When Jesus Comes For Dinner

If Jesus, showed up at your door—with a handful of his disciples—tonight for supper. How would you respond? What would be your focus?

Think about that for just a moment as I try to set up this text for us...We will be back in the gospel of Luke this morning. 10:38-42.

As you are turning there I want to remind you of a previous encounter that Jesus had with a guy named Simon. He was invited to Simon’s house…and Simon was absolutely horrible at hospitality. He didn’t greet him, didn’t clean his feet, didn’t anoint his head…he did not show love to Jesus.

If we hadn’t taken our little hiatus through Jonah we would also have just finished the story of the Good Samaritan. It’s a parable to teach a theology nerd about real compassion. Religious leaders walked past a hurting man but a Samaritan actually shows love.

So let’s summarize these for a moment. You’ve got a guy who wants to hear from Jesus, invites him over, but doesn’t get to talk theology because a “woman of the city” interrupts the party. And the guy is rebuked for not noticing her and not showing hospitality to Jesus.

In the other story you’ve got a theology nerd who is rebuked through a parable for not loving and serving his neighbor. If you love people you take care of them…you serve them.

Given these stories, Jesus shows up at your door step. What do you do? Where do you focus? Our story today will have two sisters…one who serves the other who sits. Which one will Jesus commend?

Read Luke 10:38-42

Luke 10:38–42 ESV

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

Sermon Introduction:

That seems like the opposite of what we would have expected there. Shouldn’t Mary have been serving Jesus? Shouldn’t she have been placing this above theological instruction? For first century hearers Jesus would seem to be siding with the wrong person here.

So what do we do with that? What I’ve heard often with this passage is that if you’re given a choice between work or worship you should pick worship. Or to say that this is clear that Jesus values the contemplative life—the sitting at Jesus’ feet life—over the active one.

But I think that might be missing the point. Imagine that you are a religious leader, traveling along the road, getting ready to go lead a Bible study. And you see a person on the side of the road hurting and wounded. You don’t pick the Bible study, do you? You don’t pass up the guy in the ditch.

I don’t think this text is intending to ask those questions. Work or worship? I don’t think that’s the question here. It’s not what Jesus is aiming to teach. He isn’t telling Martha to put down her ladle and sit down beside Mary. This isn’t about WHAT they are doing. This is about the WAY in which they are doing it. I want to show you that this morning and hopefully it will teach us a little bit about the nature of discipleship.

I mention that because I think it’s very possible to have a Martha heart while doing a Mary activity. Or to do a Martha activity while having a Mary heart. We can be very prone to think that the THING we are doing is what matters more than the heart behind what we are doing.

So let’s try to get ourselves into this story for a moment and I think it will help us to understand what is going on here.

You love Jesus. You want to show that you love Jesus. You want to show how valuable Jesus is to you. You want to do something in order to show him how wonderful and valuable he is.

That’s a fine desire isn’t it?

And so Martha does what she knows how to do. She busts out the good plates, she cleans the house, makes sure they have good seats, puts out her best recipe…let’s say that she is absolutely convinced that Jesus is going to LOVE her lemon bars. That’s her speciality and she wants to give them to her king.

All this is fine. This is good. This is worship. This is like the woman who breaks open expensive perfume and anoints Jesus’ feet with it. This is that type of worship.

But what happens when Martha realizes that she is out of lemons. And there is no way that she is going to be able to get more lemons. You can’t make lemon bars without lemons. And now Jesus cannot have her best. It’s Jesus. He deserves the best. Her lemon bars are the best. If she doesn’t produce lemon bars then she is a failure. She frantically looks through the house for lemons…she looks over and sees her sister Mary—not a single lemon care in the world. Jesus as well…doesn’t seem to care that Mary doesn’t care…we don’t have any lemons here Jesus. And I cannot make you lemon bars without lemons!!! Do you not see that we have a level 1 crisis going on here? Can you not tell Mary to get off her blessed assurance and at least go see if the neighbors have some lemons?????

Now what has happened here? What’s the little shift that has taken place?

Martha has gotten distracted hasn’t she. If providence leads to you not having lemons in your house when Jesus comes over—you can’t make him lemon bars. If you aren’t content giving him the very best of what you have in that moment—then it’s no longer about the one getting the gift, it’s become about the one who is GIVING the gift. It’s not about what Jesus wants or desires (he never made a lemon bar request) but it’s about what you’ve decided to give him.

