07.17.2022 - The Busyness of Loving God and Others

38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40 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.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

The Busyness of Loving God and Others

Messing up

Have you ever tried to do something good and completely messed it up?

I remember one evening as a teenager; I tried to make macaroni and cheese for dinner for my two younger siblings and me. This was before the microwave bowls that are now so prominent and convenient to make. I had macaroni and cheese in a box that came with the macaroni and a packet of cheese powder. You had to supply your own water, milk, and butter.

It started off well. I got the water in the pot and got it boiling. I added the macaroni and even kept it from boiling over while the macaroni cooked. Right about then, I got distracted, and instead of the macaroni boiling for 7-8 minutes, it boiled longer. A lot longer. It boiled long enough that by the time I was ready to drain the water, there was not much water left to drain. The macaroni had gone from dry to soft and back to crunchy again in the few minutes I was off trying to do something else. I knew that was going to be trouble. I had to make a decision on how to fix my mistake of not following the directions, so I put my brain to work and quickly came up with a solution to the problem. I would make up for the water I boiled away by adding a little extra milk to cook the noodles.

My solution did not go as planned. It takes real talent to make macaroni and cheese from a box that is both burnt, crunchy, extra soupy, and has speckles of dried cheese floating in it that could not bond with the noodles. I managed to mess it up in almost every possible way, all at one time. I had good instructions and all the right equipment. I had all the right ingredients in the right amounts. But I didn’t follow all the directions. I made some parts up on my own. So it was peanut butter and jelly for dinner that evening instead.

Like most things in life, you cannot get creative in good ways until you have mastered the basics of your craft. When we do, we get ourselves stuck in situations where we are trying to figure things out on our own, often feeling forced to choose between two values that are both necessary and essential.

In our lives as Christians, we face the same challenges. Last week we heard how Jesus challenged those who had a good record of keeping the law but did not understand the role of mercy in God’s mission. Today we will learn again that loving God and loving Others is not really two different things.

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Mary and Martha

Luke gives us two examples in one teaching. Last week, the story of the lawyer trying to justify himself before God ended with him humbly admitting that He could not love God without loving those around him. Luke immediately tells us another story about our relationship with God and others.

Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, all good friends of Jesus, were hosting Jesus and the disciples. We don’t know how long they knew each other at this particular point, but we know that in that Mid-Eastern culture, you were never so familiar that hospitality was not one of the most important values. In those cultures, even today, they would never tell you, “There’s the fridge; make yourself at home.”. There, it is the homeowner’s job to “make them feel at home.” It is considered a sacred duty whose roots go back into the stories of Genesis.

So Martha is clearly in the right, preparing food and helping Jesus and the disciples feel at home in their house. Hospitality was to be shown to everyone, especially someone as beloved and respected as Jesus and his disciples. Everyone who heard or read this story would have felt empathy with Martha as she watched her sister just sit at Jesus’s feet, abandoning her sacred duty... and for what? So she could pretend to hang out with the men?

Not only was it culturally inappropriate for the moment, but there was also no hope for a future in it. Those who did not fit the role of wealthy, powerful males, who came from respected families, had no role in leading the community, especially the religious community. Everyone else could serve behind the scenes in ways they were neither seen nor heard.

But Jesus lived differently. He did not choose the “right kind of people” as disciples. He chose such a wild mix of people and cultures together that it is a miracle Christianity ever made it through the three years they had Jesus with them, let alone beyond the countryside of Galilee, to the ends of the earth, across two thousand years. That day, Mary chose to live in a way that abandoned her duty to sit and listen to Jesus.

The bizarre part of this story is that Jesus did not scold or punish her. In fact, He commended and celebrated her willingness to be present, listen to Him, and put everything else aside. I want to jump up and say,

“Can’t she do both? Can’t she be serving others while she is listening to Jesus?”

Jesus tells us the answer is no - and that we may need to look at serving differently. Jesus told Martha that she was worried about many things but that she only needed one thing and that Mary had found it and it would not be taken from her.

What does that mean?

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One Thing

Sometimes we come across choices that seem to contradict each other but actually do not. It puts us in situations where we are forced to choose between two necessary things.

If I offered you a brand new car and said, I would give you a choice between two cars, both brand new, nearly identical. The biggest difference was that one had only a gas pedal, and the other had only a brake pedal. Which would you choose?

Before you try to find a loophole in that choice and end up with a mess worse than my macaroni and cheese, you need to know that the choice is rigged. A car that can go but cannot stop is only half a car. Likewise, a car that does not go but stops is only half a car. You need both.

However, you cannot do both at the same time. It ruins the car, and you don’t get anywhere. Trying to be both Mary and Martha at the same time makes us fail at being either one. We have to choose which one to be at which time.

If you are serving and have not heard from God for weeks, it’s time to stop and get with God. If you hear from God all the time but aren’t doing anything, that’s a different problem, and maybe you need to go back and read the story of the Good Samaritan again. But I believe there are more of us who are going, going, going, and doing, doing, doing, and are not taking the time to sit at the feet of Jesus and really listen to what He has to say about us and the opportunities we have to serve.

We have to learn to see two things as one thing. Listen and obey.

You may think, that’s not me... I’ve got my SHAPE I know what tools I have to serve. Let’s get to work.

Consider this: How big would Noah’s boat have been if he just started building himself without instructions from God? Would it have been big enough to fulfill the mission God gave him?

How would the Tabernacle or the Temple have looked if they did not wait to get instructions from God? We know the second Temple they built was nowhere near as good as the first, and everyone talked about that until the day it fell. People can build a building, but it takes God to make it a church. People can gather together, but it takes God to make them the Body of Christ.

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Listen and Obey

Listening and Obeying are two sides of following Jesus. If we are going to be faithful to God, we have to listen to God and then do what He says. We have to stop and then go. Stop, and then go. Red light, Green light. Stop and listen to God. Go and do what He tells you. If we do not stop and listen to God, we cannot go and serve Him faithfully.

How do you do that? How do you stop and listen to God? Get someplace quiet. Take your bible. Take your SHAPE test results to pray about. Take your to-do lists and offer them up to God. Ask God to guide you. Ask what He wants you to do and how to do it? Read your Bible, and before you take your to-do lists and SHAPE test, and whatever else you’ve asked Him for guidance, stop and wait before you take that offering back from God.

The prophet Elijah saw God work in mighty miracles throughout His life, but He got worn down at the end and couldn’t hear God’s voice. He tried to find the next big shiny thing or big and powerful miracle. It was only when he waited long enough that He finally heard God in the quiet. There in the still small voice, God told Elijah exactly what he needed to hear: You are not alone. Here’s what you need to do. Get up and Go. Wait for the still small voice to direct your way, and God will tell you exactly what you need to hear.

If you do not learn to stop and listen to God, like Mary, you too will be concerned with many things. You will be overwhelmed by many things. And you will do many things, but you will not be faithful to God. You will be led by many things, but you won’t be following Jesus. You’ll spend your life, your time, and your energy following something else that will eventually take you away from God.

The call of the gospel is two things done as one: repent and believe, listen and obey, stop trusting in ourselves, and start trusting in God. If we won’t lead by example, how can we expect anyone to follow Jesus? Will you choose to be part of the world’s problem, or will you choose to be part of God’s solution?

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