Luke 10: 38-42
July 18, 2010
Getting Priorities In Order
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The text for this morning is our Gospel lesson.
For thirteen years, Julie and I had a good neighbor. He was a character to be sure. He had a full head of wavy, snow-white hair, a long, white handlebar mustache, a deep, resonant voice and a hearty laugh. Those who didn’t know him well might easily conclude that he was just another cantankerous, old coot. I mean, if he thought something wasn’t right, he’d let you know in short order and in no uncertain terms that might be sprinkled with a few words that aren’t spoken in polite company. More than once, I’ve seen the county road commission working on our street because he had called them.
But once you got to know him, he was really a gentle person. I recall sitting on his front deck one spring day. I was talking about how the purple martins had come back to my birdhouse. He talked about swallows and how they came back in pairs to the same place every spring. He talked about them long enough that I finally caught on. I didn’t have martins in my birdhouse; I had swallows, but he was kind enough to not come right out and tell me that I was wrong.
He was someone quick to help you if he could or generous with his thanks if you gave him a hand. There were so many things that made him a good neighbor. If I needed to borrow his extension ladder, his response was always the same.
“Help yourself, you know where it is.”
“I’ll bring it back this afternoon.”
“Naw, keep it as long as you want.”
And then there were those special times when you’d see him walking up to our house with a piece of rolled up newspaper in his hand. He was bringing us some smoked fish that he’d caught in Torch Lake and smoked himself.
He had been a good neighbor but more than that, he became my good friend. I phrase that in the past tense because he died last May at age 79 after a three-year illness. His family was widely dispersed, as far away as London, so there was no funeral. His widow planned on a Memorial Service three weeks after his passing. One of his daughters was able to fly in from Colorado so that she and her mother could go online and began to organize the memorial service. They found what they felt were fitting words of consolation along with some poems and other readings. Because they did not attend a local church, they asked me to lead the memorial service.
When I read through the program they had put together, I was utterly disheartened. There were no passages from Scripture; there were no prayers. God was not even mentioned. There were phrases like:
· “We are one, united with the wisdom and customs of all ages.”
· “Our strength and resources are great. They come from the deep well of all humanity.”
· “Before this emptiness we can only assert that love never ends.”
It was at that moment, upon reading the program for the memorial service, that I felt the full, oppressive weight of my regret. It was at that moment that I realized I had missed so many, many opportunities. It was at that moment that I knew I had not had my priorities in order.
Our Gospel lesson for today is short. Let me tell it to you again.
38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to what he was saying. 40But 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." 41But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42there is need of only one thing.l Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."
Martha welcomes Jesus into her home and busies herself with being hospitable to her guest. And that was important. Providing hospitality was a part of her culture. It was an ancient custom. We read, for example, in Genesis 18: verses 2-5, how Abraham treats three strangers who stop at his tent:
First, he bows down and invites them to stay. Then he offers them water and bread and the shade of a tree. When they accept his invitation, he
· Asked Sara to quickly make three loaves of bread from the best flour;
· Hurried to select a choice calf from the herd and had a servant slaughter and cook it as quickly as possible;
· When everything else was ready, he also brought curds and milk;
· And finally, he watched over them while they ate.
Earlier in this chapter of Luke, (vs. 1-12) Jesus sends seventy of his followers out in pairs to preach and to heal. He tells them to take nothing with them but to rely on the hospitality of those in the villages that welcome them.
Pastor Jim, in his sermon on June 13th, told us about Simon the Pharisee who invited Jesus to dinner.
“Hosts went out of their way in welcoming their company, showering hospitality upon their honored guests. They met the other at the door, welcomed them in, and gave them a kiss of greeting. They usually brought out a basin and towel so that the guest could wash his/her feet. Oil was supplied to soothe rough or heated skin. Simon provided none of the common forms of hospitality … his slights were actually deliberate insults.”
Hospitality was important. In fact, it was critical. So here is Martha, as our text says, “distracted by her many tasks.” She is trying to be hospitable, trying not to insult Jesus. She is busy preparing for her guest, perhaps getting water, tidying things up, preparing a meal and probably a host of other things as well. She is doing what her culture dictates she should be doing. And all the while, Mary is doing nothing to help.
It doesn’t seem fair, does it? Martha is frazzled. She gets upset with Mary so she complains to Jesus and tells him – she doesn’t ask him – she tells Jesus to tell Mary to help her. And what does Jesus do? He gently and lovingly scolds Martha, not Mary, telling her that Mary has chosen “the better part.”
Mary chose to listen to Jesus. Mary chose to hear the Word of God. She chose to learn what it means to have the kingdom of God at hand. Mary chose to take the role of a disciple. She sat at Jesus’ feet, the traditional place for a disciple, just as Paul, in Acts 22, vs. 3, says that he was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel and educated according to Jewish ancestral law.
As important as hospitality was, clearly, being a disciple of Jesus is a higher priority. Christ came to serve, not to be waited upon. Christ came to teach and to be heard. Christ came to set an example for those who would follow him.
And therein lays the basis for my regret over the missed opportunities with my good friend and neighbor. I did not have my priorities in order. I did not act like a disciple of Christ. I did not reach out to my friend with the good news of Jesus Christ.
Jesus continues to live in this world in and through each of us. Jesus continues to walk among us and to teach and be heard only in as much as we speak the Gospel to our friends and neighbors. As disciples of Christ, we are to be the teachers; we are to be heard. We are to be Jesus’ voice in the world. There is, in the example of Martha and Mary, no higher priority than sharing the word of God. And I did not do that. I did not share my faith.
There are those who have the gift of being able to proclaim the love of God at just about any time in any place. I am not one of them. I am simply not comfortable talking about my faith outside the confines of these walls or, at least, with other Christians. But that, my friends, is no excuse. Not for me and, if you are like me, not for you either.
A week or so after my friend died, I met with Pastor Jim. As the new Outreach and Hospitality Core Team Leader, I wanted to know how he defined those two terms – outreach and hospitality – as they pertained to Feast. He said that outreach can be as simple as listening and responding with the Gospel. Listening and responding with the Gospel. That is so profound in its simplicity.
As a disciple of Christ, I am called speak and be heard, to be the voice of Jesus and to plant the seeds of his love. When I think of the missed opportunities with my friend, I realize now that it was so simple. How easy and appropriate it would have been, for example, during our conversation about the purple martins that were really swallows, to have commented on the miraculous wonder and beauty of God’s creation.
Listening and responding with the Gospel means that I didn’t have to bring God into every conversation. I didn’t have to carry my Bible when I visited him in the hospital and force feed him passages from Scripture. I didn’t have to beat him up with God and religion to make Christ known to him. I didn’t have to feel that bringing him to Christ was my responsibility and mine alone for Jesus is always with me.
And besides, it isn’t about me. It isn’t about us or the words that we speak. It isn’t about the seeds that we plant. It’s all about God and what God does with those seeds in and to those who hear them. There is the power, not in us or the words that we speak but in God. There is the saving love, not in us or the words that we speak but in God. It is not ours to reap the harvest; that is for God to do. But, it is ours to sow the seeds of his redemption whenever and wherever the opportunity arises.
It is ours to listen and to respond with the Gospel. I can do that, now. Trusting in God’s love as we grow in discipleship, we can all do that. Amen.
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