I’D
RATHER BE AT HIS FEET
Mount Hope
UMC
Sunday,
July 21, 2019
Luke 10:38-42 New
Living Translation (NLT)
Jesus Visits Martha and
Mary
As Jesus and the disciples continued on
their way to Jerusalem, they came to a certain village where a woman named Martha
welcomed him into her home. 39 Her sister, Mary, sat
at the Lord’s feet, listening to what he taught. 40 But Martha was
distracted by the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said,
“Lord, doesn’t it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do
all the work? Tell her to come and help me.”
41 But the Lord said to
her, “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! 42 There is only one thing
worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken
away from her.”
According to a site called
The Sermon Writer, there are a number of parallels between today’s story in
Luke’s Gospel and his story of the Samaritan that was last week’s message.
1. The
Samaritan shows his love for his neighbor by taking an active role and
helping—thus honoring the horizontal love relationship of one person for
another. Mary shows her love for the Lord by listening to him—thus honoring the
vertical love relationship of a person for God.
2. In
the Samaritan story, Jesus introduces “a certain man” (Greek: anthropos
tis) (vs. 30). In this story, he introduces “a certain woman” (Greek: tina
gune) (vs. 38).
3. The
Samaritan sees. Mary hears.
4. Neither
the Samaritan nor Mary are the kind of people who would usually emerge as a
hero. They would most often fade into the background as a more prominent
character (a priest, Levite, or Martha) assumed the role of protagonist
(Culpepper, 231).
These stories balance each
other. The early part of the Samaritan
story lifts up love of God, neighbor and self, and Jesus concludes by
saying, “Go and do likewise” (v. 37)—calling for
an active, “doing” discipleship. The
Mary-Martha story is the reverse. Jesus
criticizes Martha for her worry and distraction and affirms Mary for
listening—thus calling for a “being” discipleship.
When you were a child did you have chores you were
responsible for in the house? I’m sure
most of you did. My sister and I had a
chore we shared – washing the dishes after dinner. One week it was her responsibility to wash
and the next it was mine. I always
frustrated her because no matter whether I was washing or drying, I held her
up. She was anxious to get it over so
she could go play and I was trying to avoid the chore – not because I wanted to
go play – I just didn’t want to do the chore. Momma always had to intervene and encourage me
to get going. And it wasn’t just with
the dishes chore, it was with any chore that was my responsibility. I just dragged my feet on everything. If I’m honest, to some extent, I still do.
Jesus goes to visit his friend Lazarus. Luke’s account
doesn’t say it’s Lazarus, but we know that’s who it is because Jesus doesn’t
just arbitrarily go to visit women. That
would not have been appropriate in his time.
So we know that Mary and Martha are Lazarus’s sisters. And most likely Jesus didn’t go alone; he
would have had his disciples with him.
Now, it was traditional that when guest came to visit, food
would be prepared to be served. Many of
us still do that, or we offer any food we have in the house. All this sounds pretty normal, right? We good?
We also know that preparing and serving food is a chore traditionally
reserved for women. This is no
disrespect, but this is generally what women do, right?
I’m going to take a sidetrack here and say that Mount Hope
practices radical hospitality in so many ways.
Every visitor who comes into these doors raves about the hospitality,
warm welcome and how welcoming all of you are.
When we have fellowship after service, you are radical in the variety of
food and the love you share with those you are serving and with each
other. Unlike some churches I’ve been
in, I have never seen the kitchen crew at each other’s throats over one person
stepping into someone else’s lane in the kitchen. You exhibit radical hospitality in all ways
and I am so grateful to each of you for being so welcoming to everyone. Some people would call it Southern
hospitality, but I consider it a ministry that you were called to.
Anyway, back to Mary and Martha. Many of you may wonder why Luke chose to
write an account about these two women and this visit by Jesus. It seems to be so ordinary. What was the purpose of even including this
ordinary story of two women’s response to a visit by their friend, Jesus? There are three main themes in this story
that we all can relate to.
1. Hospitality to
visitors. We should make every
opportunity to welcome visitors.
Especially strangers. When folks
show up at our homes, we usually ask them to come in, have a seat and offer
food and drink. We go out of our way to
try and make our visitors welcome and comfortable. Jesus was probably a frequent visitor to Mary
and Martha, and they were always happy when he came to visit. So, they set about doing what they usually do
when he visits. Martha began to prepare
food and nourishment. She knew that
Jesus had been traveling and he and his disciples probably needed refreshments
from their journey. She was also
probably concerned that when he and his disciples left, they would be back on
the road and need to take some food with them.
Martha was focused on all she needed to do to make the guests
comfortable and welcomed. She was
trying to be a good hostess.
