I ended up having to write a sermon at very short notice this weekend. Here's the result.

Amos 8: 1-12 Wrote:8 This is what the Lord God showed me—a basket of summer fruit. 2 He said, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘A basket of summer fruit.’ Then the Lord said to me,

‘The end has come upon my people Israel;
I will never again pass them by.
3 The songs of the temple shall become wailings on that day,’
says the Lord God;
‘the dead bodies shall be many,
cast out in every place. Be silent!’

4 Hear this, you that trample on the needy,
and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
5 saying, ‘When will the new moon be over
so that we may sell grain;
and the sabbath,
so that we may offer wheat for sale?
We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,
and practise deceit with false balances,
6 buying the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and selling the sweepings of the wheat.’

7 The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
8 Shall not the land tremble on this account,
and everyone mourn who lives in it,
and all of it rise like the Nile,
and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?

9 On that day, says the Lord God,
I will make the sun go down at noon,
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10 I will turn your feasts into mourning,
and all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth on all loins,
and baldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning for an only son,
and the end of it like a bitter day.

11 The time is surely coming, says the Lord God,
when I will send a famine on the land;
not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord,
but they shall not find it.

Luke 10: 38-42 Wrote:38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ 41 But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’

We’re all guilty of not paying attention at some point in our lives. As children, there were doubtless many times when our teachers or parents called us out of some reverie with the fateful words ‘have you even been listening to me?’ Or perhaps it is our friends or significant others who have had cause to utter such? Regardless, I’m sure you can remember the feeling of being caught out when you were supposed to be paying attention to something important: the hot guilt, the chill down the back of your neck; the horror, the shame.

There are more distractions in the world clamouring for our time and attention than ever before. We have 24-hour news on tap, music and television streamed to our devices, the constant drumroll of new social media posts by friends and influencers and if that wasn’t enough, endless YouTube videos of funny cats! Despite this, however, the wandering of our minds and hearts is hardly a new thing. And it seems that the first thing we become distracted from is God.

The passage in Amos makes clear both the nature and the consequences of not paying attention to God. Throughout the Old Testament, God exhorts His people to look after the alien, the fatherless and the widow - the poorest in society - and yet here we see they are nevertheless still being exploited and ‘trampled’. Who could blame God if He asked them ‘have you even been listening to me?’ Perhaps when they heard Amos declaring God’s judgement upon them, they felt that same horrible hot/cold horror and shame.

But our tendency to become distracted and miss that to which God wants us to pay attention isn’t restricted to when we choose to do evil, on however large a scale. As the story of Mary and Martha shows us, it is quite possible to pay too much attention to things which we think are good and proper, instead of sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening.

This passage is a bit of a conundrum for some. There are many who will surely be rooting for Martha and are thus disappointed when Jesus ‘sides’ with Mary in their dispute. Surely it is right for Martha to be angry: Mary isn’t doing anything to help! Obviously, Jesus isn’t encouraging idleness, here, however. What He praises in Mary’s behaviour is not ignoring all the work that has to be done, but, rather, recognising that it doesn’t have to be done right then, when Jesus is with them and teaching. Besides, it is quite possible to be busy at tasks and still be mindful of God, if we choose to prioritise Him. Mary, however, is ‘distracted’ by the work she is doing. Indeed, Jesus says that she is ‘worried and distracted’. He will later tell his disciples in chapter twelve, ‘Do not worry… do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.’

God wants us to make Him our focus, the central point which holds our attention amidst all the chaos and distraction of our lives. He wants us to listen to Him and obey Him. He wants that because the alternatives are straying from the path of righteousness, like the people of Israel in Amos’ prophetic warning, or needlessly worrying about the here and now like Martha.

In God’s presence we find our shalom: a Hebrew word that means more just peace. It is the peace and wellbeing and righteousness and justice that is the very opposite of worry and evil, and as Jesus says of Mary’s ‘taking the better part’ by sitting at His feet and listening to all He has to say, that shalom will not be taken away from us.