Grace to you and peace from God
our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
I am going to ask your indulgence
a little bit this morning, for I begin with confession. The Bible does a lot of
things – it convicts, it declares sins forgiven in Christ, it enlightens, it
creates faith, hope and love. These things we know, these we expect, but this
week I was struck by another and different feeling. As I began working with
this morning’s Gospel lesson, the Mary and Martha narrative, I confess that
this text has made me envious. Yes, envious. It took me a day to sort it out,
and when I did I realized I was envious because it makes me wish that I could,
like Mary – like you! – not just this morning, but on any given Sunday or any
given day, for that matter. I wish I could be an average, ordinary disciple of
Christ, who, on a Sunday morning, gets to sit in the pew and be fed; a baptized
Child of God, gets to sit with the Word of God and simply read it and learn and
grow from what the Holy Spirit does with that living Word. I am envious of you –
you, who like Mary, have chosen the good part and sit to receive the Word.
The temptation for pastors –
well, perhaps I should keep this personal and not speak for all pastors – the temptation
for me is that the Bible becomes a textbook, or a professional document, that is
to be dissected, analyzed and reported from. Think about how you read a math,
science of history book, or how you analyze a statistical sales report, or how
you consider market futures. You do these things to pass the test, or to report
to your supervisor, or to make financial decisions for your business or ranch
or portfolio. It’s tempting for me to treat the Bible this way.
I’ve been taught Greek to read
the New Testament and Hebrew to work in the Old Testament. We learned how to parse
verbs and to study sentences and grammar structure. This gets analyzed, along
with historical background of the text, and then interpret the text over and
against our modern context. Over the course of four to six hours, a sermon is produced,
edited and delivered. Meanwhile a similar process is underway for Bible class. And in the study of the Bible it’s easy to
think of it as just a Biblios – Latin, for “book” – and less and less the Bible,
that is, the very Word of God.
Make no mistake: I am not asking
for sympathy. It’s a bit of a professional hazard, similar to a doctor losing
sight of a patient as person, not just a number, or a teacher seeing just minds
to be shaped instead of children wanting to learn. And, when we pastors add in
the additional responsibilities of the parish with phone calls and pop-ins,
with hospital and shut-in visits, with crisis care and not-so-crisis
pitter-patter, with meetings and (let’s be honest) daydreaming, with family
needs and personal needs, we get “busy.”
Busy. The adjective is accurate,
for there is work, ministry, that needs doing. The other day, someone asked how
it’s going and I rushed into my litany of things I was doing. They said, “Sounds
like you’re busy,” and I nodded my head. Later, as I thought about that
conversation, I realized something. I
was using “busy” more as a badge: I’m worth my time. Eugene Patterson says[1]
that a pastor who considers himself “busy” is nothing more than an idol
worshipper. The idol is himself. No,
wait…to be more accurate, the idol is myself. Much like Martha, scurrying
around, cooking, cleaning, tidying, folding, sorting, fretting and finally
fussing at both her sister and Jesus, I got busy being busy. I could argue –
unsuccessfully, I might add – about the motives, it was for the good of the
church, and so forth, but the reality was this: my Bible was open, but I was
looking at it for sermon preparation, not as the living Word of God. Why, even
reading for the Bible Book Club, it became a task of getting all 45 pages read
for the week. I forgot the one thing
needful.
I suspect I’m not alone. While our perspectives might be different, we
all live in a busy, hectic world. Yes, you are here in the pew this morning, following
in the footsteps of Mary, your sister in Christ, but we live in a Martha world.
“Don’t just sit there, do something!” is the mantra that surrounds us, from
Sunday afternoon through Saturday evening. The world demands production of
goods and services. The world values movement, preferably at moderate to high
speed. The world expects things to be right the first time. The world teaches
us to keep up with the Jones’ next door, and that includes hectic schedules for
the entire family. As long as we’re busy, we’re OK, and as long as we keep
moving we don’t have time to stop and realize what we’re missing.
Yes, the world is much to blame
for this – its temptation of busy-ness is very real. But, there is also the
temptation from within us. The old Pogo cartoon, “We have met the enemy and it
is us,” is sometimes more right than we care to admit. From within, our old Adam
will resist the very Word of God that gives life and forgiveness and hope and
joy and certainty. I wonder if there isn’t part of us that is simply afraid to
engage with the Word, to be engaged by the Holy Spirit, to sit at the feet of
Jesus and simply listen. We are so uncomfortable with being in the presence of
God, who became flesh to dwell among us, that we cannot stand to dwell with
Him. It’s easier to avoid Him than to be with Him…especially when our old Adam
thinks we will be chastised and corrected. Or, or maybe it’s that we think we
don’t understand the Bible, we can’t understand the Bible. We buy into the hype
that it’s a book of mystery that the average layman can’t grasp, and – besides –
that’s what our pastor is for, right?: to tell us what we need to know and get us
into heaven and the rest can be skipped over.
Whether it’s the world or our own
sinful flesh that temps us to stay busy and stay away, it’s a far cry from, “Be
still and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10). It’s a far cry from sitting in
silence with the Word of God. It’s a far cry from letting Jesus speak to us. It’s
no wonder that Christians frequently lament how far they feel from God, that it
seems He isn’t present in their lives, that it’s almost as if He has left them
behind.
Nothing could be further from the
truth. I want you to notice something. While Martha scampers around, making
food, preparing the table, and all the while getting more and more frustrated
at the fact that Mary is doing nothing but sit, Jesus ignores her preparations
until she finally stops in frustration. And then, Jesus speaks. He speaks to
Martha. He chides her, but He isn’t ugly; He is direct, but He isn’t rude; He
is correcting, but with love. Jesus gives her a Word, just as He has been
giving words to Mary. He speaks and says, “You are anxious and troubled by many
things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which
will not be taken from her.” It’s as if Jesus says, “Don’t just do something,
sit here. You’re worried about dinner. Sit here, and let me feed you with bread
that does not perish and with water that gives life. We can eat and drink, we
can dust and clean, we can sort and stack, we can sew and knit another day. But
today, today, know that the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve
and to give His life as a ransom for many. Sit, Martha, repent of the busy-ness,
repent of the distractions, repent… Don’t just do something, sit here.”
So, as you go back to your homes
today, and you go back to the “Don’t just sit there, do something” world of busy-ness
tomorrow, do what you need to do. Be
faithful in your vocations. But in the silence – whether it is in the morning,
before the busy-ness begins, or as you settle in for the evening, with the day’s
work done, open your Bible. Jesus meets you there. And with Mary and Martha, be
still. Don’t just do something; sit there. Sit there and receive the good
portion, for it will not be taken from you.
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