That’s what that word there in verse 40 means… “But Martha was distracted...” The word isn’t a common one but it literally means to be “pulled away”. The picture here is that Mary is tethered to Jesus. She is tied to him. She’s hearing him.

What does that mean? It means that rather than deciding Jesus would really like some lemon bars—she hears what he is actually wanting in that moment and she responds to him. He has given her what is needed in that moment and she gives it. She sits at his feet and gives him her ear…gives him her heart.

And there’s something beautiful here as well that is quite counter cultural. She is sitting at the Lord’s feet. That’s a place reserved for disciples. In the first century, disciples are supposed to be dudes. The ladies need to be doing the hospitality stuff. But Jesus is calling Mary to be a disciple. A beautiful thing that Jesus is doing here.

But Martha…Martha isn’t tethered to Jesus in the same way. She still loves Jesus. She still wants to serve Jesus…but she gets pulled away from Jesus. And she gets lost in the WHAT of serving instead of the WHO.

Oh, how easily it is for us to do this very thing. To come up with a ministry idea, to come up with a service project, to come up with a way that we really want to show that Jesus is King—but providence makes it to where we aren’t able to execute this plan quite like we had it in our mind. And we respond with getting angry with the Mary’s in our life, we question Jesus, we question his dedication to us. It’s a subtle shift, but left unchecked it’ll grow into a deep and dark bitterness of soul.

Now we’ve added that lemon bar thing…but the text itself says she is distracted with much serving. That word for serving is where we get the word deacon. It’s a word used of Jesus himself. It’s part of the very core of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, really. The son of man came to serve...

So how can you be “distracted by” something that is part of the very heart of being a follower of Jesus? Because you make it about the THING itself instead of Jesus. Whatever specific you fill into that “serving” category—it can become a distraction from the main thing.

Let’s look a little closer at the danger that Martha is in here. It’s seems that her identity has gotten wrapped up in making lemon bars. It’s a false identity. And what she’ll do with this is she will then connect the way Jesus views her with that thing. I’m the lemon bar lady. And when she can’t be the lemon bar lady it creates a crisis of faith.

Look what happens here to Martha.

Notice first that her eyes are turned away from Jesus and onto Mary. That always happens. One of the first things that happens when we turn our eyes away from Jesus is we resort to biting and devouring one another. We worry about what “they” are doing. We assume that their discipleship is deficient somehow.

You ever hear that illustration about the complaining lady who comes to the pastor and talks about how horrible everyone in the church is…and the pastor has the lady walk around church with a full glass of water…she doesn’t spill a drop…and the pastor asks if she noticed any of the hypocrites, gossips, or other problems within the church. He then makes his real zinger point:

You were focused on the glass, to make sure you didn’t stumble and spill any water. It’s the same with our life. When we keep our eyes on Jesus, we don’t have time to see the mistakes of others. We will reach out a helping hand to them and concentrate on our own walk with the Lord.

I think that’s a pretty fitting point here as it applies to Mary and Martha. A lack of focus on Jesus will cause to not only notice but to focus upon inconsequential things and what other people are doing.

Of course I think there might be a corrective in that as well. Sometimes being a follower of Jesus DOES mean being another set of eyes for our fellow believers. I can’t chase this rabbit long so I’ll just share briefly what I’ve said on this in the past:

So if someone in your congregation isn’t Jesus focused they are going to be noticing silly things like what people are wearing, carpet colors, etc. They’ll also be focused on protection and preservation instead of gospel ministry. They need to hear the glass of water illustration. But if you truly are following Jesus and focused on discipleship, evangelism, and other kingdom building issues then you are going to notice the person who is focused on carpet colors instead of living like Jesus—and rightly so.

Notice what also happens within Martha’s heart. It’s not only that she notices Mary---it’s also that she rebukes her—and tries to get the Lord on her side in rebuking her—for not joining in her lemon bar crisis.

It leads to anger. It leads to assuming that the Lord doesn’t care. Look at verse 40. She acknowledges him as Lord. She is still kind of submitting to him. But notice how she is doing it. The verse ends with Martha directing Jesus. “Tell her then to help me”.