2. Distraction and
Worry. Martha was distracted and
worried. She was distracted by having a
number of folks show up unexpectedly and she had figure out if she had enough
food to feed everybody. And she was
worried. She was worried if what food
she had available could be stretched to feed the group that had arrived. Were there enough spices? Plates?
What about drinking wine? Was
there enough room at the table for all these people? Martha was distracted and worried.
Have you ever had people show up unexpectedly? How did you react? Did you ever have a party and tell family and
close friends and you prepared for them only to find out on the day of the
party that your family and friends had invited their family and friends
too? You know how distracted and worried
that made you. You thought 25 people
were coming and 50 showed up. I just
think about the scene I experienced here at Mount Hope when you had the Bull
Roast. People were coming faster than
you could prepare the boxes. This was
what was on Martha’s mind and where was Mary?
Mary was not helping at all.
Where was she?
Now
Martha, in addition to being distracted and worried about how much food she had
and if she would have enough to feed everybody was annoyed because her sister
was not helping her in the kitchen. She
was probably really annoyed with Mary.
She had to be to get to the point where she dropped her dish towel and
went to Jesus to complain. Martha was
like my sister when it was time for me to wash or dry the dishes. Where is Nona? Come on! Debbie would get so annoyed because she’d be
washing the dishes and I’d be in the bathroom.
The dishes were piling up on the sink waiting to be dried so she could
put more dishes in the dish thingy and I’m hiding in the bathroom because I
hated household chores.
I
just imagine Martha throwing that towel down and stomping in to where Jesus was
reclining at table with the disciples (and probably her brother Lazarus) and
bringing to his attention that Mary was not helping do the chores women of the
house traditionally do when there are guests waiting to be fed. Jesus doesn’t appear to have much empathy for
Martha’s plight, instead he says to her “Martha, you are worried and distracted
by may things; there is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Martha’s
distraction and worry leave no room for the most important aspect of
hospitality – gracious attention to the guest.
In fact, she breaks all the rules of hospitality by trying to embarrass
her sister in front of the guests and by asking the guest to intervene in a
family dispute. She even goes so far as
to accuse Jesus of not caring about her where she asked him “Lord, do you not
care…?”
Martha’s
worry and distraction prevent her from being truly present with Jesus and cause
her to drive a wedge between her sister and herself and between Jesus and
herself. She missed out on the true
hospitality of listening to your guest, and in Martha’s case that guest was
Jesus. The one thing Martha needed was
to receive the presence of Jesus. How
many of us are like Martha? How many of
us overlook the need to receive the presence of Jesus because we are so busy
with the mundane and everyday business of life?
3. At the Feet of Jesus. There was Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus enraptured,
thirsty and clinging like a starving person to every word that came from his
mouth. She had chosen the
non-traditional role as a disciple over the duty her gender traditionally
held. She sat at the Master’s feet, in
the room with the men, which was not the custom at that time. Women did not eat with men and they did not
sit at table with men. Mary was not
concerned with where she sat, nor with eating food, for she was being fed with
the Word of God by the Word of God.
To
me, this is another example in the Gospels that women play a vital and critical
role in ministry in direct opposition to the traditional role they played as
wife and mother. Here, Luke has Mary in
the role of being taught as a man would be taught; of learning in order to go
forth and teach others as she has been taught; to spread the Word.
Jesus
said that Mary had chosen the better part and it would not be taken away from
her. He had absolved her from having to
work in the kitchen because she was learning what being a true disciple
meant. She was seeking the Living Water
that only Jesus could provide.
Many
of us are so busy with day-to-day activities – jobs, family, taking the kids to
football, soccer and other sports programs that we can’t always find time to be
in the presence of the Lord and hear from God.
And if we don’t make that time, we will end up like Martha – distracted,
worried, anxious and troubled. We are
likely to end up not being able to provide the hospitality that gives love and
joy to our neighbors.
We will end up being hearers, but not does of
God’s word. Both listening and doing,
receiving God’s word and serving others are vital to our life as Christians. Trying to serve without being nourished by
God’s Word is like expecting good fruit to grow from a tree that has been
uprooted.
We
don’t know how the story with Mary and Martha ended – whether they forgave each
other or not, or whether Martha was able to sit and enjoy the meal and give her
full attention to Jesus. But what we do
know and what we can be sure of is that Jesus invites to his table all who love
him. He invites all of us who are
distracted and worried to lay our burdens on the altar and to rest in his
presence and hear his words of grace and truth; to know and understand that we
are the beloved and valued of God; that we are precious in God’s sight. He wants us to be renewed in faith and
strengthened for service. There is need
of only one thing – attention to our guest.
And as it turns out, our guest is also our host – Jesus Christ.
I love all of you with all my heart, but I’d
rather be at his feet than anywhere in this world.
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