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SUnday July 18, 2010 "Choose the Better Part" Luke 10: 38-42 |
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Location: Blogs Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons |
 | | Posted by: Brad Miller | 7/20/2010 9:30 AM | My mother was a doer. All 4 foot 11 inches of her was a human dynamo.
She could be a whirling dervish of activity. Even when she sat down to watch TV or listen to music she was always “doing.” She was a knitter and always had a project going – an afghan, a sweater, a scarf – to be given as a present for someone. One of my most enduring memories is of my mother sitting in her easy chair, knitting needles a blur, yarn being fed from her big knitting bag that sat on the floor beside her. And all the while, she would be watching TV or carrying on a conversation. She just needed to be doing something.
My mother was also a planner. She was, in a very real sense, the glue that held our extended family together. She loved to host parties – at Christmas, at birthdays, for special occasions such bridal showers and baby showers – she had a knack for knowing how to plan and carry off a good party.
From a young age, I loved having all the people over for the parties, but dreaded the build up to the event. My mother would have made a fine troop commander in a time of war – she knew what she wanted done and planned meticulously to make sure everything came off as smoothly as possible. It meant a lot of preparation, and we were all called on to participate.
When I was a little older, maybe 16 or so, I got a little fed up with all the work to be done, work that I thought could just as easily have been spread out during the party. Why did we have to have the dessert utensils and plates all ready to go when we wouldn’t get to dessert until two hours into the party? Why did we have to have the extra garbage bags easily accessible when they wouldn’t start to get filled until well after people arrived? And just why was it that I had to fill up two of those big old coffee urns an hour before anyone arrived if we weren’t even going to plug them in until 15 minutes before the meal was served?
Well, one day, I expressed my questions to my mother. Thinking back, I probably didn’t graciously ask, “why we do things this way?” It was probably a bit more whiny and perturbed, sort of like, “What’s the big deal? Can’t we do this later?” I do remember my mother looked at me as if I had two heads, slowly shook her head and, using one of her favorite phrases when contemplating how her youngest son could have possibly survived to this point in life, said, “Sometimes I don’t think you have the sense that God gave a rabbit.” Which I think was kind of a cheap shot at rabbits.
Be that as it may, she carefully explained, “Because the point of the party is to have fun, be with our guests, visit with folks we haven’t seen for a while. We may be throwing the party, but I don’t want to miss it.”
I may have been a little slow on the uptake, but I did have to admit, that it made a lot of sense.
As my mother got older, she spent more down time, largely due to a back problem that finally led to major surgery. Oh, she could still marshal the forces, but now she was forced to do more of the sitting and relaxing that would have caused her great problems at a younger age. But, one day, sitting in the sun outside our cottage on the St. Mary’s River, she confided in me that at first it was hard to slow down, but on days like the one we shared that day, she understood that there is great satisfaction is sitting and reflecting, simply listening to the sounds of the world all around.
I was reminded that day that there was a lot to be learned from simply listening. The excited shouts of a fisherman hauling in a fish on the pier down the way. The laughter of the children splashing at the water’s edge. The calls of the seagulls, slowly floating on the breeze as they leisurely glided by.
Doing and listening. Those were two of the things my mother taught me. And it dawns on me now that you really can’t do one without the other.
I can’t think of a better time to have heard the scripture lesson we heard Jennifer read this morning. It is a well known story. It is a story about hospitality. It is a story about busyness. It is a story about recognizing the importance of taking time to be in the moment at hand. It is a story about doing and listening.
For most of my life when I have heard the story of Mary and Martha preached, it has been to condemn Martha’s busyness. But I think that is to miss a big part of the point.
In this vignette, Jesus is on his final journey to Jerusalem. He has stopped at his friend Martha’s house where he was welcomed by Martha and her sister Mary.
Jesus was not a stranger to these two women who welcomed him, in fact we have every reason to believe that they were friends of long standing. Their behavior makes this clear. They both recognized that Jesus was special. Mary’s manner of addressing him alludes to that. They both want to be hospitable, yet they choose different ways to do that.
Martha spends her time preparing and fussing and cooking and making sure things are just right. Mary, on the other hand, sits with Jesus, sits at his feet actually, and spends quality time with him.
As I mentioned, most of the time I have heard Martha judged harshly in this story. She was too busy with worries and distractions. She wanted everything to be just perfect when they didn’t need to be. She was concerned with appearances, yet forgot to actually find time to be with their honored guest. Critics of Martha reference her one spoken line and point out that in that sentence, it’s all about her… my…me…myself. She’s too concerned with unimportant things, her critics say. She should have paid more attention to Jesus.
