to lift a finger. Put a TV remote in my hands and I become a deadly weapon. And my bride is so dangerous with that thing that she makes me look tame.

The moment the program fails to keep her undivided attention, she's off to a different channel: driving others in the room nuts. Advertising executives have to understand people like Kathy, or they'd be out of their job in a heartbeat. We are consumers: creatures of choice. We can make or break a product in an unbelievably short time - and that's scary. Madison Avenue knows they need to work hard to keep us in line. It continues to amaze me that if watching the VCR, we can fast-forward through commercials and movie previews and still not miss the message.

Entertainment as well as cheap thrills (spurred by us consumer-oriented folks) has always been big business, and nowhere is that more true than in many of today's churches - especially the way some will use the football season, a drama series, a musical program (I use that word loosely) or just about any other kind of worldly gimmick to increase their Sunday attendance.

If certain needs are not being met, the ones in charge know that folks will look elsewhere for their religious kicks. Thus many churches bend over backwards to give the consumer congregation just what it wants - and in the process, theology and liturgy -- not to mention salvation - be damned.

This cafeteria style approach to religion is a far cry from what today's lessons present. When Jesus sent the disciples on the inaugural mission we notice the almost complete absence of material resources they carry with them. Jesus was insistent: no food, no moneybag - only a pair of sandals and a tunic (a kind of garment). One is more than a little tempted to ask our Lord: "But where are the brochures? Where are the handouts on 'how to do evangelism?' Where are the dancers - or the orchestra? Or the multi-thousand dollar sound systems?"

Jesus acts as if He doesn't know the importance of million dollar worship centers with professionally staffed nurseries. Nowhere do we hear anything about how to mount a successful bazaar, or how to run an enterprising youth group or Sunday School. Nothing is ever mentioned of those supposed tried and true techniques designed to cajole and coax us into "just saying yes" to God - and in turn making religion a little more comfortable - and a lot more fun! Jesus just doesn't give the disciples much at all to work with - other than His Word. Again, no food, no money - just a pair of sandals, a garment - and His Word.

Whenever I recall this I feel more than a little embarrassed, considering what I and some of my colleagues receive monetarily for the privilege of settling down in one place to proclaim God's Word. But today in these passages, the Lord is not talking here solely about the clergy. He's talking about all of us, and he makes some pretty serious unspoken assumptions. For Him to send the disciples forth with hardly more than a stick and a prayer is to tell us some very important things about the nature of our religion - and what we should or should not expect from our church.

First, His commandment to travel lightly means that we cannot serve God and mammon. To serve God is a completely exclusive option. Ask not what you church can do for you; ask what you can o for your church. The present day marketing of the church in some places has made people all but forget what God through the church as already done for them. Nowadays society seems to be asking more and more what the Church can do for me. Yet here, Jesus offers us nothing - except His Word.

Related to this is the truth that the power of the Gospel really is altogether greater and more valuable than entertainment or any other kind of worldly "thing". "Take nothing with you."

This approach to religion (traditionally Anglican) is disappearing more and more, and all mainline denominations are relying on gimmicks to get the faithful through the doors and to keep them in the pews.

A few years ago I attended a service at one of our great cathedrals. It was the most varied worship service I had ever experienced. The liturgy was very carefully prepared, reverently conducted, but equally calculated to impress and placate a wide range of consumer tastes - and it succeeded tremendously at impressing at least one of my own.

The form of course followed Rite II (the modern language version); the sermon was as so brief and innocuous as to be non-existent. About nine hundred people were communed in the same amount of time it takes for Ram and me to commune you all. Each of the hymns we sang were beautiful and traditional accompanied on a magnificent organ and played by a splendidly trained organist. The Offertory Anthem was a well-known twentieth-century one, and sung by one of the most accomplished choirs I've ever heard.

On the other hand, the service music was sung by a rock and roll band. Contemporary Christian and "renewal" music was performed during the Communion on the inevitable sound system. Perhaps the most unusual thing was that after the reading of the gospel, the procession back to the sanctuary was done to a lively, jazzy African round sung by an a capella choir, complete with hand-clapping, while the congregation joined in on the refrain - all accompanied by bells, whistles, and drums.

It was all amazingly well-done: very slick, but also, highly calculated to keep everybody in the consumer driven congregation entertained and more than happy. I know I was moved by some of the music, but I'm not sure how much of the Gospel I encountered. Certainly it was about as far-removed from the command to "travel light" as anything I had ever encountered - at least in church.

But again, the underlying assumption was that if the congregation is not happy or fulfilled, they'll either leave, or (like Kathy with her remote), they'll fire the rector and hire someone who will more appropriately strive to meet their congregational needs.

Now one of the great examples of a congregation expelling their minister because of a lousy sermon (it really wasn't lousy; they just didn't like it) is the passage from Amos: our first lesson. Amos delivers a message the congregation doesn't want to hear. He tells them of their impending doom if they don't shape up. The senior warden calls him on the carpet, telling him: "The congregation isn't able to bear your words." The message is too difficult to swallow. It's failing to make us feel good and properly affirmed."

