I was privileged to give this sermon today at the Episcopal churches, Saint John’s, Lancaster, OH and Saint Paul’s, Logan, OH.

Listen to this sermon here.

I was at the supermarket the other day, to pick up a few items. This supermarket is part of a national chain with stores all over Ohio. I noticed something strange about my fellow shoppers. They were scanning every item with their phones to check that the price was the same as the one marked on the shelf. I did some research when I got home, and as it turns out several national supermarket chains are not updating the price on the shelf for every change in the scanned price of their products. Posted prices can be as much as several weeks out of date, with shoppers paying significantly more for their groceries than if the posted prices on the shelves were correct.

When I saw our old Testament reading from the book of Amos this Sunday, I was struck by the lines:

especially as I read in yet another news article about another grocery stores’ scales were giving false readings when weighing produce.

My fellow shoppers knew about this.

They were protecting themselves against paying more than the posted price.

In our lesson from Amos, he was delivering this message from God to the people of the city of Bethel in the Northern Kingdom of Israel about 300 years before the time of Christ. Bethel means “House of God”. It is where Abraham had made sacrifices to God, it is where Jacob had his dream of the stairway or ladder with Angels descending from and ascending to Heaven. The ark of the covenant was kept for a time at the temple in Bethel before being returned to the temple of Jerusalem. Bethel was an important center of worship and commerce. The Northern Kingdom ruled by King Jeroboam had won territory and riches in wars with the neighboring kingdoms. There were many wealthy and influential people in the kingdom of Israel. Unfortunately, these same wealthy people were using their power and influence to enrich themselves at the expense of their fellows. Rather than being generous with their workers, they robbed them; rather than setting prices fairly they made their bushel baskets smaller yet charged more for them in the marketplaces. Their money the shekel was strong, yet this did not benefit the working people and the poor. Amos blames King Jeroboam for these abuses against the working people of his kingdom, because if the King turns a blind eye to these abuses or even benefits from them, he is guilty, according to the law of God and man.

Amos is my favorite prophet of the old testament. He is the prophet of working people. A herder, and a dressor or cultivator of the Sycamore Fig tree. The Sycamore Fig was an important source of food for the poorer, rural people in the middle east. In order that the fig should ripen to produce the best fruit, it was necessary to cut each fig at the right time to cause the figs to fully ripen several weeks later.

When I was assigned to preach to you this morning, and I read this passage from Amos – I knew I was being called to preach about fairness.

This has been a difficult sermon to write and deliver.

The difficulty is not about the problem. Our society today seems more unfair, more unforgiving, more frankly scary ( pause ) than ever before.  We are worried about every aspect of our lives, our work, our children, our parents. Our media institutions that deliver information to us know that if they can make us uneasy, scare us, then we pay more attention to them.

Anyone who wants to raise money, even for the best of causes, has to first get our attention by an appeal to our pity, or our fears. It is exhausting to be approached in this way until we just become apathetic and numb to further appeals on our time and our treasure, and most importantly our limited attention.

This Sunday morning, the last thing I want to do is to add to anyone’s worries or fears, I would rather talk about hope.

I am not endorsing any solutions to the problems of fairness or justice in our society, but I am bold to make this claim from the book of Amos.

God will punish the dishonest,
the unjust,
those people who knowingly practice deceit and do not repent.

We as the people of God, through all the disinformation and our own emotional exhaustion; must rely on God’s grace to remind us of who we are. We are the people of the kingdom of God. We need to hold fast to one another and not let all the bad information out there cause us to turn against one another. We are charged as Christians to love each other as we love ourselves. And as part of that Christian love, to forgive each other, as we accept the forgiveness God extends to all of us.

In our Amos passage, the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel had a king. So the people suffering from injustice had no recourse but to wait for God’s punishment to bring them justice.

How should we as God’s people bring about change in our communities?

All I am going to say is that we, as God’s people, need to be as involved in our communities as we are moved by the Spirit,
to address the basic unfairness, and injustice we see around us.

Who ( pause ) will change things for the better if we do not?

In becoming involved in our local community, we must let the holy Spirit guide us.  

To listen,
to heal,
to affirm,
to be positive,
To be open and engage with everyone.
to demonstrate by our example, the fruits of the Spirit to everyone around us.

Amos encourages us with the hope that eventually  

In the kingdom of God: justice flows like a river,

      and righteousness like a never-failing stream.     

I believe that we can help address these issues of fairness and justice.
I believe we can care for each other.
But we need to always be listening and be guided by that quiet voice of God.

Amos 8:1-12

Colossians 1:15-28

Christ Jesus 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 servant of this gospel.

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 servant 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.

Luke 10:38-42

As Jesus and his disciples went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’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; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”