Working for God or Doing God's Work(27Feb2011)
Series: Loving God by Following the Way of Jesus
The Way of Jesus: M4 (11 02 27)
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: Working for God or Doing God’s Work?
Text: Luke 10:38-42
BIG IDEA: We are not called to work for God, but to do God’s work.
When I have traveled and spoken in poor countries that were formerly behind the Iron Curtain – like Romania, Slovakia, and Kazakhstan – I've been amazed at the sacrificial hospitality of the people. People who are truly impoverished have saved for months to prepare something special for me. When I've been there, I've often been served coffee which (at least at the time when I was there) was extremely expensive for the locals and considered something akin to liquid gold. When the cup was already poured for me and brought out to me, I would always be moved by the generosity of the people and would gratefully drink it. But, the truth is I don't drink coffee. I don't particularly like coffee. I prefer water. But the people of these countries simply assumed that because I am from North America, I must love coffee.
Sometimes as we relate to God, we assume that he wants something. We make an effort to give him “coffee.” But God may want something else. Today we are going to look at a story of two women who offer Jesus gifts. Both women love Jesus, both are sincere, but Jesus prefers first one gift rather than the other. This morning we are going to look at what Jesus wants and how we can go about discerning what he wants.
If you have your Bibles please turn the gospel of Luke, chapter 10, verse 38.
38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10:38-42
In this passage (v. 38) we read that Jesus and his disciples are on their way. Where are they going? Jesus and his disciples are on their way to the capital city of Jerusalem for the last time before his death. To get to Jerusalem they had to travel through the Jerusalem suburb of Bethany, which is about 2 miles east of Jerusalem. It would be like your coming into Vancouver from the Fraser Valley and having to come through the suburb of Burnaby.
When Martha hears that Jesus and his disciples are coming to town, Martha, a good friend of Jesus, insists that Jesus and his students come to her home for dinner. She and her sister Mary and their brother Lazarus are close to Jesus and they have opened up their home to Jesus in the past. In fact there was probably no home where Jesus felt more at home than the home of Mary and Martha. Martha wants to show how much she loves Jesus and these men by preparing a lovely meal for them.
I am always amazed at people, like my wife and others, who prepare cold foods from out of the fridge, while preparing hot foods on the stove—and make it all come out at the right time, so that everyone has a good time. To me it seems like a kind of minor miracle.
Martha was that kind of person, but she was having a hard day in the kitchen. She had been working in the kitchen preparing the meal with Mary, but when Jesus and his disciples arrived, Mary left the kitchen and sat at Jesus’ feet to spend time with him and to learn from him. But Martha is getting stressed out in the kitchen. We don't know exactly why. This past summer, we had 20 people over to our house for dinner one evening. Sakiko prepared the whole dinner. All I had to do was barbecue the beef and chicken. Fairly simple--right? Well for some reason our barbecue – normally really reliable – wasn't giving off much-needed heat at all. For some reason it would not get much warmer than 200°. I was able to cook the beef. It ended up being medium rare but more rare than medium – that was fine. The chicken was taking forever to cook. Sakiko had the rest of the dinner completely ready, but I was taking forever to cook the chicken... and experiencing stress... Maybe Martha wasn't getting enough heat from her oven and for some reason the bread wasn't rising... Perhaps everything else was ready, but one thing wasn’t working properly and so the whole timing of the dinner was being thrown off…. She's frustrated and needs help – and she's irritated that her sister Mary has left her alone in the kitchen.
She storms into the living room and sees Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet. Martha doesn’t talk to Mary but talks to Jesus and says, “Don’t you care that I have to get this meal all by myself? Tell Mary to come help me.” Martha was expecting that Jesus would come to her defense, and Jesus says, in effect, “Martha, you are worried and upset about many things. One dish would have been enough. Mary has chosen what is better.”
I know that preachers have often given Martha bad press, but I don’t think Martha was a bad person. Martha was a wonderful person. She generally served people. She would have been the person who if you were sick would have made lasagna and brought it over; she would be the kind of person who would help organize a special surprise birthday party for someone special in your life. Martha is not a bad person. Martha is a wonderful person, a giving person, someone you could count on.
In this story, Jesus is not suggesting that if, like Martha, you are a person of action, you are less valuable than a person who person who contemplates like Mary.
In the Scriptures and in the history of Christianity, both action and contemplation are important. Mother Teresa said we are contemplatives who act in the world. Both contemplation and action are valued by God. Ideally, like Mother Teresa, we are contemplatives who act in the world.
