Perhaps when the Church is at it's best, is when "it's all ears." Almighty God urges the faithful, again and again, to "Listen up!" to heed the word from above.
So it was with Abraham an Sarah, With Mary and Martha and the early Church at Colossae.
Text: As Jesus and the Disciples continued on their way to Jerusalem they came to a village, where a women named Martha welcomed them into her home. Her sister Mary sat on the floor, listening to Jesus as He talked. But Martha was the jittery type, and was worrying over the big dinner she was preparing.
She came to Jesus and said, " Sir, 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." But the Lord said to her, "Martha, Martha, dear friend, you are so upset over all these details! There is really only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it- and I won't take it away from her!" Luke 10:38-42).
Yet, Jesus, advises, without being nourished by the word, you will become worried and distracted by many things. Your needs, your neighbor's needs, and the needs of creation will become overwhelming without an understanding of how God is already working to sustain and to redeem. Christians gather around the "Word" each Sunday, listening for God's activity in scripture, sermon , song, and prayer, knowing it can not live by bread alone. Inextricably linked with the story in (Luke 10), the story of Martha and Mary models only half of the ideal disciple. A disciple is not only one who sits and listens but also one who extends mercy through action. The liturgy of Sunday worship forms disciples in these two ways, first by proclaiming the word of God, then sending God's people into the world to live out what they have heard proclaimed. This homely story nudges us in more than one way. Familiar tensions are there: Protestant work-ethic verse freedom: duty-ridden housewives verses, happy-go-lucky youth; week day tasks verses the obligation of church going.
I remember going with my Dad, and sitting with the men on the porch at night listening to Joe Kellerman the neighborhood story-teller, telling stories about early life way before I was born.
I was seven years old, sitting between my dad's legs, enjoying these get-together of the big guys, sharing how it was before I came along.
St. Luke, however, appears to have a more primary and unified intention in placing this story right after Jesus dramatic parable of the "Good Samaritan" and its demand for the life of love.
For his little story is dramatic too: the continuing struggle in the life of God's people to choose the word for life. In the familiar setting of household living, as though to say, " Look, this means you,"
this story gets right to the heart of mankind's chief concern.: how to live?
By 'life" I mean staying alive, finding food, clothing, and shelter, amusing ourselves and coping with our worries, keeping healthy, and warding off the burdens of aging as long as possible,
In an early chapter of St. Luke, he tells a story of how the Devil helped Jesus face up to this fact: " We do need bread!"
In God's plan of creation, however, the life of work and play, body and spirit, muscle and nerve is simply the setting for life which has a richer meaning. That is the intention God has for man, that out of all his creatures, to be empowered by his spirit and for his purposes, so that man can share that life and spirit of God with others and so maintain the meaning of God as supreme in man's existence. God is interested in keeping his people physically alive, to be sure; the dead cannot praise thee. God knows everyone of his flock, where we are at all times, ready to put us into service at a moment notice.
Hezekiah mused ( Isa. 38:18). For Sheol cannot thank you, death cannot praise you; those who go down to the pit cannot hope for your faithfulness. But our Lord reminded Satan in the wilderness that even though man lives by bread, he does not live by bread alone, " but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. " Jesus quoted that line from Deuteronomy (6:16), this lesson that Israel learned from experience of its ancestors in the Exodus.
As we, the people of God, try to live out our lives, it is our business to see these two sides of life surging through us too. Both are important. What this little story tells us of Mary and Martha in our gospel text, that at times the two kinds of life confront us with a choice. You have to make up your mind, Always in (prayer for guidance) to move through life not simply coasting, but under the power of God and for the sake of his objectives for your journey and the load you are pulling.
We know through scripture ( proverbs) which reflects the incarnate wisdom which God ordained to provide his own impulse and guidance into the hearts of his people.
' Happy is the man that listens to me, who finds me, finds life and obtains favor from the Lord.'
(8: 34-35). To the Colossians St. Paul opened up the identity of this word and wisdom; it is Jesus Christ in whom God had acted to give his own people his own life, it is in the telling of Christ's work that this word and wisdom arrives at it's destination, namely us. Jesus came that we may have life, and have it abundantly. Remember, he is the way , truth, and the life. Who ever believes in me, will never die. God raised him from the dead, to proclaim him 'Lord of life." Jesus said to Martha, I am the resurrection and the life... whoever lives and believes in me shall never die ( John 11: 25-26).
In the early church, the earliest document, found from the 1st century (Didache), gives us a peek at just went on, when you wanted to join the church; the priest would ask you two questions: " Do
you want the way to Life; or the way to death! As we consider the two kinds of life in the abstract, it doesn't seemed difficult to decide which one gets the priority. But in actual experience we all know that it doesn't work that way, and that is precisely the burden of this story. It is difficult to make a choice for God's kind of life. The story of Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus were a small family; But Jesus had to say about Martha : " You are fretting and fussing about so many things" for she was distracted by her many tasks. The reason for this substance for life of the body take a thoroughly tangible struggle.
What makes the choice for the word of life secondary in our minds is the struggle for our bodily life.
and the burden of staying alive.
In our text Martha viewed Jesus as our guest speaker, a man of God. and she gave his word priority.
These wasn't words of a sermon, it was a power by which Jesus was opening up to Mary the act of God, in sending him into the world, to brings his father's creation back to himself.
Even under difficulties; the choice has to be made continually, to grow up in the life of God.
At your next meal at home and you share in the family meals, and help with the dishes afterward, and have a heart for the fretting and fussing of our dear ones; and remember the words from the priest in the "Didache," from the 1st century. Do you want the way of life or the way of death!
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