Luke’s Parable of the Good Samaritan, a story of what happens when we allow religion to become our focus, is followed by the story of Mary and Martha to show us what happens when we allow service to become our focus. When either of these (service/discipleship) is out of balance, we lose our connection to our faith.
July 17, 2022
“Lessons From the Gospel of Luke”
Distracted by Many Things
Luke 10: 38-42
Rev. Dr. Heather W. McColl
Luke 10: 38-42
Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at Jesus’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her, then, to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things, but few things are needed—indeed only one. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Distracted by Many Things Luke 10: 38-42
I have a confession to make. This story of Mary and Martha has never been one of my favorites. Every time I read it, I come away with the feeling that I lack something or that there are “Other” people who are better than me when it comes to practicing the faith. These other people have got it all figured out, while I’m over here, just trying to remember, day in and day out, the very simple, life transforming fact that “I am God’s Beloved” in the midst of the messiness of life.
Every time I read this text, I come away feeling like a failure, always struggling to find the Good News. Every time I read this text, I come away feeling like it is never possible to get this faith thing, this discipleship thing right.
However thankfully, over the years, I have learned and experienced that our God is not a God that guilts us or berates us into following Jesus. As we have talked about before, we all know that type of hard hearted leadership never really works because it is fear based. In the end, this type of guilting leadership does more harm than good, leading us to experience things we know are not of God.
In fact, we know quite the opposite. We know our God is a God of grace, a God of love and that these things, things like love, grace, hope, compassion, these things should always, and must always be our starting points for our conversations of faith.
So keeping that in mind, I want us to take another look at this text, this time looking at it through the eyes of love and grace, remembering that this text is not pointing out the areas in which we lack. Instead, this time as we read it, allowing this text to invite us to find God’s word for us.
Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at Jesus’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her, then, to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things, but few things are needed—indeed only one. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
As we take another look at this text, we need to understand its context. We need to take a look at what comes right before and what comes right after our particular verses of Scripture so that we can experience the whole story. So that we can see the whole picture.
When we look at its context, we realize that this text is part of a larger narrative which is known as the “travel narrative”. Jesus has set his face towards Jerusalem and the journey to the cross has begun. In the sections of Luke that proceed our text, Jesus has been talking, strongly encouraging his disciples to place their focus on God, to place their focus onGod’s presence in their life. Jesus does this by teaching them about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Jesus does this by showing them how being a disciple shapes our core identity as his followers
Luke then follows up all this teaching about discipleship with Jesus’ conversation with the lawyer, teaching which introduces the Parable of the Good Samaritan. As we may remember, in that parable, Jesus challenges his disciples to recognize that the grace of God, that the love of God calls all of us to see everyone as our neighbors, showing acts of compassion and love to all of God’s children.
All of this brings us to our text today. All of this is background for our text today.
The interesting thing about our text is that only the Gospel of Luke tells this particular story of Mary and Martha. Sure, we meet them in other Gospels, say the Gospel of John, but in those narratives, we really don’t get to have a meet and greet with them. In all the other instances where Mary and Martha are mentioned, they serve as ways to help move the story along. They are not the main characters like they are here in this particular story.
The other interesting thing is that when we look at this text, this story of Mary and Martha, we assume Martha is running around preparing a meal, cleaning the house, setting the table, doing all these things to get ready so she can really welcome Jesus into her home. But really the text doesn’t say anything like that.
In fact, the word used to describe her actions is the Greek word, diakonia, the same word that we translate as deacons. In church language, that’s the diaconate, which basically means the group of people that are the “hands” of the congregation. In the life of the Church, it is this group that has been called as the servant leadership of the congregation, helping with the preparation and serving of the Lord’s Table, helping set up the space for worship, helping in the looking after the needs of the sick within the congregation. As I said, they are the “hands” of the church.
