Well I don't know about you, but I've had a very Martha-y week. I started the week with leftover to-dos from last week, a full schedule and as you can see, I'm preaching this week. And you all know what happens when you have that kind of week don't you? Meetings get changed, you realize you have meetings you forgot about, people come visit, people want to chat, nothing gets done, you kid doesn't sleep and somehow the sermon you typed up gets deleted, twice. Now I'm not complaining per se, let’s just say that it was a very to-do heavy week, and I wasn’t getting stuff done. By Friday I realized that I was embodying Martha in this story, I was distracted, anxious, pulled in a bunch of different directions. That’s not to say that the things I had to do weren’t important, that they were part of living out God’s call for my life, that they weren’t good things to be doing, they just got me all worked up. And let me tell you friends that it took me until Friday to finally hear Jesus' words. Friday! I've been working on this sermon since Monday at least! All the time I was trying to prepare this sermon, reading about these two sisters, one who was so busy and distracted, and I continued to let myself do what Martha did, to continue to let those to dos become really important things and then even drag me away from the most important things. Let me tell you I was literally near tears when I lost my sermon for the second time on Friday, but I also really got the sense that God was still trying to get my attention, very dramatically I might add and I didn’t exactly appreciate it. And let me tell you I can empathize with Martha today, because unfortunately I didn’t find away to let it go, I typed this sermon 3 times instead of taking a big step back and listening to what God was saying. So I’m up here today to talk to you about this from the position of someone who didn’t get it right this week. Who knows very well how Martha must have felt and who despite this week and despite my failures, still heard God speaking.
Now I'm sure many of you are familiar with the story from the scripture today. So just a quick show of hands, there's no right answer here, if you had to choose, how many of you would say you're more of a Martha? How many would say you're more of a Mary? Like I said, no right answer here. Unfortunately I think the church has encouraged us to pick sides here, to value Mary over Martha, to take what Jesus said as universally applicable. I was stuck in that rut this week, I think I made things worse by beating myself up for not being more Mary. That's a no-win and that's not what Jesus wants us to do, I don’t think that mentality empowers us to be true disciples.
So one of the things I do every time I preach is comb through the scripture in hopes of finding something interesting, so I think it’s of value for us to go back over what’s happening in the scripture lesson for today. Jesus and his disciples show up and Mary and Martha's place on their way to Jerusalem, obviously no phone ahead here, this was probably a little unexpected. And when they show up, the text says that Martha welcomed them into her home to them, other translations say that she opened her home to them or welcomed them as guests; she made them feel at home. She’s doing the hospitality thing, which was an extremely important part of this culture. So Martha is busying herself making these 13 people feel at home she was doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing and we can't forget that Jesus was her guest, he's basically the most important house guest ever. So she's doing what a host should do and at some point realizes she's doing it by herself, her sister isn't doing her share, in fact, Mary is sitting on the floor listening to Jesus. Now we need to take a brief pause to give Mary a high five because she took the position reserved for men during that time, for her to sit on the floor wasn't just making her sister mad, it was challenging the gender hierarchy of the time. Many scholars would argue that the important thing that Mary did was challenge the status quo for women and made more room for women at Jesus' feet. But that's lost on Martha, she is really upset that her sister has left all the work to her and that no one seems to care. Really, I think she’s jealous, she wishes she could be right there too, but she’s doing her darndest to take care of her guests. So while she was doing a great job as the hostess, she kind of loses her cool her and asks Jesus to intervene, not really a good hostess move. I can imagine that she’s been seething in the kitchen, cursing her sister under her breath until she can’t take it any more! She says to Jesus: "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work?" and if that wasn’t enough then she tries to tell Jesus what to do: "Tell her to help me!" Can you sense her frustration, her anger, the sense of injustice? I'm not sure I blame her really. But I'm guessing she wasn't anticipating Jesus' answer to 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." Jesus calls her out, he corrects her, he tells her she's wrong, probably not what she was looking for, not the justice she was hoping for.
