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"There is Need of Only One Thing"
Today, as is often the case when I preach, the scripture choices are directed by the Revised Common Lectionary. And, some of you may remember hearing me say before that I like the lectionary for several reasons. One of those reasons is that’s how Ron Byars taught me to preach. Some of you will remember Ron as the senior pastor here at Second some 15 years ago. He eventually moved to Richmond, Virginia, and became a professor of preaching and worship, which is where he taught me now over 5 years ago. In part because Ron taught me well, the lectionary is still a part of my preaching discipline.
Yet, the main reason I return to the lectionary is its sense of world-wide connection. I’m not being critical, mind you. Yet, contrary to what you may think from the front page, there is more that the last and latest of Harry Potter book that connects the world. Each Sunday, the lectionary connects us with churches of all denomination, world-wide. So I have most always returned to the lectionary as a way of celebrating that, even though Christians are located in far different parts of the world, we are somehow worshiping as one body, sharing the same basic faith, the same basic hope for the world in God’s love for us embodied in the living Word, Jesus Christ. This feeling of connection was really driven home in June, when the pastor of the Chirimba Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP) in Blantyre, Malawi, showed me the preaching schedule for his church. Yes, you’ve probably already guessed it, the scripture choices were based on the Revised Common Lectionary. Today and for the next two Sundays, the sermons will be from the lectionary passages out of the gospel according to Luke. And, as we listen to those passages here at Second PCUSA, let’s enjoy the sense of oneness that these words are also a part of the worship at Chirimba CCAP. We will be listening to these words – each of our congregations with a different perspective, each worshiping with different music and prayers, each in different surroundings – yet we will be listening with the same fervent prayer that we hear a living Word of God’s hope for the world. We will be listening knowing today and each day that it is through the living Word of love we are connected and in which we find our hope and salvation both now and to come. It’s not a simple world; it’s not an easy world. I just heard of the 23 young Korean Presbyterians who were kidnapped in Afghanistan on Friday while on a health mission and now face possible execution this morning. It’s not an easy world, there are problems too many to mention, too many even to really fathom. It’s a world with many issues from war and hate, poverty and famine on a world-wide scale to the very personal issues of each of our own lives. It’s a tough world with many issues, many problems and like it or not we connected with each other throughout the world by those problems. Truly in the total scheme of things, what affects one of us, affects all of us in body, mind and spirit. It would be so much easier if we could just ignore the issues. It’s sort of like our to do lists, sometimes they become so long, so overwhelming, that we want to wad it up and just throw it away. It’ tempting, for instance to return from Malawi remembering the pleasant connection of worship and choose to forget the challenges. In fact, it actually would have been easier if Second had chosen never to have gone. It would be so much easier to be satisfied following the same, relatively safe path to church, to school and home ignoring the issues in our own community much less in the rest of God’s world. It would be so much easier to believe, even though we profess to be one body, that we aren’t really unconnected by these enormous issues. The truth is, however, that we are connected as one body. In faith, we are connected through the problems yet also through the solution. And, it is in a common solution, and only in that common solution, that we will find the hope, the power, and the courage to face the enormity of life’s issues. Yet, we might hear ourselves saying as Martha did, it’s too much for us. And, then we again need to hear Jesus saying, "You really have need of only one thing." So, what’s the solution? What’s the answer? What’s the one thing that will help us face the many and overwhelming issues of our world - both near and far, both individually and institutionally. What’s the one thing? When pondering this question last week, I remembered a not so theological response that was suggested by the film "City Slickers." The film is about a bunch of city folks who have come to New Mexico for a cattle drive hoping to find some meaning in the midst of their mid-life crises. A big city ad exec, Mitch (played by Billy Crystal), and the cowboy leading the drive, Curly (played appropriately by the rather worn and crusty Jack Palance), have this conversation about the one thing:
That’s our marching orders for this morning – we must figure out the one thing, the one thing that gives us meaning even in the midst of a world with its many, and overwhelming issues. And, so let’s begin "to figure it out." Listen again to the final words in today’s passage. "’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’" (Luke 10:41-42). So is this the answer. We know that at the beginning of the story, we find Mary at the feet of Jesus, sitting and listening while Martha welcomes Jesus. So, what do we know from this beginning scene. We know that Martha’s gesture of hospitality is important. It was the custom, and a custom that surpassed being just nice to providing life-giving food and drink. We only have to look today’s first reading from Genesis to understand the importance of hospitality. Abraham extended hospitality to the three strangers, literally to angels unaware, and received the promise of a future son – a blessing to Abraham and a part of God’s plan for all humankind. Martha was doing what tradition and her faith required of her, she extended the hospitality of her home to Jesus. Yet, we are told that she "was distracted, even agitated and overwhelmed by her many tasks" - presumably tasks of hospitality. Being so distracted, so agitated, Martha approaches Jesus in a way that would not have been appropriate for any host, much less a woman, to approach any guest, much less the Messiah. Nevertheless, Martha goes to Jesus and