"Chopping, Peeling, Baking, Washing… and Listening"

First Presbyterian Church
July 22, 2007
Peter S. Buehler
Genesis 18:1-10a; Luke 10:38-42

Mary has chosen the better part,
which will not be taken away from her.

I have a soft spot in my heart for Martha; I think we all do. Anyone who has ever had people over for dinner, anyone who has ever offered hospitality in their home, can relate to her.

Unlike last week's story of the Good Samaritan, where we have to do some soul-searching to relate to the priest and the Levite, the men who pass by on the other side of the road from the wounded man -- most of us can relate to Martha, who was "distracted by her many tasks."

After all, in fairness to her, if folks are coming to dinner there are many tasks to complete; there's no way around it. And we're not talking about a Martha Stewart-style dinner party where everything is ultra-fancy and the host has to be super-organized to pull it off. On her TV show, she's always calm and collected, never uptight, never hysterical. Off-camera, when smoke is pouring out of her oven or flowers are drooping in her centerpiece, it's probably a different story.

Yet even for simple meals, if guests are coming over there are still a lot of things to do and never enough time to do them. Beginning with figuring out the menu -- the meal, the appetizers, the dessert. Then there's the shopping. You have to decide what can be done ahead of time -- the night before, the afternoon of -- and what will need to be fixed on the spot. You have to tidy up the yard and clean the house, which can become a major job if you haven't done it for awhile. It's always nice to do some decorating -- flowers, candles, a nice table arrangement.
Before the guests show up the pressure is on, last-minute tasks -- get everything out and ready, change clothes, so that when the door bell rings you can be calm and collected like the other Martha. "Well hello, how good to see you. Please come in."

I like the real Martha: Lord, my sister Mary, by now you have noticed, is doing nothing, she is sitting at your feet. She is not cleaning, she is not peeling or chopping or cooking, she is not setting the table, she is not helping. What she is doing is annoying me. I would love to be so laid-back about the evening -- you are my Teacher too and I'd like nothing more than to sit at your feet, but dinner doesn't cook itself, at least not in this house. If you'd like to perform one of your miracles, now would be a good time: you can start with dinner. If not, would you please tell my sister to give me a hand. Doesn't it say in the scriptures somewhere, "Many hands make light work"? Maybe you haven't noticed, but I have only two hands!

We know Martha. When we are under pressure or up against a deadline, or just needing to get things done -- worthwhile things, important things like offering hospitality to guests, not frivolous things -- when we find ourselves in any such situation, Martha is no stranger. Whether we are female or male, whether or not we can multi-task, whether we do all the cooking ourselves or just get take-out,
whether we work well under pressure or become unglued under pressure, Martha is that side of ourselves that is focused, determined, dependable, goal-oriented, and ready to work. A bit over-the-top sometimes, nevertheless she is the person we want in our office, in our organization, or on our committee.
If she bangs a few pots and pans now and then, if she speaks a few harsh words, people shouldn't take it personally. At least Martha gets things done.

Though it is interesting that when she gets angry, it is Jesus she is angry with, not Mary. Maybe because Jesus seemed oblivious to her workload. Maybe because it was his teaching that was keeping Mary from helping. Maybe because she felt excluded from a rare opportunity, a chance to hear Jesus not as one person in a crowd but right there in her own home. Maybe Martha was angry because she envied Mary's ability to let go of everything else, even their dinner plans, in order to sit at the Savior's feet and listen. Perhaps her envy was too painful to express directly, so she directed it at Jesus.

He was not angry back. The Lord loved Martha! At the heart of the story is love, not disapproval. Martha is not scolded by Jesus. People who are focused and determined, people who work hard, people who get things done, people who stop at nothing to fix a great meal for guests -- they are not judged by Jesus.

It is not that Martha is doing something wrong. It is that Mary is doing something right.

That for us, as for Martha, is the conflict. Because there is always so much to do -- in addition to our jobs there are other tasks to be done and chores to be finished: bills to be paid, calls to be made, projects to be started, ovens to be cleaned, rooms to be painted, weeds to be pulled, books to be read -- the list goes on and on. The biblical word for "distracted," as in Martha was distracted by her many tasks, means literally "pulled or dragged away." It's true for us. We would love to sit at Jesus' feet, we would love to be an audience of one, we would love to hear his words spoken from his mouth. They would be like the music of a violin, like verses read by a poet, like the silence of a great cathedral.
But Jesus! O, if we could sit at his feet for even a moment -- imagine it! what we would learn! What we would understand! We would be transformed by his grace.
But against our better judgment we are dragged away by our many tasks.

