Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 17 July 2022.
• First Reading: Amos 8: 1-12 (The basket of ripe fruit: ‘The time is ripe for My people Israel’)
• Psalm 52
• Epistle: Colossians 1: 15-28 (The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation)
• Gospel: Luke 10: 38-42 (Mary and Martha – Mary sat at the Lord’s feet, listening. Martha distracted by serving. ‘Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken from her’)
I sometimes wonder just which era the prophecy of Amos was written for. It definitely applied to the times and prosperity of the Kingdom of Israel, then centered on Samaria which was a wealthy trading centre.
Maybe too self-satisfied, as Amos suggests that the practice of the faith was shallow and even peremptory, the time dedicated to it resented and the business of making money paramount.
The gaining of an honest living was never in question but the use of biased scales and measures and the use of the law to enslave their own neighbours and kinsfolk for trivial debts was something else.
And so God said, ‘Enough!’ A solemn word of judgment was pronounced and all would be touched by it.
In these days our economic, political, social and environmental and cultural confusion and dislocation makes Amos’ words look very up to date. Perhaps the modern word is ‘Relevant.’
Again I might wonder how or why these readings were placed together, for the lessons from Colossians and Luke have a very different character. It may be that even in the midst of social and cultural decay the life of the church can expect to continue, not unscathed but even so, assured of God’s provision.
Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae stresses the central place of Jesus in the whole scheme of God’s creation of the heavens and the earth, and of his provision for the salvation of the whole of humanity.
For just as the heavens and the earth were willed by God but expressed in visible form by the word of Jesus, then so also was God’s plan to save humanity from its own worst instincts and actions also centered on Jesus.
The Word by which creation found its form is the same Word who trod the earth and went to the cross, the spotless but willing victim to meet the nature and the reality of the holiness of God.
And so Jesus is He in whom we are both bodily created and spiritually re-created in the will of God.
He is the centre of all things visible and invisible, measurable and beyond calculation or even imagination. It is not as if Jesus was God’s will for the church and that there are options for those for whom the church is not quite their thing.
The church is the family of believers saved by Jesus and its life and form arise from that reality.
Take Jesus away and we do not have a de-Christianized world – we have nothing at all, and even the nature of creation is undermined if not returned to chaos ranging from the smallest sub-atomic particles to the greatest forces in the universe.
Jesus is emphatically for the whole of the world and there is none other. The church is the expression of that salvation, even if, being comprised of human beings it is also flawed and sometimes gravely misdirected.
But that brings me to the gospel. Mary and Martha are both hosts as Jesus and the disciples arrived at their home and no doubt attracted a local entourage as well.
How to accommodate them? How to feed them? Where will they sleep? What kind of food? The goat or the lamb? Both? And then the sauces – the fig or the date – perhaps both as well. So where are the figs – and the plates and the cups and the cutlery and the place mats and the cushions (are they clean enough?) – turn that one over.
And so in ever-decreasing circles Martha works herself up into a high state of tension and agitation while Mary is – just – sitting there??
Oh dear. The sibling rivalries and tensions begin to bubble up. Now there is nothing wrong with providing a pleasant welcome to their much loved guests.
But which really is more important? The fig sauce or what Jesus was telling anyone who would listen about the kingdom of God?
They might be talking about that fig sauce a year hence. But they would be talking about Jesus 2000 years hence – and then some.
‘Martha, Martha. I know you mean well and that you want a proper welcome, but the teaching really is what matters. The disciples have gone to bed hungry and in the fields before now. What you do will be fine, really.’
For us the issues are not so different. Our culture may well be under judgment for its greed and selfishness and pure paganism. It may be godless, self-obsessed and immoral and it may be ready for a profound re-setting of its foundations.
But the task of the church is to remain centred on Jesus and His teaching. It is still to focus on the salvation that He has wrought and which none other has or can.
It does not have to be noisy or bombastic, even if it can be eager, and even exuberant.
But take Jesus out of the equation and no amount of social justice or environmental management is going to save it. But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and the other things we need will be added as well.