20th July 2025
Reflection with readings below
In today’s reading from the prophet Amos, we hear of God’s warning to the people of the consequences of pursuing profit whilst ignoring God’s ways: vis suffering and calamity
Do not the same threats hang over our world, over our economic and social systems today?
Here in the UK, we do “trample on the poor” – think of the two child benefit cap, the reduction of benefits for the disabled, the practices that favour landlords over tenants such that rents become unaffordable, those tax breaks that benefit the rich but not the poor, the low wages that benefit the employer not the employee, those subsides that benefit fossil fuels companies not energy consumers etc. And more widely we bring ruin to the poor with international policies that place heavy debt burdens on poor nations from which we benefit, with policies that do not meet the needs of those countries suffering the impact of climate change which we have caused at their expense, with trade policies that are stacked against the smaller nations and smaller companies. Truly the rich and powerful in our world use “false balances” – ie weighing scales – that favour us and not the poor.
(NB an Ephah is a measure of weight, shekel a unit of currency).
It is not just people but the environment that we wilfully damage and we are already seeing the initial consequences of this with heatwaves and droughts, flash floods and wild fires. The Earth is a delicate ecosystem – a life support system – which is being damaged by our greed and misuse. July 24th will be 2025’s Earth Overshoot Day (last year it was 1st August). That is the day when globally we will have used up a year’s supply of the Earth’s resources. Our extraction of water will exceed the rate of renewal. Our use of the atmosphere to absorb carbon dioxide will exceed capacity (without causing further global temperature rises). Our use of the soil’s capacity to produce food will exceed the rate at which its fertility can be maintained – leading to reduced crops yields in the future. Etc etc. Do check out the Earth Overshoot website to understand more about this situation. Here in the UK, we had used up our share of the Earth’s resources by 20th May, so already our lifestyle choices are being made at the expense of poorer people across the world and future generations.
The Earth Overshoot website has one section entitled solutions. Here it says “While our planet is finite, human possibilities are not. The transformation to a sustainable, carbon-neutral world will succeed if we apply humanity’s greatest strengths: foresight, innovation, and care for each other.” (1) Here is the invitation to live differently – and for those of us who are Christians, that surely means living according to God’s commands, living according to the values of God’s kingdom. The phrase ‘care for each other’ sharply echoes last week’s gospel story of the Good Samaritan.
Today’s Gospel reminds us of the importance of spending time and attention on Jesus’s teachings. We can rush around being busy, thinking that being busy will solve the world’s problems, but unless we are following Jesus – doing God’s will – our efforts may prove fruitless. We also run the risk of burnout. Burnout diminishes our ability to love our neighbours. Jesus set us the example in his own daily life of taking time out to be be in nature, to spend time with God, to be refocus and re-energised. In today’s gospel that is Jesus’s advice for Martha – and it is good advise for us too.
Maybe the extract from the Letter to the Colossians should be a reminder to us that we are not solely responsible for saving the world (a deceit I can be guilty of). Rather it is in and through Christ that salvation is being effected. Our contribution will only ever be but a small part within the the greater whole which is the body of Christ – a fellowship that is empowered by the Holy Spirit. It will be together in Christ that we will see the salvation of life in Earth being as it is in Heaven.
Amos 8:1-12
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 never again pass them by.
The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,”
says the Lord God;
“the dead bodies shall be many,
cast out in every place. Be silent!”
Hear this, you that 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 small and the shekel great,
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.
Psalm 52
1 You tyrant, why do you boast of wickedness *
against the godly all day long?
2 You plot ruin;
your tongue is like a sharpened razor, *
O worker of deception.
3 You love evil more than good *
and lying more than speaking the truth.
4 You love all words that hurt, *
O you deceitful tongue.
5 Oh, that God would demolish you utterly, *
topple you, and snatch you from your dwelling,
and root you out of the land of the living!
6 The righteous shall see and tremble, *
and they shall laugh at him, saying,
7 “This is the one who did not take God for a refuge, *
but trusted in great wealth
and relied upon wickedness.”
8 But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God; *
I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever.
9 I will give you thanks for what you have done *
and declare the goodness of your Name in the presence of the godly.
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.”
The Green Tau 