So really what Martha may have been doing instead of what we assume, you know, going around like a chicken with its head cut off, worried about making sure the tablecloth matched the napkins. What Martha really was doing was feeding the hungry, making blankets for the poor, maybe even building a house for Habitat for Humanity. Martha, as the hands of the congregation, was living out her faith. She was being a servant leader of the church. She was doing the important work of mission and ministry, which we all know is a huge piece of our calling as disciples here on earth.
The other thing that we need to realize is that Luke follows up all the previous verses about discipleship, including the parable of the Good Samaritan and the story of Mary and Martha with a story about prayer, specifically the Lord’s Prayer. In the following verses to the Mary and Martha text, Luke tells us that the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray. Jesus does so by giving them the words of the Lord’s Prayer so that the disciples may say this prayer as a way to center themselves in the presence of God.
By placing the Mary and Martha between these two texts, the Parable of the Good Samaritan and the teaching of the Lord’s Prayer, Luke is reminding us that the Christian life is a both/and journey. It is made up of words and deeds as well as prayer, that we are called to take the time to find the balance for both spiritual things and service in our lives and in our faith.
Or let me say it this way. A few years ago,I was able to hear Shane Claiborne, a peace activist and founder of the Simple Way, a community in Philadelphia that is working with neighborhoods to help create the Kingdom of God here on Earth. Shane tells the story of how when he was a young college student with, his words, not mine, “with stars in my eyes and enough innocence to believe I could change the world on my own”, he dropped out of school and headed to India to go and learn with Mother Teresa. Shane shared that he was ready to go out and change the world and he just knew Mother Teresa would give him the keys to how to do exactly just that.
So he arrives in India, ready to change the world. But on his very first day, as he was getting ready to head out to the streets of Calcutta, Mother Teresa tells him he is not allowed to go outside. Now he assumed that it was because of logistics, you know, he didn’t have the right paper work or that he hadn’t been told where to go yet. So he asked what he needed to do to be ready to go out and serve. Instead of answering his question, Mother Teresa leads him to the chapel and simply says, “Pray”.
Shane shared that he was angry and frustrated in that moment. All he could think about was that he traveled half way around the world, ready to make a difference, to learn from Mother Teresa herself on how to bring healing and wholeness to the poorest of the poor, and all she could say was, “Pray”.
This routine went on for days and weeks. Every time Shane would get ready to go out into the streets, Mother Teresa would say, “You are not ready. Go and pray”.
Then finally, one day Mother Teresa came to him and said, “Now you Go outside. You are ready”. Shane asked what was different about today. To which Mother Teresa replied, “The world is a dark place. There is much hurt on the streets. There is much desperation on the streets. If a servant of God goes out into the streets without first having a vision of what God is doing to repair the whole creation,[ if you aren’t feed and nourished by God’s word], [if you don’t open yourself to God’s presence through prayer and meditating on God’s word, then] you can’t get up every day and work in it. You won’t have strength for the journey. You won’t have the energy to be the hands and heart of God in this world.
As people of faith, Jesus reminds us that we are on a both/and journey: A journey that is filled with loving our God with all our heart, mind, soul and filled with loving our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus reminds us that we are called to nourish our spirits, centering ourselves in God’s word of love, in God’s word of grace and share this glove, to share this grace with others.. This both/and is what gives significance to our actions, to our words as people of faith.
Jesus is telling Martha, telling his disciples, telling us this morning that at the core of our faith, is our connection to and with God’s word. It is the one thing that will sustain us. It is the one thing that will give us energy for the journey. It is the one thing that never fades away or that can be taken away. It is the one thing that is abiding in this temporary world.
As people of faith, we are told the Scriptures say that we are to Love our God with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul. As people of faith, we are told the Scriptures also say that we are to Love your neighbor as yourself. It is not an either or. It is a both and. And it is up to us to live out this balance as we continue striving to be the people God created us and calls us to be. May it be so.
Amen.
See Theology Tuesday for Sunday, July 17, 2022 – Distracted by Many Things Luke 10: 38-42.
This sermon is also available as a podcast.
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