I feel it necessary to come to the defense of Martha. Jesus was invited into her home, and custom said that if you welcomed someone in, you really welcomed them. Food, drink, a place to stay. And those things needed to be prepared, and besides, if Mary had helped, Martha might have had some time to sit at Jesus’ feet, too!
I can see all the Martha’s of the congregation nodding their heads in agreement.
So, maybe this is just an example of poor communication. If Martha had been as good as my mother at planning parties, she would have had time to sit with her guest, too. But she didn’t say anything until she exploded, asking for Jesus to take her side.
Jesus, of course, does nothing of the sort. He calls Martha on her slavish attention to the things that worry and distract her, when really, she need not worry at all. She has missed great conversation and that was really all that was important right then.
But Martha was doing important work. It’s not that there was anything inherently wrong with wanting to present her best for her guest Jesus. It’s just that in working to welcome him, she forgot the purpose of why she was doing what she was doing. And that was to simply spend time with her friend, and listen. Mary seemed to understand this and maybe, just maybe, she knew that things were adequately prepared and now it was time to simply sit with Jesus, stop doing and begin listening.
I think there is a really important lesson for us in this passage. And that lesson is extremely timely in this day and age.
We are busy people. We are so hyper-connected as to be almost pathological in our inability to stop, sit and listen. We are bombarded by too many things, too many requests for our time, too many worries and distractions for our own good. And it is critical for us to stop our doing so that we can get to a place and listen for God’s voice, in whatever shape and form it may take.
When we extend the Mary and Martha story to our own individual lives, the realist in all of us understands that there is a time for doing. But when we focus so much on the activity, the work, the doing, and forget why we are doing it, then we run the risk of becoming overwhelmed, burned out. We need time in prayer and reflection. Time by ourselves when we blot out the rest of the world and just sit with our thoughts, our communication with God, with our Bible. Time with a group of friends where we study scripture and seek to feed ourselves on God’s word. Time in God’s sanctuary where we worship and pray together, honoring God and recharging our batteries. Time when we step away from our necessary Martha role and step into our just as necessary Mary role.
As the beautiful song we heard this morning says, “Lay down your burden, I will carry you” we can paraphrase Amy Grants words and say, put aside your busyness, your worries, your distractions…I am here for you.” But first, we must stop and listen.
I want to make sure you hear me loud and clear, because this story speaks to our very health as individuals, and if we extend it out, the health of Christ’s church. When we become so wrapped up in the doing that we forget WHY we are doing, we cease to find joy in the doing. When we no longer find joy in the doing, the doing becomes drudgery. And when the doing becomes drudgery, we run the risk of overload and burnout, which carries a high cost, both emotionally and physically. And when that cost is extracted, it becomes more and more difficult to find our joy, to find our purpose.
And nowhere is that truer than in our work for the church. We are all called to serve, but when we serve because we are supposed to, because it is expected of us, we lose sight of why we are serving in the first place and we run the risk of being joyless and unwilling servants. But when we serve because it excites us, because we are fed, because we want to, we are the definition of joyful and willing servants, and God’s purposes are truly served. Don’t get me wrong, the church needs doers, but we need to be sure that what we choose to do is what sustains us, because that is what will sustain the church.
Through the all too real story of Martha and Mary, I think Jesus is telling us that it is critical that we allow ourselves to step back and recharge, in both our personal live and in our church lives. It is imperative that we find time to meditate and pray, immersing ourselves in quiet time. It is so important that we find time to gather with fellow travelers to get in touch with our Holy Scriptures and to contemplate and celebrate all the wonderful gifts that God has given us; to share ideas and questions so that our doing might be carried out with God’s will and God’s purpose at the center. It is life sustaining to be together in worship; worship that honors God and helps us gain perspective on all we have been given, and prepares us to once again move into the world around us.
We must carve out time when we take a break from the busyness of our lives and sit at the feet of Jesus and simply listen. When we do that, we will be ready to do again, for the right reasons, with joy and purpose.
Listening and doing. My mother was right, as she usually was. We need them both. Both are part and parcel of choosing the better part that Jesus spoke about. After all, I can hear her saying, “you don’t want to miss the party, do you?”
Let us pray: Loving and sustaining God, We are immersed in a busy world, trying our best to make our way. We want to do for you and for your people, too. Help us discern your voice in the midst of the noise of our surroundings. Give us the strength to simply stop and listen and give thanks. It is in the name of Jesus that we ask it all. Amen. | | | Permalink | Trackback |
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