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What powerful texts are before us for this Sunday-strong words from the psalms and Amos; high christology in Colossians and a favorite story of being and doing from Luke 10.

PSALM 52-PSALMIC INDICTMENT

You’d think you were reading in Amos with this psalm! Holy Ouch! Others before us have apparently felt the same grimace and have supplied the context: "the time Doeg the Edomite told Saul that Ahimelech had given refuge to David." Most of the nine verses of this psalm form an indictment and contrast. "You boast . . . plot destruction . . . your tongue cuts . . . you love evil . . ." the psalmist charges his enemy. But on the other hand, "am like an olive tree . . . thriving . . . trusting . . . praising . . . waiting . . . in the presence of God."

AMOS 8:1-12-

Amos, no unlike our psalmist prophet above, confronts injustice and unbelief with characteristic vim and passion. In this passage Amos draws on a farming metaphor: ripe fruit. The fruit-a play on the words, "fruit" and "end," which in the Hebrew sound alike-describe the doom of Israel. Charges against these people vary; they include crushing the poor, cheating, price-gouging, product tampering (mixing dust in with the grain), and sweat shop manufacturing. The second part of the lesson brings on the justice and judgment of God for these sins: shortage, hunger and thirst, drought in the land, sorrow.

COLOSSIANS 1:15-28-COSMIC CHRIST / REDEEMED HUMANITY

We now move into a passage that includes Paul’s indicative: statements about Christ as supreme over, above, through all creation: Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. Not only that but Christ is the creation door through which all God’s creation passed from chaos to cosmos. Even now, Paul asserts, Christ holds the universe together. And this same Christ has become the head of the Church. Further down in the passage (beginning at verse 21), the focus shifts from the creation of the universe to the redemption of humanity through the same saving, creating Agent, Christ.

LUKE 10:38-42-MARY AND MARTHA SYNDROME

This is the famous scene of Mary, Martha, and Jesus and the disciples. Such a brief passage that has spawned thousands of words and sermons! Mary sits at Jesus’ feet; Martha feels the need to show hospitality through preparation. (We wonder where Lazarus is!) Eventually, Martha-in-the-kitchen starts banging pots and pans to bring Jesus’ attention to her heroic attempts to prepare dinner while her sister is in the living room engaged in ennui with the guests. "Not fair!" Martha fumes. So in a polite whine, she brings this to the forefront of Jesus’ consciousness: "Tell her to come and help me!" And so the story goes. The possibilities are of course, many for the proclaimer who takes up this lesson!