Let’s look at what she is doing.

First, she is assuming that her and Jesus are totally on the same page. She cares about giving him lemon bars. Jesus cares about her. Jesus cares about her being able to give him lemon bars. When she says, “don’t you care” it’s an assumed yes. But notice what happens with a statement like this.

If you really care about me Lord....if you really cared…then you’d affirm what I want you to affirm. If you really cared then you’d join me in this. But that’s not what care really is. Jesus’ care for Martha is making sure that she isn’t distracted. It’s making sure that she doesn’t miss out on the “one thing” misses out on her greatest good. That’s how he will really love her.

“She’s left me alone.” If you really loved me then you’d enlist others in my campaign. You know early on in ministry I had to learn a lesson like this the hard way. I’ll be honest and say that I don’t even remember the specifics of the ministry…but it was some sort of a vision that I had for teaching kids in a neighboring trailer park area to fish…to build relationships with some of our adults, etc. I still think it was a great idea. The problem…nobody else seemed to think it was a great idea. So you know what I struggled with?

I struggled with bitterness towards others. Don’t they care about these kids? Don’t they want to help them? They left me alone in this ministry. But then my anger started to merge a little…I started getting upset with God. He killed my ministry idea. Didn’t he care? Does he not care about those kids? Is he rejecting me? Is he rejecting my gifts to him?

I wanted to give you this thing Jesus…you didn’t help me give you this thing…do you really love me?

How twisted is that thinking? How quickly we can make those leaps…turn on other people…turn on the Lord. He never asked her to make lemon bars. That fishing idea must have been mine…and mine alone…because if it was the Lord’s then it would have been accomplished. What happened to me, what happened to Martha, what can happen to all of us is that it suddenly isn’t about Jesus anymore and then we end up in that really awkward spot where we’re telling Jesus what to do…you know…so we can serve Him. It’s all about you Jesus....uhmmm…yeah, right.

But look at how Jesus responds. Look at how Jesus tenderly cares for Martha…and for Mary.

He doesn’t play the game. He doesn’t buy into her worldview. But he says to her Martha, Martha. Oh, what tenderness is in these words. Martha, Martha, Martha. No. It’s Martha, Martha.

You are anxious…swirling about, wave of emotions, palms sweaty, blood pressure rising, frantic…freaking out…triggered…making everyone around you uncomfortable as well. You’re anxious, Martha. Pause, Martha. Look at what is going on in your heart, Martha. Is that what I bring? Is that the type of ministry I’m asking for?

“Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest....” That’s who I am, Martha. If you’re ministry is leading to this type of anxiety…something is off. It’s not about Jesus anymore. Pain, suffering, heartbreak, exhaustion…yeah, those are part of ministry. Anxiety. Shouldn’t be.

Look at your heart, Martha. You’re troubled. You have so much inner turmoil, Martha.

One thing, Martha. Only one thing is necessary.

And it’s not lemon bars, Martha. It’s me. It’s union with me. Look at Mary. She has chosen the good portion, Martha. She has gotten the one thing. And I’m not going to take that away from her in order to help you make these lemon bars.

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One thing is necessary....

If you call yourself a disciple of Jesus do you believe that? Does your life reflect that. Or are you anxious and troubled. Are you calling yourself a disciple of Jesus but you’ve been given over to a Martha heart? If so, repent.

Repentance might mean dropping that ladle and sitting at the feet of Jesus for a season. But it might mean holding that ladle in a new way. Oh, man. We don’t have lemons. What’s my next best option that I can use to honor Jesus? Oh…I’ve got some strawberries. I bet he’d like a strawberry pie. I’ll do that for him.

Providence means that I’m not able to do this particular ministry right now. But what can I do. What is Jesus calling me to do? That’s the proper question.

Or maybe you don’t have a relationship with Jesus. Not about what you do. One thing necessary…union with Christ…sitting at his feet. It’s not just listening to a sermon. That’s not what is taking place here…the language here is that of discipleship…of being an apprentice. Of following Jesus and what he says. Of being united to Him.

That’s the one thing necessary.

Are we doing that church? United to Jesus. Following Jesus. Getting our marching orders from Him. Or we just following all sorts of Jesus looking stuff and calling it that...

Look at our hearts. Anxious. Troubled. Might be a good indicator that something is off.