“One Thing”

( Luke 10:38-42)

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.  She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’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; there is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

This is a familiar text to many of us, I think.  I hesitated to choose it as the basis of today’s sermon because we’ve heard it over and over, and it has been done to death.  Still, I can’t resist because it’s a good one.  I think many of us have an idea how it ought to be interpreted.  Now, the thing with me is that I try to come up with a surprise or two when I preach on a well-known scripture text.  I don’t know if I have anything up my sleeve today, but I do have some thoughts!!

I actually found a sermon on this very text that I had written and preached from July, 1998, a week after my mother, Elva, had died and 6 months after my sister, Linda, had passed.  It was a rough time in my life, but, for preachers, those times often find us digging deep and doing pretty good work.  So, here’s one based in the archives, rewritten to be meaningful for today, hopefully.

            I had lots of opportunities during that last year before my sister and mom had died to reflect upon important people in my life and to think about their life choices and the influence they had had on those around them.  I think the story of Mary and Martha is a very good guide for that kind of reflection.  As you listen this morning, you may see some light shone on your own path.  By the way, this is not just a story for women, in case you guys were planning a nap!

            I remembered sitting in a meeting of my women’s group about a year before the deaths of my sister and mother.  I had been sharing with the group about my mother’s infirmities and how ill she was at the time.  As I spoke I thought about how my sister’s cancer had reared its ugly head again, and I realized that the possibility of losing two of the most important women in my life would probably happen sooner rather than later.  I was afraid that this would be more than I could bear.  As I said earlier, my sister died in December of 1997 and my mom, then, in July of 1998.  It’s amazing to me, when I look back on that time, that my nieces, my dad and my brothers and I, as well as the whole family, had to absorb that kind of grief in such a short period.

            I know that during that time, but also since then, I have done a lot of thinking about my relationships with those two primary women in my life, about the kind of people they were and the roles they played in our family.  Of course, those kinds of things always take me to a God place.

            Both my mother and my sister dedicated themselves to their homes.  They were wonderful homemakers and attentive mothers.  They did things for others regularly; they worked tirelessly in their church, volunteered at school, were involved in community projects.  They were both very giving people.

            Now, I think there is a very thin line between staying so busy that we don’t have time for God and …finding God in the midst of the giving of ourselves.  I am in no position to judge this matter about my mom and my sister, but I do know some things about myself regarding this matter…and…I know some things about Mary and Martha….

            The story of Martha and Mary is not about whether people should work hard or not or whether we should sit down and be lazy, or engage others in conversation.  At least, that’s not how I’m hearing it.  The story is about whether we take the time to sit down (kneel down, stand up—whatever) and connect with God.  It’s about whether we work on our relationship with God.  It’s about the ways we allow ourselves to be distracted from the most important relationship in our lives.  It’s about the times we choose to stay so busy that we forget to stay connected to God.

            The powerful example we are given, and the one that rings true for many of us, is Martha, who is overwhelmed with her workload and just cannot seem to leave her duties aside, even to choose “the better part” and sit at Jesus’ feet.  Is there so much for Martha to do that she must make the choice between her hospitality work and her relationship work with Jesus? 

She obviously is not feeling totally fulfilled by the house work because she points out to Jesus that she has been left with all of it while her sister Mary seems to be goofing off.  Or is it that by being so impossibly busy that she is distracting herself away from doing her relationship work with God—staying so busy that she has an excuse for not coming close to God?  Who knows why….

            The message here is that there is one all-important thing—and that is our relationship with God, with Jesus.  We can and we do let other things get in the way of that primary relationship.  We can let things that are really quite important distract us—even entertaining and being hospitable—but if we do, we are depriving ourselves.  And, if we do deprive ourselves or try to get distracted, we will find that we are resentful and envious of those who, seemingly, put us in the position of “doing it all,” whether or not they are living their lives close to God.

            So, Mary has become the role model here, sitting close to God, at all costs—even the wrath of her sister.  But Martha is the one who will be our teacher, who will help us learn to be humble.  Martha is the one who lets us know we are normal as well as human.  Jesus is very loving and compassionate when he speaks to her.  “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.  Today Mary has chosen the better part which will not be taken away from her.”  (That is, today Mary has chosen to be in relationship with God, with Jesus—first and foremost).  Martha will not be scolded, ostracized or whacked for being human.  The reward for Mary in the story is the time that she gets to sit at Jesus’ feet.

            And so, as I have been reminded of the fragility of life as I think about my mom and my sister and those who have gone before, we are all reminded of that as we grow older–reminded of how our time on earth is so limited–I realize that Martha and Mary and Linda and Elva have taught me such good lessons about life.  From them I have learned about the importance of being hospitable and doing nice things for others, of being caring and kind toward God’s children (please hear that this is NOT contradicted in the Mary and Martha story).  I have learned about the beauty of making a good home (all of those women were skilled at this). 

AND I have learned that loving God and being close to God needs to be the number one priority in each of our lives (bar nothing!).  In addition, I have learned that this is very difficult because of all the distractions—the distractions of work, jobs, household chores, busy work, volunteer work, work with people.  And the distractions are there for the taking; the distractions of fussing about what’s going on in our world, of worry, anger, jealousy and resentment, and, of course, all the other things that take our attention these days: phones, TV, internet, Facebook, twitter, Instagram, texting, electronic games—there are way too many distractions.  What I also know is that, even if we didn’t have all these digital distractions in this day and age, if we choose to, we will find ourselves distracted away from nurturing our relationship with God.

            But through it all, there is one common thread—one thing without which there is nothing—and that is our relationship with Jesus.  He made it abundantly clear that our task in life is to seek God, to search for God’s will in our lives and make that relationship first and foremost.  The rest will come naturally—and that is to love each other.

            And so, I’m still trying to figure all this out—even at age 73—and, just about the time I think I know—it’s still hard to live this truth of what needs to come first.  So, I think we can support each other in living this way.  We can do it with the help of the stories of the Marthas and the Marys, the Simons and the Pauls, the Levites and the Samaritans, the Jeans and the Gertes, the Ruths and the Iones, the Bobs, the Moes, the Ralphs, the grandmothers and grandfathers who have gone before us.  They are our teachers.  We are their students—willing or not—God has lots of lessons for us to learn, but we must be willing to be schooled, we must watch the elders around us, we must be open to being corrected like Martha was, we must be loving always and we must leave time to grow close to Jesus.

            The other thing I’m aware of is that the Martha and Mary story is frozen in time.  I think that Martha was not always the one who needed to be schooled and Mary was not always the one who knew to put God first in her life.  It’s that way with us too.  None of us is always right or always wrong about these matters.  We are all works in progress.  As long as we’re open to learn and get better; as long as we’re humble and loving, we will find our way to God day by day, one day at a time.  Amen.