His words remind me of a remark made once by the pastor of one of those humongous mega-churches. He said of his church, that he wanted to provide a place "where a totally godless person can come to and not feel threatened." Of course you want people to feel welcome and not threatened, but the word "religion" means to tie oneself back to God. So part of the point of religion is that we should at least cease to be god-less.

Amos' message threatened the congregation, so the senior warden sent him packing. "Go prophesy some place else. Leave us alone." And Amos' famous reply is, "I'm no prophet; I'm just a simple Bible-reading Christian trying to get along in an uncertain world. I did not invent the weeping and gnashing of teeth. I just did as I was told." And Amos takes leave.

However, as this simple Bible-reading herdsman departs, he leaves Amaziah and Jereboam with the rather vivid metaphor of a plumb line hanging over all of them like the Sword of Damocles. In golf, when the golfer holds his putter so that the lower end of the club the ball is in line between the lower end of the club and the cup, the putter becomes a plumb line. It shows where the ball will roll in relation to the hole, as well as the change the golfer will have to make in his stance to get the ball to roll near the hole. That is, the plumb line shows the golfer where he will end up unless he makes the appropriate correction in his alignment.

In this sense, the plumb line represents the will of God: solid as the straightest wall. As Christians, reading through the eyes of the New Testament, the plumb line represents the mind, heart, and will of Jesus Christ. And the dichotomy between the plumb line and the congregation is rather wide to say the least.

As consumers, they've chosen to hold on to their old life, rather than choose to embrace the plumb line - and to have their lives measured and corrected by that. They've chosen to adhere to their old religion. Just what might that religion be?

Two weeks ago, our tour guide in New York took us by that magnificent apartment house (the Dakota) on Central Park West. She told us that Lauren Bacall and Roman Polanski and Yoko Ono among others still live there. Of course it was right outside the Dakota that John Lennon was murdered, and across the street in the park there's a memorial to him with the word "Imagine" engraved into the walkway.

It brought to mind a documentary about the Lennons which I saw years ago, with pictures of John and Yoko sitting naked in bed smoking marijuana to the tune of "All you need is love". - The documentary was titled "Imagine", after the song of the same name in which John imagines a world of pure love and no religion.

Of course his religion was love, but in a totally and completely secular sense. Recalling those scenes of John and Yoko sitting in bed reminded me of T.S. Eliot's phrase about "decent godless people." They'd be right at home in any mega-church, and they'd be quite comfortable in Amos' congregation - although they'd be very uncomfortable with Amos himself. Because measured against Amos' plumb line, their lives would be shown to be somewhat outside the fold.

I can hear them object just as Amaziah did and say something like, "Hey, we're not bothering anyone. I'm OK and you're OK. We all love each other, so just leave us alone." And as well-trained consumers, they'd turn as they did to the Maharishi-mahesh-yogi.

Part of Amos' message today, is that being religious (as his congregation was to an extent), does not necessarily mean that one is practicing Christianity. Religion or "love", apart from Christ will only produce decent, godless people - just like John and Yoko. Real Christianity has nothing to do with being religious (in the "do good" loving sense). Christianity is about Christ.

Real Christianity is about coming face to face with the plumb line (Jesus), and allowing your life to be shaped, measured, as well as corrected by it. Think of God as a surgeon who doesn't just want to fix you up on the outside. Rather He wants to open you up and place Christ Himself deep within you, so that you might be remade from the inside out. Religion isn't about doing your own thing in love, but about allowing your mind, will and heart to be conformed to the mind, heart, and will of Christ. This life consists of the greatest joys imaginable, but it comes only by facing the Cross: the greatest tragedy imaginable.

We deal with this tragedy in part, buy allowing ourselves to face everything crooked and wrong not just in society but in ourselves: and to have all that measured by the plumbline - by the will of God and the mind of Christ and the grace of Christ.

Thus the plumb line becomes not just a measuring rod, but a source of grace. It not only shows us how far askew we are from where we ought to be, but it corrects us as well - a fact which current day church consumers as well as Amos' congregation are often too blind to see and appreciate.

But this is what is meant by that wonderful and mysterious verse from our psalm: that in the plumb line (Jesus), "mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." The concept of mercy means nothing, if we have no concept of truth, or Law, or Righteousness. Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Knowing this, our role as consumers having to make a choice to embrace the plumb line becomes easier.

Remember Amos' reply when his senior warden accused him of making trouble: "I'm not a prophet; I'm a simple herdsman trying to do my job. But the Lord told me to preach this word and that's what I've done.:" What he means is that He didn't fabricate a single portion of that message - and that apart from the plumb line (Jesus), we're nothing more than good decent godless people sitting in bed with John and Yoko smoking pot.

Once again, the plumb line is Jesus He is the essence of Christianity. Christianity has nothing to do with being religious in the sense we might consider ourselves religious, or in the sense that John and Yoko considered themselves good and decent. The essence of Christianity is not Christianity. The essence of Christianity is Christ. And it's no one's fault but our own if our desire to be entertained or fed in whatever selfish form we can imagine keeps us from hearing this pure and simple truth - and making the right choice. The essence of Christianity is not Christianity, but Christ.