Sermon for the Eight Sunday after Pentecost
Lectionary 16C  Proper 11C
July 18, 2010
Texts:  Genesis 18:1-10a; Psalm 15; Colossians 1:15-28; Luke 10:38-42

How many of you consider yourselves to be hard workers at church?
Don’t be modest!

Think of all the events that have happened here in the past couple of weeks:
Yard Sale
Vacation Bible Camp
Youth game night
Worship and Music Planning
Not to mention Sunday worship and coffee hours

How many of you identify with Martha in this morning’s Gospel?

Do you wonder: whatever is Jesus thinking,
When it seems as if he is criticizing Martha for working?

It’s OK to admit it!

There are many days when I feel like
I could take Martha’s side too.

Sometimes I want Martha to answer Jesus:
Duh!  Of course, Mary has selected the better part,
She is sitting on her duff,
And I am working mine off!

As I began preparing this sermon,
I thought of the quirk of fate or of the lectionary
That placed this Gospel reading
On a Sunday when we have just finished the annual yard sale
And Vacation Bible Camp.  

Think of the hospitality that we have offered here just in the past 8 days:
We welcomed the community into our fellowship hall
To purchase needed items at low cost.
And at the same time,
We prepared a chicken BBQ meal for a large number of people.
Both of these efforts also support the ministries of the congregation.

And then we invited the neighborhood children to our place
To hear and experience the good news of Jesus Christ
And receive a nutritious evening meal, not to mention campfire S’Mores. 
Over the past eight days,
We have served over 300 meals to people,
And that doesn’t include the two coffee hours,
Which often approach meals in scope.

Would Jesus really have wanted us to sit around all day
And not do this work?
Would Jesus criticize us,
For not choosing the better part?

Like most Bible passages,
I think this one about Mary and Martha has to be looked at in context—
Both its context in the Bible
And the social setting in which it takes place.

For those of you who have done any of the Book of Faith studies,
You might call this looking at the literary and historical perspectives.

Think about the Gospel of Luke and its sequel, the Book of Acts.
Consider what both Jesus and the author Luke
Have to say about hospitality. 

In Luke, there is always eating going on.
Either Jesus sharing a meal with people,
Jesus feeding people,
Or Jesus commanding the disciples to feed people.

Jesus himself role models and teaches his disciples
How to serve people.

In the book of Acts,
The Apostles recognize how important it is to care for people,
So they appoint seven respected elders of the community
To take care of the physical needs of people. 

The story in the Bible just before Mary and Martha,
Is the text we heard last week
About the Samaritan, who shows mercy,
By tending to the wounded man
And paying for his feeding and housing at a local inn.

And in the lesson before that,
Jesus coaches the seventy that he sent out
To accept the hospitality
Of whatever homes they were welcomed into.

The author Luke also makes a point
Of highlighting the work that many women did
In support of Jesus and his followers.

In a sense, in this story from Luke,
Both Martha and Mary
Are behaving in ways that are not typical for women
In first century Palestine.

Mary, who is sitting at Jesus’ feet listening,
Has assumed the role of a disciple to the teacher,
A role typically reserved for men.
Teachers sat, usually in a place of honor,
And their students or disciples
Would either stand or sit on the floor at their teacher’s feet,
Carefully listening to every word the teacher spoke.

Martha, on the other hand, had invited Jesus into her home.
It would not have been typical for a woman
To invite a single man into her home.
Women certainly would have prepared a meal
For invited guests,
But usually they would not have been the ones extending the invitation and welcome.

With this backdrop of hospitality, service,
And the importance of women in the Christian community,
I find it difficult to believe
That Jesus is really indicating to Martha
That he doesn’t value the work that she is doing. 

However, I do think Jesus is teaching several things in this lesson.

First, he is saying there is a time and a place for everything.
There is a time for working, even working hard
To make sure that peoples’ needs are cared for,
And a time and place for just sitting and listening.

Certainly, Jesus was glad that Martha had invited him into her home,
And certainly, Jesus would enjoy the meal that Martha would later serve.

But Jesus also wanted to spend time with both Mary and Martha.
He wanted them to have an opportunity to hear the Word of God,
Which he was communicating.

