When All Things Hold Together

Today’s gospel reading about Mary and Martha is very well known. I imagine most or even all of you have heard multiple sermons about it before. But what I suspect is less familiar is the prophet Amos, who we heard from in our first reading. Amos was active in his ministry around the year 750 BCE, and you can perhaps see from the tone of today’s reading why prophets were so often wildly unpopular. It was a time of comparative peace and prosperity in Israel, under the rule of King Jeroboam II (the 13th king after King Solomon), and many people are enjoying life. But here comes this nobody, a working class guy who isn’t even a professional prophet, but just works as a shepherd and cultivator of sycamore-fig trees, and he is breathing disaster and retribution.

I don’t imagine many of us would take it very well if we were busy enjoying life, and someone came along and told us we were rotting like overripe fruit. Jeez, thanks! But Amos uses this image to articulate the problem lurking under the surface. The beauty is fleeing, and the end has come. It’s actually a poetic pun in Hebrew, because the words for ‘fruit’ and ‘end’ sound very similar. So Amos tells God’s people that their time has come, not because of natural disaster or foreign threat, but because they are decaying socially, morally, and spiritually. Yes, the economy is strong, the temples are full, the nation’s leaders are comfortable. But underneath it all there is rot. The poor are being trampled, the markets are dishonest, the Sabbath is an inconvenience where lip service is paid, but religion has become a performance disconnected from justice.

So Amos delivers the judgement from God, and it is chilling. God declares silence. “A famine, not of bread, but of hearing the words of the Lord.” Can you imagine? The chosen people of God, being told that God will no longer speak to them. A prophet’s role is to wake people up, and this is quite the wake up call. This is a reminder that God takes what we do very seriously, and if love for our neighbour is abandoned, we will find ourselves so far from God’s voice that we may not be able to hear it.

So Amos paints this bleak picture of a society which completely disintegrates in the absence of Yahweh. For if God is absent, so is love, so is justice, so is care for our neighbour, and so is religion that carries any meaning or hope. In such circumstances, the world unravels.

But in the wisdom of the lectionary, we are not just given a single reading to reflect on. As a counterbalance to the dire warnings of this blunt Old Testament prophet, we then have our reading from Paul’s letter to the Colossians, which paints a wonderfully different picture. In contrast to a world falling apart, Paul’s vision is one of joy and purpose, one where “In Christ, all things hold together.”

The context of this letter is a new church surrounded by cultural and social pressures and confusion, where different beliefs were causing disruption to the early Christians’ faith. But into this swirling mix, Paul describes how Jesus is the beginning, middle, and end of all things, the one through whom the entire world was created. Paul directs the focus away from confusion, and towards the one who holds every fractured piece of our messy reality, and every one of ourselves, together. Christ offers us reconciliation.

The verse in Amos which is most famous, which many of you have probably heard before although it isn’t in today’s passage, is this: “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

In many ways, this verse is the spiritual bridge between these two very different writings. Amos’ charge is to call out for justice, and the letter to the Colossians shows us where justice is rooted. In Christ, the justice of God is embodied by faith in each one of us. In Christ, God does not remain silent, but speaks to all who will listen. And what God speaks of is reconciliation and peace, a challenge to the selfish systems of this world, and healing for the people wounded by them. And that leads us to today’s baptism.

It may feel at times that not much has changed since Amos, but baptism is a witness to the fact that Christ has changed everything. When we pour water over someone’s head, and declare their belonging to God, it is not just a moment of beauty and hope, but it is also a moment of truth. Because baptism speaks clearly in a noisy world. It declares that even when things fall apart, Christ gathers the pieces together. Where God’s voice seems distant, baptism says: God is still speaking—and the church is still listening.

In the simplicity and profundity of baptism, we are drawn into a new community—the body of Christ that promises to resist evil, to proclaim the Good News, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, and to strive for justice and peace, respecting the dignity of every human being. These are not easy promises. They are demanding, and they call us to look beyond ourselves. But they are the shape of a life lived in Christ—the life we begin in water and Spirit.

Our challenge is to take this to heart, and to live into our baptismal vows both inside and outside this building. Amos’ call is to be genuine in living our faith, and to be profoundly shaped by commitment to God’s ways. So as we welcome our newest member of the family this morning, we are each reminded to let our worship flow on into witness, to strive for our prayers to lead to practice, and for our belonging to lead to boldness, as we live our faith in word and action together in a world so hungry for hope, because our faith has the power to change the world.

‘Christ in you, the hope of glory’, is what Paul delightedly speaks of, and this is what we are gifted with too. What an amazing truth! God is here. God is with you. God speaks through you.

So this is our story. Baptism reminds us who we are, and to whom we belong. It tells us that not only does God still speak, but that God speaks through us, that our identity is not found in fear or division, but in grace, courage, and community of love. For the family of church is where we find solid ground when the world shakes, and is what reminds us that we are never alone. In Christ, all things hold together. Including us.

Amen.

Amos 8:1-12; Colossians 1:15-28; Luke 10:38-42