Today I have in mind two things. The first is that we are going to hold a forum about Children’s Ministry after church today and the second is the controversy surrounding Dr Haneef who has been imprisoned by the Australian Government. I haven’t chosen these two topics; they are there.

Our gospel today is the story of Mary and Martha. Martha, we are told, was distracted by her many tasks, while Mary sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to what he was saying. When Martha asked Jesus to tell Mary to help her, Jesus sympathized with Martha’s distraction and busyness, but said that Mary had “chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

I rather think that the key word here is “distracted”. It means “dragged away from something”. So Martha was dragged away from listening to Jesus by all the work that needed doing. Mary chose to listen to Jesus first. There is no suggestion in the story that Mary did not want to help her sister. The story makes it quite clear that “sitting at the Lord’s feet and listening to what he is saying” is a task which must come before all others.

Christians are people who have made this choice. We have chosen to sit at the feet of the Lord to listen to what he is saying. After we have heard what the Lord is saying to us, then we can get on with all the other tasks that need doing. And because we have listened to the Lord, we will find that we do those tasks better. We will do them in the way that the Lord teaches us; we will do them as Christ would do them; we will do them with a love that comes from our commitment to love God with all our heart, soul mind and strength. We will do our tasks, loving our neighbour as we love ourselves.

This applies to us, now, as we meet in church, and afterwards as we think about the tasks of children’s ministry and for the rest of the week in our daily lives. The words of the Lord, listened to and understood, inspire Christians to live and work.

Australia is not officially a Christian country. We welcome people of almost all religions and we try not to discriminate against them. However, our country’s life has been shaped by Christianity. Our system of law and of government is based on the Christian ideal that all people are equal in the sight of God, that all people are of equal value to God and that justice must be honest, fair, merciful and loving to all. These are the words of the Lord which underpin our life as a nation. We are reminded of this when the Lord’s Prayer is said at the beginning of parliament and when people promise to tell the truth in a law court in the name of God.

But we are humans and we do forget. Our first reading is about a nation which forgot that the foundation of its life was the word of God. The children of Israel, God’s holy people, had split into two kingdoms, Israel and Judah. The religion was corrupt, the laws unjust, the rich were greedy, and the powerful were oppressive.

Into these kingdoms came the prophet Amos, who was a farmer – not even a properly ordained minister of religion. He spoke to the proud priests, the idle kings, the greedy rich and the shopkeepers who made the weights small and the prices high. The basket of summer fruit that Amos saw in the marketplace was rotten and stinking like the government, the justice system and the world of commerce. Amos warned the people that if they ignored the word of the Lord then they might forget it for ever. A food shortage is terrible, says Amos, and a drought is a disaster, but without the word of the Lord, without justice, mercy and humility, the whole nation will be destroyed.

And if you would like to read the passage from Colossians, you’ll find that St Paul is saying exactly the same thing.

Our task, as church today, is to challenge our own nation to hear the word of the Lord. When people are imprisoned, whether they are criminals, refugees, David Hicks or Dr Haneef, Christians have the duty to question all imprisonment. Is it inspired by justice, does it treat the prisoners as human, does it serve the good of all people, is the process honest and truthful? If so, then we can accept it.

But if it is based on political point scoring, or if it is based on fear and hatred, then that is a different matter. If the imprisonment is cruel and degrading; if it serves only the powerful and strong, if it is based on dishonesty and false witness, then surely we need to be like Amos, and work for change. This would be a noble and godly thing to do, and I hope that all people of good will take up the task.

Today we have a smaller task to do, but one which is just as important to the life of our community of faith. The forum is the next step in our process of listening to God and God’s people, and taking action to work for change. Today we won’t reform the justice system of Australia, instead we will take the next step to encourage our children to be listeners to God and workers for Christ in the world. Maybe it is these children who will reform the justice system, we don’t know, but it is our duty, our joy and our exciting task to help them build their lives on the foundation of Christian faith. We do not want our children to be distracted by the pressures of the world, we want them to sit at the feet of Jesus Christ our Lord, and listen to what he is saying.