A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Sixth Sunday After Pentecost/Year C • July 20, 2025

Amos 8:1-12, Luke 10:38-42

Three days a week, May works from an office downtown and on those days I take her to work. We stop for coffee at Lil Amps on State Street about 7:45 or so; early enough that I can leave before the parking people catch me. Most days, it’s just a few people at that hour. A couple of other regulars; you know you’re a regular when they ring up your order before you give it. A few people on laptops. But when the legislature is in session, it changes; there are guys in suits and ties. No one knows what they’ll order. They are busy being important; after all, they are the ones who get things done.

Today we call them by titles like Senior Staff Assistant and Executive Director. But the same pattern goes back thousands of years. The truth is, no leader can get everything done on their own. The most powerful people in government all have drivers and assistants who do things. There’s a famous story about a night a former President and his wife went off for date night, out to dinner, trying to be a married couple. They went to a fancy place in Washington, DC at the end of the dinner, he presented his credit card to pay the bill. His card was declined; it had been so long since he’d paid for anything, the credit card company had deactivated the card. Assistants pay the bills. Assistants give advice too. 

Now in the ancient world, those assistants existed as well and they were often called prophets. We know that these court prophets existed, and we have bits and pieces in the Bible about them. We hear from them in the book of Jeremiah, for example. But there was another kind of prophet as well and These prophets heard God’s Word in their heart. They weren’t royal advisors, they didn’t wear suits or ties, but they came to be a force in Israel. The first of them to have his message written into a book that we have today was a man named Amos. Amos lived about 740 years before Jesus in northern Israel, and he was a true prophet, bringing God’s Word to Israel.

This was a time of peace and prosperity in Israel. After Solomon, David’s kingdom had split into two parts: Judah in the south with Jerusalem as its capital, the larger part, Israel in the north, with its capital at Samaria. It should have been a time for thankfulness; it became a time for the rich to exploit the poor. Of course, there had always been richer and poorer people in Israel, but there wasn’t a great distance. We know from archaeology that in this time, that changed; the rich exploited the poor and stole their land. Great houses were built for them while most people lived in hovels in a land Israel’s faith said had been the gift of the Lord. It’s also a time when the cult of Baal, a sort of prosperity religion, much like today in some churches, grew and there were shrines to other Gods set up.

Amos’ word starts with a vision: a basket of fruit would remind people of the late summer fruit harvest, a time of celebration and prayers for continued prosperity. Instead, Amos brings a word of condemnation. It’s actually funny, a sort of satire. The New Moon is a great festival, something like Christmas; an ephah is a standard measure and a shekel is a coin that’s supposed to have a standard value. So Amos caricatures the rich, imagining them 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 smaller and the shekel heavier and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and selling the sweepings of the wheat.” [Amos 8:5f]

The point here is that the rich are cheating. Amos addresses this to those who “trample the needy” and “bring ruin to the poor”.  The result, he says, is that “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!” [Amos 8:3] Silence is God’s judgment. There is going to be a famine of God’s Word, the prophet says. In other words, all blessing, all experience of God, all direction from God, is going to cease and Israel will be destroyed.

Some scholars believe Amos’ entire prophecy was delivered in one afternoon, one sermon, one bright moment of vision. Then Amos went back to his life as a sheep herder and a vine dresser, a farmworker. We don’t know for sure if that’s how this happened. It can’t have been a popular message, and largely, I imagine, it was ignored. After all, the leaders of Israel were doing well in 740 BCE, and if some were poor, well, wasn’t that their own fault? I’m sure the rich said what the rich always say: they should work harder. Nothing happened after this sermon. There was no lightning bolt, no earthquake. The New Moon festival went on that year and for years after. The rich continued to cheat the poor. About twenty years after Amos, Israelite society had become divided. So when the great power of Assyria swept down on them in 720 BCE, they were defeated. Assyrian colonial policy was to move conquered people to other places so they wouldn’t be a problem. Israel was not just defeated, it was destroyed. They believed God’s Word would save them, but there was a famine of the Word of God in Israel.