So often though we get to the end of the story and we conclude Mary is right, Martha is wrong, we should be like Mary, we should try not to be like Martha. But I'm not convinced that’s the point of the story. I don't think it's that black and white. I'm afraid that if we end with that conclusion we either feel smug because we're "right" like Mary or we feel like we're never good enough because we're like Martha. The truth is that if we praise Mary too much, she'll never get up off the floor and if we criticize Martha too much, she'll just quit serving; I don't think that's what God wants to say to us this morning.
And I'll tell you why. One of the most interesting things I read this week about this passage is that we really shouldn't read it without connecting it to the story before it. Anyone know what story is right before this one? The story of the Good Samaritan. If you think back about that story Jesus is helping a young lawyer understand how to live the life that God wants us to live, and uses the story of the Good Samaritan. If we look back at that story, there is nothing about sitting at Jesus' feet. This is not a story about being contemplative. The words Jesus uses are action words, take care of him, go, do! So when we consider that these two stories are placed together, we can see that both of these are required for us, that Jesus says that the most important things are to love God and to love others, to spend time in devotion AND action. With Mary and Martha, we see Mary, loving God, and Martha, loving others; Mary in a time of devotion and Martha in a time of action. Now the problem here isn’t the fact that Martha is doing things, it’s the focus of her heart, she’s distracted and worried and pulled in too many directions. That’s why Jesus does say that one thing is needful, but he doesn't say that the one needful thing is sitting at his feet. He says that Mary has chosen the better part, not the only part, not the better thing, the better part. Jesus calls us to more than sitting on our rears. I wonder if what's needful is different at different parts of our day, different parts of our week, even different parts of our life. Ecclessiates 3 says: "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven" A time for prayer and a time for serving, a time for meditating and a time for marching, a time for resting and a time for wearing ourselves out. Our lives are not so one dimensional that we can say clearly that there is only important thing, God didn't create us that way. So I think what the real question is this week, what God is asking us through this story is "what is the one needful thing in your life right now? Can you hear me calling you to get off your rear, or stop doing things and sit down with me?" Are you doing good things, but you’re distracted and worried? Are you spending lots of time with me, but failing to hear my call to DO something about it? There are times in our life when what is needful is sitting down with Jesus and there are times in our lives when we need to take action, we need to put into action the teachings of Jesus.
You know this Sunday is UMW Sunday and when I chose this scripture for this Sunday, I was reminded of how the United Methodist Women's organization embodies this lesson. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the UMW organization, but one thing that they do is meet in circles, or small groups, where they study together, they share with each other, the eat together, the grow closer to each other and to God. But they don't just sit around in circles, that time in those circles empowers them to go out and take action. You might be familiar with the Annual Cookie Festival where they bake a ton of cookies and sell them to raise money for the mission and ministries of this church, and organizations in our community. They support and share the values and mission of the United Methodist Women organization as well, UMW promotes the empowerment of women, children and youth, anti-racism and multiculturalism, inclusion and equity, fair labor practices, economic and environmental stewardship and sustainability. They’re not just sitting around, they take action to make our world look more like the kingdom of God, they fight for the needs of those less fortunate locally and around the world. They encourage all of us to think about what's needful in our lives, in our community and around the world, to spend time with God, to be connected to God's purposes and to do something about it. So today I encourage you to take some time, figure out where you might be right now, is the one needful thing right now for you sitting at Jesus’ feet? If so we have LifeGroups that are meeting to study both the Bible and other topics, we have a 24 hour prayer chapel that you can access from the parking lot, we have ways to help you be Mary. But maybe you’ve got that stuff down, maybe you’ve been spending lots of time just soaking up Jesus’ presence. That’s great, but what’s he telling you to do? We have plenty of ways that you can put into action your faith, by helping with things here at the church, by getting involved with mission projects here as easy as buying plants, and there are plenty of local organizations that would love for you to live out your faith in service. Today the good news is that God is calling us to do both these things, to love God and to love others, to worship God and to serve others. Amen.
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