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| "hope" by chris riebschlager, on Flickr |
Genesis 18:1-10a
The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. He said, “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.” And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, “Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.” Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate. They said to him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.”
Luke 10:38-42
Now as [Jesus and his disciples] 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.”
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Sometimes, as a preacher, you have to make a choice. You can preach the sermon that needs to be said, or you can preach the sermon that needs to be heard. Our world continues in crisis, and so the sermon that needs to be said might again address the urgency of our broken world. But I suspect that your hearts are as weary as mine, and so instead today, the sermon that needs to be heard is one that reminds us that we are not beyond hope; that we are not beyond comfort.
Over the last few weeks, we have been reading pretty much straight through from chapters nine and ten of Luke’s gospel. These chapters, if you remember, mark a shift in Jesus’s ministry. Before this, he had been teaching and healing in the Galilean countryside. But with these chapters, Jesus starts his long, intentional march toward Jerusalem, toward the cross.
One of the recurring themes in these last two chapters has been the topic of hospitality.
If you remember, Jesus and the disciples began their journey by traveling through Samaria, where they were shown no hospitality whatsoever. After they pass through, Jesus then sends out the seventy to heal and to teach, and he sends them empty-handed, that they might rely on the hospitality of others. Jesus rebukes cities and regions that do not show hospitality to his disciples and his message. Last week, we heard the parable of the Good Samaritan, where Jesus teachers that faithful hospitality crosses all boundaries. And now today, Jesus comes to the home of Mary and Martha.
Up until this point, Jesus makes a very clear point: hospitality and generosity are necessary parts of faith and discipleship. This wouldn’t have come as a surprise to any of his listeners. In ancient times, hospitality was of high cultural value. Part of welcoming guests into your home meant caring for them, feeding them, sheltering them, protecting them, giving them all the amenities they desired, and showing them a place of honor.
An example of this sort of gratuitous hospitality is our Genesis reading today. Abraham is sitting outside his tent in the heat of the day, and an important detail that we don’t hear in this part of the story is that Abraham isn’t so much relaxing lazily in the sunshine, as he is recovering; prior to today’s story, Abraham has just been circumcised at the age of 102. And yet when three strangers from the Lord appear at his tent, what does he do? He jumps up, runs to them, bows low to the ground (ouch?), and he finds them milk to drink and water to wash with, and he rushes to the field to pick out a calf to be prepared for a meal, and has Sarah bake some cakes and he finds some nibbles for his guests to snack on while they are waiting for the meal.
Serving guests and treating them with honor is just what you do.
So Jesus comes to visit Mary and Martha, and we enter the story after Martha has already arranged a comfortable place for Jesus to sit, offered him water to wash, and given him something to drink. She continues to care for him and tries to anticipate his needs, and at this point, she is probably puttering around in the kitchen beginning work on the most festive meal that she can muster with the ingredients she has on hand. She is doing necessary work. Work that was expected of her. Work that brought her honor. Work that was busy and frustrating. Work that would have been made easier, perhaps, with a second set of hands.
Frenzied and overwhelmed, she calls out from the kitchen, “Jesus, Mary is sitting at your feet instead of helping me - tell her to get in here and to pick up some of the slack!” But Jesus responds, “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.”
It’s a troubling statement. On the surface, it seems that Jesus is devaluing Martha’s work, or that he is going back on all of the stuff that he has just taught the disciples about the value of hospitality. But placed in the larger context of Luke chapters nine and ten, we see that Jesus’s words are less about hospitality and more about hope.
Do you remember our text from a few weeks ago, when three would-be followers of Jesus declare their hopes and intentions to become his disciples? They want to follow Jesus but are distracted by business at home - and not small trifling things, but real, actual concerns. Burying their dead. Protecting their families. Making necessary preparations for the journey. Jesus, who has set his face on Jerusalem, dismisses them because they aren't yet ready to commit to the urgency of the moment - they don’t see past the worries of the day into the pressing hope of God’s future.
Here in Mary and Martha's house, Jesus might be receiving refreshment and rest for the sake of his journey, but his urgency has not faded. He is still looking toward Jerusalem. He is still singularly focused on getting to the heart of the city, the heart of worship, the heart of religious and political structures. His mission is still crystal-clear: to save the world from broken politics, from the power of violence and death, from corrupt and oppressive perversions of justice, from the sin and sickness and despair that lead to death of spirit and failing of hope.
Jesus sits in Martha’s living room, but he is focused on Jerusalem, and he moves toward the city as a living symbol of hope that cannot die. Hope that cannot be snuffed out. Hope that persists beyond the passing of generations. Hope that cannot be overcome by terrorism or racism or violence or corruption or war.
When we look at Mary and Martha, we see that Martha’s heart breaks for the urgency of the day while Mary’s heart embraces the urgency of the hope that Jesus promises the world.
Jesus says, “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.” These words are not so much judgement or critique, as they are an invitation. An invitation into an alternative space where her worries and fears do not rule the day.
We are Marthas. We are worried and distracted by a million things. Turn on the news: shooting in Orlando, airport attacks Istanbul, police shooting a man during a traffic stop in Minneapolis, snipers shooting police officers protecting a peaceful demonstration in Dallas, terror attacks in Baghdad, terror attacks in Nice, an attempted military coup in Turkey…
There is violence everywhere. There is fear. People are dying. People are scared. Our hearts are bruised. We are not merely distracted…we are exhausted, powerless, numb, even despairing.
Jesus tells us that when the world is too much, when we are overwhelmed with the worries that threaten to consume us, when it looks like everything is in danger of crumbling or being taken away from us, that there is one thing that cannot ever be taken away. And that is Christ. Christ our hope and our life. Christ the better part.
Jesus doesn’t tell us to stop worrying about our neighbors, and he doesn’t chastise us for being sensitive to the sick, the poor, or the sorrowing, especially if we ourselves are sick or poor or in sorrow. But Jesus does remind us that in the midst of all the despairing things that surround and overwhelm us, we always have a place at his feet where we can rest and where we can renew our energy to find hope in the world.
Because Jesus is about to march to the center of the world, to speak words of peace and truth, to take up all sorrows and sufferings and pains and fears into his own body, that he might lay them all down on the cross, and rise again to prove that there is nothing - NOTHING! - left to fear, that there is no enemy that will ultimately prevail, that everything might seem to fall, but that life and hope and peace and resurrection and joy will stand strong.
Brothers and sisters, what are the worries and distractions that plague you? What is troubling your heart today? What cares of the world are threatening to overcome you? What griefs and pains are preoccupying your senses? What fears and anxieties are paralyzing you? What troubles and sighs are eating away at your spirit?
Brothers and sisters, my fellow Marthas, Jesus stands here today to call you out of the kitchen, to remind you that you are never far from hope. Jesus calls you to his feet, where becomes the host, offering you water to wash your weary soul and offering you bread and wine to nourish your spirit. Jesus calls you to the one thing that can never be taken from you, the one thing, the best thing, the eternal thing: the hope that he has brought to earth in his life and in his resurrection.
Jesus says, “Come, and sit. Rest by me. Hear my words and see my face. Breathe deeply of the Spirit. Be refreshed. Be reassured. Be renewed. Remember that there is hope. This is the better part. And it can never be taken away.”
Amen.
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