OPENING SENTENCE-

Those who do what is right will dwell in the presence of the Lord.

HYMN

GREETING

Grace and peace to you from God our Father

and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

COLLECT FOR PURITY

Almighty God

to whom all hearts be open

all desires known

and from whom no secrets are hidden;

Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts

by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit,

that we may perfectly love you

and worthily magnify your holy name

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

SUMMARY OF THE LAW

Our Lord Jesus Christ said: The first commandment is this: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the only Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.”

The second is this: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these. Amen. Lord, have mercy.

CONFESSION

God is love and we are God’s children.

There is no room for fear in love.

We love because God loved us first.

Let us confess our sins in penitence and faith.

God our Father, we confess to you

and to our fellow members in the Body of Christ

that we have sinned in thought, word and deed,

and in what we have failed to do.

We are truly sorry.

Forgive us our sins,

and deliver us from the power of evil,

for the sake of your Son who died for us, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

ABSOLUTION

May the God of love and power

forgive you and free you from your sins,

heal and strengthen you by his Spirit

and raise you to new life in Christ our Lord. Amen.

GLORIA sung by Dougie Byers

COLLECT

O God of power and might,

all good things belong to you:

sow in our hearts the love of your name,

and make us grow in the life of faith;

nurture the things that are good,

and tend them with your loving care;

through Jesus Christ, our Lord,

who lives and reigns with you

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, world without end. Amen

FIRST READING AMOS 8:1-12 read by Kay Solaja

The Basket of Fruit

This is what the Lord God showed me: a basket of summer fruit. 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 spare them no longer.
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!”

Hear this, you who trample on the needy,
and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
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.”

The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
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?

On that day, says the Lord God,
I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
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.

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.
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.

SECOND READING COLOSSIANS 1:15-28 read by David Kerr

The Supremacy of Christ

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 

He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him, provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a minister of this gospel.

Paul’s Interest in the Colossians

I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh, I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. I became its minister according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. It is he, whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

HYMN

GOSPEL READING Luke 10: 38-42 read by Reverend Steven Ballard

Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to St Luke chapter 10 beginning at verse 38

Glory to Christ our Saviour.

Jesus Visits Martha and Mary

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at Jesus’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 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.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things, but few things are needed—indeed only one. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Give thanks to the Lord for his glorious gospel

Praise to Christ our Lord

SERMON

Today there are a plethora of personality quizzes on the internet trying to ascertain who you really are. The ones on the internet are harmless and I suspect not that reliable. They will ask you a set of questions, and you have to choose one of three answers. The questions range from how well you did at school, to what colour you like, to what you do in you spare time, and to what dress sense you have – I tried one for the fun of it and according to that personality test I am a shy but outgoing kind of girl! There are other personality tests that business and other professions would put a lot of store on –Myers Briggs personality test and the Enneagram and they would more clearly and specifically identify your personality type. In our Luke Gospel reading today we meet two different personality types. The first type is the contemplative in Mary and the second type is the practical in Martha.

It is the practical Martha who welcomes Jesus into her home. She shows hospitality, an important trait in eastern tradition, and invites Jesus into her home for a meal. In inviting Jesus into her home, her dwelling place she is doing so much more than that. Her home was not merely her house, her physical dwelling place- it is her whole way of thinking and acting. She is inviting Jesus into the dwelling place of her heart. When Jesus inhabits a dwelling place, a heart- he turns it into his house, the Lord’s house. In order to make Martha’s home the Lord’s home, Jesus will have to correct the way Martha thinks and acts. But this correction is not unwanted criticism, for Martha has invited Jesus in and although what follows will not be what she expects, it will be what she invited.