Jesus knew that he would only be around for a short time,
And he didn’t want Martha to miss any opportunities.
Maybe this evening, hospitality could have been expressed
With cheese and crackers, and hummus on pita
Rather than a seven course Mid-Eastern banquet.

But even so, I think, most likely, Jesus would not have criticized Martha,
If she had not started whining about the work load.

If you notice, Jesus did not criticize her working,
But rather her worry and distraction.
Martha was wearing her aggravation, at the work load, on her sleeve. 

Not only was it not pleasant to be around her,
But Jesus was genuinely concerned,
At the distress that Martha was putting herself under.

Lastly, I think Jesus may have been a little bit put out
By being put on the spot by Martha.

It’s not like Martha called out to Mary,
“Hey, Mary, give me a hand in the kitchen for a bit.”

Rather, Martha dragged Jesus into the middle of a situation
Between her sister and herself.
It is not very hospitable to drag your guest into a family feud.

Given the sum of Jesus’ teaching and actions,
This story is clearly not designed to tell us
That we should all spend our days sitting around doing nothing.

But what does it tell us
About our life together as church??

I think the story of Jesus’ interaction with Mary and Martha
Gives us two models of participation in the Christian community.

First the model of doing hospitality,
Inviting people into our church home,
Feeding them, making them feel welcomed,
And generally creating a pleasant environment for them.
This may mean serving a meal,
Or just hospitably sharing what we have,
Even if is just coffee and juice.  

We see other Biblical support for the idea of hospitality
In this morning’s story of Abraham and the three visitors.

Abraham welcomes the three strangers,
Gives them water, a place to rest,
And a meal with the best he has to serve.
In return, he receives the good news from them,
That he and Sarah will be parents,
Even in their old age.

There is a line from Hebrews which is an echo of this story.
Never fail to show hospitality to strangers,
For by doing so,
Some have entertained angels without realizing it. 

Who knows what might grow from the seeds of hospitality
That we sowed in the last few weeks?
Which community member might we have helped
That we will never know about?
And which child learned about Jesus,
In a way that may help him or her at some later point?
We sow the seeds, and leave it to God to water and nourish them.

The second model of participation in the Christian community
Which we hear of in this morning’s story
Is the opportunity just to “be,”
To be in the presence of God.

This is the Mary model of participation,
Where we take time to listen to God,
To talk to God in prayer,
And to just generally be reflective,
Waiting to see where the spirit leads us.

This model of just being, is much more difficult than it seems,
Particularly for us 21st century multi-tasking types.

This difficulty is humorously portrayed in a cartoon from my collection.

The cartoon shows a pastor on her knees in her office,
Looking toward heaven with her hands folded.
In through her closed door, walks someone who says,
Oh, am I ever glad that you are not busy!

The message for you and for me
In Luke’s story of the interaction between Jesus
And the two sisters,
Is that both as community and as individuals
We need to both “do” and “be”.
We need to “do” all the sorts of things
That make a community a hospitable community,
And we also need time to just “be” in the presence of God.

As a community we have to help create opportunities
For ourselves and others to just “be”.

Some of the VBC workers seemed to intuitively feel the need for this spiritual being,
As they took time from the Wednesday night work load
To spend a few minutes in the midweek Prayer Service. 

Whether it is listening to music that lifts you to a new place,
Or the hearing the Word of God that sheds light on your life,
Or seeing an inspirational image that creates understanding,
Or experiencing silence that gives the Spirit time and space to work,
In a supportive Christian community, we have to create the opportunities
To figuratively and literally sit at the foot of the teacher.

In this time, when you let yourself just be in the presence of God,
God renews and equips you.

It is impossible to keep “doing” in God’s name,
Without the spiritual feeding that happens in the “being time.”

This creating opportunities for just “being” in God’s presence
Is yet another way to think about the characteristic of passionate spirituality
Which we have been “noodling” around in for the past six or eight months.

Without the spiritual deepening that comes from this time of “being”,
You run the risk of being like Martha
With worries and distractions interfering with your ability to “do”.

You need the “being” to balance and feed the “doing”. 

I think the Good News in this text is that Jesus genuinely cares about Martha
And Jesus genuinely cares about you.
Jesus wants to be able to feed your soul,
To give you the opportunity to deepen your spirituality,
And to provide the means to strengthen your relationship with the Lord.

Amen