We have our prophets. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a prophet who brought God’s Word to the struggle for freedom in the South. Forty two years ago, he was in jail and he wrote a letter to white churches like this one. He said, in part, 

I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
[https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html]

Every Sunday, we hear from the Hebrew scripture and the Epistles, the record of the early church, and we say together, “This is the Word of the Lord.” Every Sunday, we hear from the gospel and we say, “We hear your words, O Christ.” The true Word of God is like a seed so if we are truly hearing the Word, shouldn’t it be taking root, germinating, bearing fruit? What if there is a famine of the Word of God because we as a people refuse to hear, refuse to listen, refuse to let it grow up in us? We like hearing the Word of God when it comforts us, when it promises healing, when it helps us feel at peace. But justice is also part of the Word. Amos didn’t come preaching a political message; he came announcing God’s Word. Did anyone listen? 

Today’s Gospel lesson is right on this point. We hear about Jesus’ twelve disciples and sometimes forget that he actually traveled with a larger group. Now they’ve come to the home of Martha and Mary and hospitality is expected, hospitality is one of the values God’s Word teaches, one that Jesus embraces. Imagine 20 people showing up for dinner at your house; what would you do? How would you feed them? We know what it takes to organize a simple after church lunch for 25 or so; what if it was your house and your responsibility?

It’s easy to identify with Martha, isn’t it? She’s doing her best, I’m sure she’s rushing around, trying to get food, get wine ready, abruptly ordering those around her to do things. Set the tables! Here, put these out. Go next door and see if we can borrow some cups, we don’t have enough. I imagine some in the crowd are helping, some always do, but others are just lounging around on the floor near Jesus, listening to him, being near him. At some point, Martha comes out, and sees one of these is her sister, Mary. Wow: wouldn’t that make you mad? Why isn’t Mary helping? Why is she lying there, at the feet of Jesus, doing nothing? The culture of the time doesn’t imagine women doing this; it puts them out in the kitchen. So Martha goes to Jesus, asks him to tell Mary to get herself in gear and help. 

I hate this text, some years honestly I’ve skipped it when it came up. I hate it because I know my tendency is to be like Martha. I’ve spent so much time as a pastor rushing around, getting things in order, making sure churches were functioning, projects going forward. It’s annoying when some people won’t help and I’ve gotten annoyed. And I’ve heard over and over sermons where people were asked are you a Martha or a Mary and felt like saying, “Yes! But if we all were like Mary, nothing would get done! No one would get fed!” 

But this time, reading this, thinking about it, I’ve seen something new in this old story. I think this isn’t as much about Martha and Mary as it is about us. I think Jesus isn’t condemning Martha’s work; I’m sure when dinner is shared, he will thank her. What he’s doing instead is giving an invitation: “I’m here, appreciate that, listen to me.” He is the Word of God in person; that’s what Paul means when he says in Colossians, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” [Col 1:15] If you’re so busy you don’t take time to listen, then you miss the Word, the presence there with you. That’s what it means to say, “You’re worried about lots of things; one thing is important.” What’s the important thing?—listening to Jesus. Because Jesus has come at a time when there is a famine of the Word in his land; over and over he lifts up the Word and preaches it, teaches it, says, “Look, you’re missing the point, because you’re too busy making loopholes.”

So today, here, in this wonderful church, let me ask: are we choosing the better part? Are we hearing the Word, hearing God’s justice the way we sometimes hear trains or traffic from outside?—or are we just rushing around making sure everything gets done? Jesus means to be a sort of hearing aid for God’s Word. So often, the Word gets drowned out by all the noise of our lives. So often even in church, we are anxious about how we’re going to get things done, we’re rushing around, getting annoyed with people who don’t help. Like Martha, today the Lord invites us to listen, listen, listen, to hear the Word of the Lord, to hear it and let it root in us and bear the fruit of the Spirit.

Amen.