Martha has no trouble doing things but she is stressed out by the many things she has to do for this meal. So, Martha comes up with a solution. The obvious reason she is overwhelmed is that her sister has left her to do all the work. If Mary would join her- many hands make light work. This makes immense common sense and throughout Christian history Martha’s observation has been vigorously defended as a legitimate complaint. I can visualise Martha trying to draw Mary’s attention by throwing her some questioning and pleading looks but all to no avail. I can see Martha trying all tactics available to gain Mary’s assistance from puffing and panting to banging pots and pans in the kitchen – but alas all fails. So then as her last resort she comes to Jesus- and asks him in no uncertain terms to tell her sister to do her bidding. “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me.”

Maybe you feel sorry and some sympathy for Martha and feel that she is justified in her actions. Maybe you are even taken aback by Jesus’ response. Jesus’ reply does not show sympathy as Martha hoped but rather great concern. Martha’s problem is not that she has a lot to do and no-one to help her. Her real problem is her inner state of distraction and worry. This inner state undercuts her actions and makes her deeds less effective. But this inner state is not caused by the multitude of tasks, as Martha thinks. Fewer tasks will not make her any less stressed. Her anxious and scattered consciousness is the result of ungrounded activity.

Martha has engaged the many without being rooted in “the one thing necessary.” Although the English translates this one thing as the better part the word in the Greek text is good. The good part is the connection to God who is good, the ground and energy of effective action. Martha should not try to take this away from Mary and drag her into the outer world of constant frenetic activity where Martha herself is floundering. The solution is not for Mary to become Martha or even Martha to become Mary. The ideal is that we need the practical type of Martha but we need her practicality anchored and rooted in the contemplative- in the receiving and waiting on God’s love. When Martha becomes bitter and annoyed at the tasks she has to do and is incensed at the lack of Mary’s help- then Martha is not truly serving Jesus nor offering hospitality to him. She is simply serving herself. Her heart is all wrong- she may be trying to do the right tasks for the right reasons but with the wrong heart and attitude. When Martha was distracted, she lost focus of God at the heart of what she was doing- and she was then labouring in vain. She needs and must keep her source of strength in Christ and then through him she can do all things in Christ who strengthens her. In her own strength she becomes drained, annoyed and unfulfilled, in Christ’s strength she becomes fulfilled and content. She needs to have the contemplative as a priority in her life, out of which the practical activity flows.

Mary was fulfilled and content. Mary comes across as the contemplative but that does not mean that she is divorced from practical activity. Yes, in this story Mary is the dedicated disciple sitting at Jesus’ feet, absorbing his teachings, listening to his every word. It is this inner activity- of receiving God’s love and attention word that with steady perseverance overflows into outward activity. The contemplative is not divorced from practicality but sees the need for devotion and listening to God as crucial to enable the practical to happen. Some people are by inclination more contemplative than others and others more practical than others- one is not better than the other- what matters here is that the work each does is rooted in God and that is what Jesus praises Mary here for. She is praised for sorting out her priorities and ensuring that devotion precedes work.

Devotion to God is key in our service of him- without devotion, time apart, listening and praying our work is futile and in vain. We need to take care in our church life that we are not so busy doing things that we are running on empty, that our work is disconnected from bible study and prayer, that we may end up doing all the right tasks even for what outwardly looks the right reasons but our heart and attitude is all wrong- we are acting out of duty rather than serving God with love and thanksgiving. Our service must be linked to the contemplative. The contemplative can sound a grand and scary term but it is not, as it is all about spending time with God and about drawing our energy and strength from him.

So, we need to guard ourselves in our work places, in our homes and in our churches that we do not become distracted and worried about so many things that we take it out on others like Martha did on Mary. We need to be careful not to lose our anchor in Christ, for after all we too can be distracted for many reasons. We live in what has been called the “Information Age.” We have more information at our disposal than any generation before us. We are flooded with bits of information, or should I say “bytes”? I think a much better description of our time would be the “Age of Distraction.” Like Martha we can be distracted by many things. Everybody and everything is out to get our attention. And one way to do that attention is to distract us from whatever we may have been doing or are trying to do.

