6th Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 10:38-42

So, I bet that at least a few of you here had a very visceral reaction when I started reading this text this morning.  I can almost feel the fists clenching, and the eyes narrowing, the bracing for what is to come.  I had a lady Ms Vikki, in my last congregation who was the perennial altar guild chair and powerpoint runner and general doer of all things, she was kind of our Deb, and she used to threaten to skip church on this Sunday (though she never actually did because she needed to be there to run the slide show) because she hated hearing pastors preach on this text. 

And I bet that many of you faithful stalwart folks especially the women gathered here today have heard at least one really bad sermon on this text. The one that probably without meaning to manages to completely devalue your work in the church.  The one that accidentally implies that the largely unnoticed, unsung work of the congregation is somehow less important than the supposedly more spiritual, flashier parts of ministry like leading worship and teaching the bible.

But don’t worry, we are not doing that today.  We just has a whole Sunday celebrating that exact work in our congregation, you know how much I value it.  And I know where I am.  And I know for a fact that this church is here, that St George’s exists because of the incredibly hard work and dedication week in and week out of the faithful members like you here who have kept it going.  And that’s never been what this text was really about anyway.  It’s not about who is doing what kind of work, but what assumptions we make and how we listen and respond to Jesus.

Our first mistake is that we often read into the text that Martha is busy providing the essential aspects of hospitality for Jesus, meeting his needs and making sure he is comfortable like Abraham has done for his guests in the first lesson today, but in reality the text doesn’t say that.  It simply says that “Martha was distracted or pulled away by her many tasks” we don’t know what Martha was doing, maybe she was off doing her hair, or preparing an expensive, elaborate dinner when all Jesus wanted was simple bread and wine, maybe she was off scouring the back corner of the guest quarters when Jesus would have preferred to stay inside with the family, maybe she wasn’t even doing anything related to Jesus’ visit at all but just puttering on with her daily tasks.

No matter what she was doing, the critical error that Martha makes is that she assumes she already knows what Jesus wants.  And after becoming frustrated, she suddenly starts making demands of Jesus, ironically calling him Lord while in the same breath giving him orders. “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do the work?  Tell her to help me.”  Imagine her surprise when Jesus essentially tells her “no”.  That he prefers Mary’s choice.  He just wants to spend time with them.  And that is the key, Mary is providing important hospitality too because good hospitality isn’t really about food but focus.  Listening to your guests, talking to them and really ascertaining what they want and need.   Jesus wants Martha to take the time to listen to him instead of just assuming she knows what he wants.  To set aside all of her distractions and really focus on what matters.

And Jesus tells us the same thing. Because Jesus is inviting us to live in a new way.  To reverse course from the normal order of things and to take the time to listen first rather than assume we already know what Jesus and our neighbors want. 

When Ruth and I were at the college for congregational development a couple of weeks ago, we were having a discussion about engagement in the congregation, and various kinds of activities and ministries, and we came down to this fundemental question.  ‘Are we just keeping people busy or are we making disciples?’  And I think that question is the heart of this story.  Are we engaging in ministry, are we living and serving in ways that deepen our faith or are we, like Martha too worried and distracted by many things to really hear Jesus.

So what would it look like to follow Jesus’s command to set down some of our distractions and really take time to listen to Jesus as individuals and as a church?  To spend serious time in bible study and prayer, to really discern deeply with open hearts what God is calling us to do?  To put away our phones and work and distractions and really make spending real time with our friends and family a priority? And within the church, to really listen to what Jesus is calling this church community to be, where he is calling us to serve, what is most important.  And then to devote our time and resources to these things.

Now I warn you this is a much scarier task than it might seem.  Sitting at the feet of Jesus is not for the faint of heart. Because if you start to really listen to Jesus, he is going to change your life and he is going to start telling you what to do to truly serve him.  And like Martha, you may soon discover that Jesus is about to dramatically reorient your priorities. 

But there is something powerful here too.  Because when we listen first, when we truly follow the will of Jesus, you will often find that the work we are called to do is far more fulfilling than the drudgery that we were doing before.  And that even the less exciting and more mundane tasks of ministry, of keeping a church, family or household going take on a much deeper meaning when we begin to place them in the context of God’s mission in the world.

So next time you find yourself having a Martha moment and you start to feel burned out and frustrated and uninspired and overworked, maybe it’s time to take a moment to answer Jesus’s invitation, to come and sit at his feet, to hear the words he wants to speak to you, to be fed at the feast of life that he has prepared for you.  Because Jesus has a great deal of love and grace to share with you, whether or not you have finished your daily checklist.  And maybe just maybe when we sit down to truly listen, we can find a whole new purpose waiting for us there.  Amen.