The Martha in us wonders if sitting at Jesus' feet is doing nothing. The Martha in us wonders if taking time simply to listen and meditate -- to spend time with a passage of scripture, letting its words move in our minds, opening our spirits to the Holy Spirit, if this is a good use of our time.

And Martha's voice is not a quiet voice! At a clergy workshop I attended, the leader instructed us to be quiet and still, and to empty our minds of thoughts.
Everybody had to do it, so I gave it a try. "Be aware of the thoughts that enter your mind," he said, "but when they come, try just to let them go." Fine, I thought.
I can empty my mind as well as anyone. And I did just that -- but as soon as I emptied it out, another thought came in. I'd let it go. But my mind was like a classroom of schoolchildren waiting for recess, lined up at the door. It was as though my thoughts were impatiently standing in line. "I wonder what's for lunch," I thought. "I wonder if I can meditate like this when I get home." "I wonder what's happening at home." "A cup of coffee right now would sure taste good." "I wonder how much longer we're going to do this, because having no thoughts like I'm not having sure is hard."

Opening our minds to the Spirit, to God's word in Christ, that is hard enough, let alone letting go of the thoughts that press so insistently upon our consciousness.
Like paparazzi around a movie star, they won't leave us alone. They seem important -- why else would the thoughts be on our minds? Yet how often they are distractions, dragging us away from the Savior, from personal time with him.

We can insert our own name for Martha's. Jesus, aware that we are putting other things first and him second, turns to us and says, gently and kindly, "Martha, Martha (we insert our own name here), you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.

One thing. That in itself is a huge lesson. That as we set aside time in our day for devotion, whenever that time is -- morning, noon, or night; mealtime, bedtime, quiet time -- that we focus on one thing only. We practice letting go of other thoughts, we practice releasing our grip on our worries, whatever they are, however urgent or important they are, and allow ourselves to sit quietly at Jesus' feet. We allow ourselves to listen. Listening is where faith begins. Listening is where prayer begins.

Mary, we notice, is commended for doing two things only: sitting and listening.
She is commended by Jesus, we would say, for doing nothing. He commends us when we face our distractions and choose instead to be still and practice listening to the One who comes to us, the One who would be a guest in our home. We serve him first by loving him with our attention, our listening. He serves us by taking us deeper into his promises, into his purposes, into his love.

Like the parable of the sower and the seed, if we want the word of God to take root in us, we have to pay attention to what makes for fertile soil, to the conditions for growth. It's so easy -- especially today in our world of distractions, when there is so much to do, when there is so much we feel we ought to be doing -- to turn from God and try doing it all ourselves. No wonder we get angry with Jesus! He lets us choose to be distracted, even to the point where he, Jesus, seems like a distraction! If you would just wait, Lord, until I get everything done, until I get to the bottom of my list, then I will gladly sit at your feet. But right now, as you can see, I am busy.

If there is one thing the church of Jesus Christ is about, it is being a community where we grow not only in our serving but in our listening.

If there is one thing the church is about, it is recognizing that Jesus is not only our host but also our guest, and that it is an act of holy hospitality to spend time with him, to be still, to let his thoughts be our thoughts, to let the seeds of his truth take root in our lives.

It's not something our busy world understands. So many people assume that prayer, time spent in devotion, is just something that religious people do, like going to church. They see prayer as words, lots of words. Yet Jesus tells us, he reminds the Marthas of the world, that prayer is first a relationship, it is about spending time with someone we love, someone whose presence is itself an inexpressible gift. Just being quiet in God's presence is enough, let alone the promise of being heard and understood.

So the Lord reminds us that if we are looking for a model disciple, a person who gets what it means to live a grace-filled life, we need look no farther than Martha's sister. She is the one who sits and listens. He urges us to follow her example, he gives us permission to set aside every other thing we need to do, even those things we think we need to do for him.

Jesus tells Martha, Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.

What does he mean by that? I remember leading a worship service in the Alzheimer's wing of a skilled nursing facility. It seemed no one in the circle was paying particular attention. I wondered what use I was, if I was just wasting my time with people whose minds were too far gone even to worship. I went ahead and read scripture and offered some thoughts. I felt like I was talking to myself.
Then I prayed the Lord's Prayer, and it was as though there was an awakening.
All of a sudden I heard voices raised loud and clear, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name… I realized in that moment that while the disease could take away thought, memory, even personality, this prayer, this perfect prayer, would not be taken away from these women, these men.

Maybe prayer is the beautiful, stubborn, precious gift that will not be taken away from Mary, or from any of us. Maybe it is the one thing that will last; the one thing we will always have. At every turn in our journey, even at the end of our journey, prayer is our assurance that Christ is our host and our guest. He is very present; in him, we are not alone.

Christ is our strength. We spend time at his feet so we can walk in his way.