We can be working away on your computer, and pop- up ads and messages will appear and distract us. We are busy attending to something and mobile messages, notifications on facebook, e-mails, tweets all coming flooding in to distract us. We are so bombarded with so many messages from so many sources that those sending them constantly have to up the tempo and increase the volume to enable the messages to get through. For one reason or another, we can become more distracted than usual. We flit from one thing to the next before we’ve finished the first. We all live in a world where it’s getting easier and easier not to concentrate and ever harder to focus our attention. It is world where it is easier to do the practical activity and hard to be still and do the contemplative work required by God of us. When we become distracted like Martha and forgo the contemplative we lose perspective, we whinge and moan about our tasks.

With the contemplative in our lives, we have greater peace. Jesus demonstrated well the balance between the practical and contemplative. He withdrew often to the mountains for solitude and prayer and then was involved in meeting crowds and carrying out practical acts of healing, teaching and training. Jesus’ had his priorities right, from the contemplative flowed his activity.

Mary was learning more about the contemplative as she sat as a disciple, quite a radical move for a woman in those days, at Jesus’ feet. What Jesus is longing for Martha, is that she too will become more contemplative. The use by Jesus of her name twice “Martha, Martha”, speaks of an urgency and tenderness. Jesus longs for her to have less worry and more peace and that comes from being rooted in the contemplative. So often people think we have to be either Martha or Mary but on the contrary, we are invited to be both practical and contemplative. Indeed, we must prioritise the contemplative so that the practical activity can happen well. Amen.

NICENE CREED

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one substance with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation

he came down from heaven;

by the power of the Holy Spirit

he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary,

and was made man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

he suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again

in accordance with the Scriptures;

he ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory

to judge the living and the dead,

and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit,

the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father.

With the Father and the Son,

he is worshipped and glorified.

He has spoken through the Prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism

for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,

and the life of the world to come. Amen.

God of wisdom, still our clamouring hearts,

that like Mary we may sit with devotion in your presence.

Give your church faith and gratitude to sing your praises.

Help us to ensure our action does not become a substitute

for our relationship with you.

Lord in your mercy

Hear our prayer.

God of wisdom, give to all leaders and rulers time to reflect

on your purposes and will.

Draw near to them in the quiet and create space

for them to hear your whisper.

Restore in them a right vision and sense of priorities.

Lord in your mercy

Hear our prayer.

God of all wisdom, in offering hospitality

some have entertained angels and met with you.

Open our hearts to share our food and resources

with friends and strangers in need.

Bless all agencies that offer food banks and food kitchens,

and that where hospitality is given,

your love might be known.

Lord in your mercy

Hear our prayer.

God of all wisdom, we lift to you those

who are distracted by many worries and anxieties,

and ask that you will meet these people

with your wisdom and grace

so that your peace and compassion

might be experienced by them.

Lord in your mercy

Hear our prayer.

God of all wisdom, we pray for those

that are so restless that they cannot contemplate.

Come with your Holy Spirit and fill and bless them

with your divine calm and solace.

Lord in your mercy

Hear our prayer.

God of all wisdom, we lift to you all those

who call out to you in distress.

Hear their cry, strengthen them

in their pain and suffering,

and touch them with your healing.

Lord in your mercy

Hear our prayer.

God of all wisdom, you hold before us

the promise of eternal life with you,

when the time comes,

bring us safe to the heavenly city

to share in the heavenly banquet with all your saints.

Lord in your mercy

Hear our prayer.

God of all wisdom, help us in our daily lives

to find the rhythms of grace,

that as we contemplate and rest in you,

our practical service will flow and bless others.

Merciful Father accept these prayers for the sake of your Son,

our Saviour Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins

as we forgive those

who sin against us.

Do not bring us to the time of trial

but deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and for ever. Amen.

HYMN

BLESSING

The peace of God,

which passes all understanding,

keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God,

and of his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord:

and the blessing of God the Father,

the Son and Holy Spirit,

be among you and remain with you always. Amen

DISMISSAL

Go or stay in peace to love and serve the Lord. In the name of Christ.