says, "’Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?’" And, then she demands of Jesus, her guest, to do something about it. She asks Jesus, "’Tell [Martha] to help me,’" for heaven’s sake. And, again we hear Jesus’ response, "’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’" (Luke 10:41-42). The scripture says nothing about how Jesus delivered these words. I prefer to think of Jesus delivering the words softly, gently, perhaps with a little scold, but not with a harsh reproach. After all, Martha was close to Jesus, and was one of only two in the gospels to overtly confess Jesus as the Christ and Son of God. Nevertheless, whether gently or harshly, Jesus challenges Martha to consider that Mary’s choice to sit and listen as "the better part." Does this really help us to figure it out? Just what does Jesus mean by praising Mary’s choice as the better part? Does that mean we are to go to the nearest mountain top and live figuratively at Jesus feet avoiding the busyness associated with the many issues facing us, facing the world? It probably comes as no surprise that scripture itself makes the answer fairly clear. The answer is "no;" we can forget spending each and every moment of our lives on that mountain top either literally or figuratively. And, we need go no further for this answer than the story immediately preceding Mary and Martha, the story known as the "Good Samaritan" (Luke 10:25-37). In brief, this is the story of the lawyer, which would have an expert on God’s law in biblical times (not the John Grisham or Perry Mason type character of our times). The lawyer in Luke wants to test Jesus and asks what the lawyer must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus responds with his own question asking the lawyer about what is written in the law to which the lawyer replies, "’You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and with all you soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself’" (Luke 10:23-27). The lawyer pushes further asking just who is this neighbor that I must love as myself? Jesus responds not by defining the lawyer’s neighbor, but with a story about a man whose actions epitomize a good neighbor, a man who lives out God’s law. Jesus tells the story of a man from an ethnic group known as the Samaritans. The Samaritan, at significant cost and risk to himself, showed mercy to a man beaten and left by robbers on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Two other men, both religious leaders, traveling the same road failed to stop and help the injured man. Please note here that Jesus’ choice of the Samaritan as the good neighbor would have been absolutely shocking to his first century audience. It would have pushed the envelop of their credulity to be asked to equate Samaritan and with anything good much less an illustration of keeping God’s law. Jesus is saying to his audience – don’t prejudge God’s word by your own prejudices, don’t put God in a box defined by your own, narrow expectations. And, so Jesus told the religious lawyer of the story of the despised Samaritan who, by his actions, epitomized God’s law to love neighbor. Jesus told the lawyer, "Go and do likewise" (Luke 10:37). In verse 37, Jesus says, "Go and do likewise" (Luke 10:37), show mercy by your actions. Then in verse 38, the story of Mary and Martha begins. In that context, it’s difficult to conclude that the best part, that the one thing, the only thing we need, is a life of quiet contemplation. It’s difficult to agree with an interpretation of Mary and Martha that would have Jesus saying to those who are busy caring for AIDS orphans in Mzuzu, Malawi or those who are busy preparing dinners for the homeless at the Hope Center in Lexington, Kentucky or those who are busy repairing substandard housing in Montgomery, WV, "‘You people are preoccupied with [the lesser part]. Leave the children, the needy, the ill, the lonely behind. Come sit and meditate for a while. Be spiritual but not religious. This is the better part.’" [1] It’s also difficult to conclude that we have a duel standard – one of loving neighbor by our actions and the other of loving God by our contemplation. This isn’t the answer to "the one thing" either. Love of God and love of neighbor can’t be separated. One, by necessity, by faith grows out of the other. We love God when we love our neighbor. And, we can only truly love our neighbor as it grows out of our love for God. Mother Teresa rose each morning at three, prayed and then went to the hospital to minister to those with leprosy. When asked, as she was many times, how she could lead such a life, her answer was simply that she couldn’t wait to start each day because in the faces of those she served she found the face of her Lord and Savior. Her contemplation, her actions – both were intertwined in the one deep and amazing relationship she had with God. We can’t separate loving God from loving neighbor, and we can’t separate listening to God’s word from living out that word. Yet, we still hear Jesus talking about the one thing that is the better part. Jesus isn’t giving us an either/or choice. We don’t need to choose to be either Mary or Martha. Jesus is stressing the priority, the ordering, if you will, of the choices that will define our Christian life. We may want to think of it this way: Sitting without serving is powerless. Serving without sitting is directionless. Serving after sitting produces power and direction. [2] We sit at Jesus’ feet so that when we act we do so with a sense of being part of God’s vision for the world and so that we have the power that is God’s and God’s alone to go forward with that vision. We sit at Jesus’ feet and return to sit again and again, because apart from the vision, apart form the life-giving word of the gospel, we become overwhelmed, distracted, frustrated and even worse hopeless and beat down in the face of the many challenges, the many tasks before us. We sit at Jesus feet in our bible study, in our prayer, in our worship to learn of God’s vision of love and peace for the world and to become a part of that vision. "’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’" (Luke 10:41-42). The one thing, the better part is God’s vision of love for the world in Jesus Christ. We sit at his feet to be at one with the vision. We rise from his feet to become a part of the vision in the world. "Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen" (Ephesians 3:20-21). _________________ |
Darla
Blatnik