I.N.I.

A sermon to be preached on the Sunday after Pentecost, a.k.a. 29 July 2007, at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Arlington, Virginia, and based on the Holy Gospel for the Day, St. Luke 10: 38:42

Dear Friends in Christ,

This is one of those passages in Scripture that can stick with a person for years even though it isn’t particularly dramatic. There’s no flashy miracle. There doesn’t seem to be any sublime teaching, no confrontation with the Pharisees, no demon possessed person. Just Jesus and two friends — the 12 disciples aren’t even present except in the single word “they” right in the first verse of the text. Yet the story kind of sticks with you.

I think it does that precisely because it doesn’t have the glitz and theatrics of a miracle or clash with the authorities. This is a Gospel story that any of us could picture happening in our own homes. Or maybe it actually has happened in our own homes. Haven’t all of us at some time called across the room to one of our sisters (or, in my case, brothers) and said “Stop doing your chores. Come sit and listen to this “?

Well maybe not. But then that’s not precisely what happened when Jesus was visiting Mary and Martha, either.

Let’s look back at the text from Luke 10 in order to notice a couple details. First, Jesus entered this village (HE entered, note, not THEY entered), and Martha welcomed him into her home. Note that her sister Mary was there, but that their brother Lazarus isn’t mentioned. And whether Martha’s home was also Mary’s home, we don’t know for absolute sure.

Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus, which is where one would expect to find a teacher’s disciple. Martha was distracted by her many tasks. Whether she had called to Mary or was rattling pots and pans expecting her sister to get the hint, we don’t know; but we do know that eventually she went directly to Jesus, realizing that unless he sent Mary to help, the girl was going to continue sitting and listening, rather than coming in to help Martha.

The Lord responds with the core lesson for us today from this passage, telling her that while she had been distracted by many things, there was really only one thing that was needed. And that Mary had chosen the better part.

Jesus does not disparage Martha’s homemaking chores. But Jesus also does not send Mary in to help.

II. The question still remains for us: why is Martha being corrected or challenged when all she is trying to do is fulfill her role as a good hostess and to serve her guest?

Martha is certainly busy, but she is so busy that she is distracted from her special houseguest. She is concerned about the many things. Her guest is not pleased by her just putting out a great effort and even a sacrifice to do all this work. Perhaps she was an early recorded example of the modern phenomenon where a person measures his or her worth by how busy he or she is. “If I’m always on the go, I must be important. So many people depend on me. If I weren’t here (whether “here” is at work, or at church, or on a team, or at a club or volunteer activity we’re in), things would fall apart.”

But, you know what? God isn’t looking for merely busy people. Martha was certainly serving the Lord. Or she would be as soon as the bread was baked and the stew was cooked and the table set and … and … and. But despite all that service, Martha’s in trouble because it seems that her service was what she was focusing on, and her focus was not on the one important thing: the Word of God.

Mary, on the other hand, had chosen the more important thing. She was sitting at the Lord’s feet. Her attention was undivided. She was not focusing on anything except what the Lord was giving her. She was eager to receive what the Lord was serving to her: the one spiritual food. The food that Martha was busy preparing would fade away, but Mary was looking for “the food (as Jesus describes it in John 6) that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”

So that’s why Martha had to be gently corrected by Jesus. It was NOT because she was doing housework. It was because she had gotten distracted by the many things in her life and was no longer focusing on Jesus.

III. All too often we are more like Martha than like Mary. Even here at church we can be that way. There are a lot of things that a lot of people have to do in order for a Sunday morning to “run smoothly.” From the ushers to the organist to the church secretary to the choir members and Sunday School teachers and altar guild and on and on. Including the pastor. There are a lot of people here who may be thinking about the things that they have to do during or after the worship hour. And the Lord does want us to serve him by serving others. But our time of service can become a time of sin when we get so wrapped up in thinking about HOW we are serving the Lord, or even just THAT we are serving the Lord, and we forget about WHY we are here in God’s house in the first place. We come here to his house as the guests. HE serves US.

This can be true throughout the week, too, in our homes or at our places of work. We are serving the Lord by being parents, children, students, workers, and so on. In today’s society there are plenty of distractions that come with our serving the Lord. We get worried and upset and lose sight of the one thing that is needed: the Lord serving us.

We run around, children and adults, infected with the busyness of life getting ready for work, or for school or summer camp or sports practice or games or music lessons. In all these things we CAN serve the Lord. But in this service to the Lord, we too can hear the Lord call us by name and say “you are worried and distracted by many things, but only one thing is needed.”

Despite the fact that each of us try to eat least one meal a day — and most of us don’t feel satisfied without three meals plus snacks — we are often malnourished from a spiritual point of view. We often fail to take the time to give our Lord the undivided attention that Mary had given to Him at his feet. We often fail to take in that one needed food of His Word. Jesus says that Mary had chosen the better, the one good, part or portion. That’s the same word we use to describe a serving of food: portion. Martha was fussing over portions in the kitchen. Jesus was calmly and quietly already serving up the one portion that was needed.

What would be great is if we would each find a way to be like Mary and sit at the Lord’s feet. We could set aside all other distractions, worries and fears, and give our undivided attention to what Christ has to serve to us. And, oh, how he has served us! He humbled himself, coming to earth as a human being. He willingly went to the cross where he suffered an agonizing death for us. He served himself up as the necessary sacrifice occasioned by our sins. And today he continues to serve Himself up in the reading of the Scriptures, in the confession and absolution, in — most especially and most wonderfully — in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

Throughout this service of worship, Jesus is serving up to us the very thing he won on our behalf when he died on the cross and rose to life on Easter morning. He gives us the forgiveness of our sins. He forgives us our sins of busyness and distraction. He forgives us our pride and our lust, our hatred and theft. Jesus serves us the forgiveness of sins so that our way is clear to truly serve him in return.

IV. And that’s the way this whole relationship with God works. We can only really serve him, after he has served us. We can only relate to him, after he had first related to us.

In our text this morning, Jesus does not holler at Martha. He calls her gently by name. In doing so, he gives voice to his love for her. He gently points out to her that she is worried and distracted by the many things, but that there is only one thing that is really needed. She needs to stop all the craziness in her life and to let the Lord serve her. She can’t get Jesus impressed with all her activity and earn her way in to a blessing. His blessings come to those who sit at his feet, like Mary.

And, of course, Jesus comes also to us when we are busy, worried and upset. He calms us down and reminds us that he needs to serve up his peace that passes all understanding before we can do anything truly worthwhile.

We can find evidence of both Mary and Martha in our own hearts. Mary, the focused recipient of God’s grace; Martha, the harried, distracted potential servant. Through His word, Jesus serves all kinds, from the pure Mary to the pure Martha, and including all of us who are some kind of in-between mixture, part Mary and part Martha. The Lord know what we need. And he delivers it on time.

May you this day find release from the distractions of life — even when those things are in and of themselves good things worth doing — may you find release, and hear the gentle calling of your name by our Lord Jesus as he invites you to drop the busyness and find, instead, what he had prepared for you: a heavenly banquet in the many mansions he has prepared for us. The meal we share today comes also from his hands to our mouths. It comes to us as a foretaste, a preview, of things to come. Come, taste and see that the Lord is good.

Amen

And may the peace of God that passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

S.D.G.

(with serious help from a Timothy M. Kohlmeier sermon online at the Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft Wayne, IN website — viewed online 24 July 2007; no longer online as of 2 August 2024 – http://www.ctsfw.edu/online/helps/sermons/kohlmeier.htm )