Contemplation and action are both important. They are not mutually exclusive. Part of the way we know that is because in the passage that immediately precedes this one, Jesus tells us the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus through this parable teaches that when you see a person in need – in this case the person is someone who has been violently mugged and left on the side of the road to die – and are able to do something about it, and then do something to care for that person, you are truly acting as a neighbour to that person. My seminary professor Haddon Robinson has said your neighbour is anyone whose need you see and whose need you are in a position to meet. When you act and meet that person’s need, according to Jesus, you are acting as their neighbour. Jesus and the parable of the Good Samaritan – which immediately precedes the story of Mary and Martha –praises action.
So why is it that Jesus commends Mary, and not Martha, for having done the right thing? If Jesus isn’t commending Mary for contemplation per se, if he is not condemning Martha for action per se, why does he favour Mary’s choice?
He approves Mary because Mary is doing what Jesus wants her to do. Jesus wants Mary, in this instance, to spend time with him, to learn from him. He would have preferred that Martha had chosen the same.
How do we know that Martha had chosen what was second or third best?
Obviously, at the end of the passage Jesus said, “Mary, and not Martha, has chosen a better way.” But we also have hints in the passage that Martha is acting outside of Jesus’ will for her. As we read in verse 40, Martha was distracted by all the preparations that she thought had to be made. She stormed into the living room, interrupted everyone and said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? Tell her to help me.” And Jesus responded, “Dear Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is essential.” One of the ways we know that Martha has chosen a path that is out of Jesus’ will for her is that she is worried and upset; she is all worked up.
Thomas Merton in New Seeds of Contemplation wrote that “unnatural, frantic, anxious work, work done under pressure of greed or fear is never willed directly by God.”
Evelyn Underhill wrote, “Fuss and feverishness, anxiety, intensity, intolerance, instability, pessimism, and wobble, and every kind of hurry and worry—these are signs of the self-made, self-acting soul.”
Part of the way we know that we may be out of the will of God is that we feel frantic, anxious, harried and hurried. When we are in alignment with Jesus’ will for us, even though his call may be demanding and hard, we will experience rest in our souls, a sense of energy and joy, gratitude and alignment with God. Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light. As you follow me, you will find rest for your souls.”
As we discussed last Sunday, part of what God calls us to do is to prayerfully listen to Jesus and to discern how he is calling us.
So we are not simply “working for Jesus,” but doing “Jesus’ work.” Some of you may remember the Jesuit priest, Father Thomas Green, who led a retreat for Tenth several years ago. He was a wise and wonderful man. He died a little over a year ago. His writings and his counsel to me have been a great gift.
Tom Green served as a spiritual director and professor of theology at Ateneo University in Manila. Tom gives this example that may help shed light on this passage.
He says, “Imagine that my birthday is approaching and a friend wishes to give me a gift. There are two ways she can go about it. Here’s one way. She can first try to decide what I would like and what she would like to give me, and then shop for the gift of her choice. Or she can ask me what I would like and give me what I request, provided she can afford it. Suppose she does it the second way. And suppose when she asks me what I would like, I say, ‘Blue cheese,’ since in my family I am known as a blue cheese addict, and since blue cheese is rare in the Philippines, the example is not at all farfetched. But for my Filipino friend it does present some problems. Blue cheese is scarce and it has an odour which Filipinos find repugnant, and those who have tried blue cheese in the Philippines generally don’t like it! So my friend might reply, ‘O-o-o-o-h, blue cheese! I could never that to anyone as a gift!’ So she finds herself with a problem. She knows what I would like, but she has no desire to give it to me. What will she do? It all depends on whether she really wants to give me a gift of her choice, or give me what I would like, however repugnant it might be to her.
Here is the main point. In our life with God, we can either ‘work for Jesus,’ that is, we can choose what we want to give him or we can ask him what he would like and do whatever he wishes.
If we decide what we want to give Jesus and he will surely be grateful and pleased by the love symbolized by our gift. It may not be what he really wants and what he can really use.”
This is what Martha seems to be doing in her busyness with all the cooking and cleaning and setting up. She is motivated out of her love for Christ, which he appreciates, but this is not what he wants. He would have preferred her to make a simple meal, and like Mary to have sat at his feet and listened to him.
At this point I am going to invite Meg Johnstone, a member of our community, to come and share the time where she discerned a time God was calling her, not to work for the Lord, but when he was calling her to do his work.
MEG’S TESTIMONY:
Over the last year, it became increasingly evident that, for a number of reasons, I needed to change my job. I have been actively pursuing new work for more than a year. I have had a number of interviews and referrals, one of which had led to a good contract, but had not yet found a permanent position. However, in early January, I suddenly found myself in the happy place of having two possible job options to choose between.
One of these options was the job I felt I wanted and that felt like my next logical step in the area of media to which I feel called. However, it had the distinct downside of being a temporary contract that only might work into something longer-term – no guarantees. The pay was initially better, but the position offered fewer hours and no long-term security.
The other job option felt like a step backward in some ways. While it was an opportunity to take on an increased leadership role, it was in a realm of media in which I already had experience, and from which I had felt called to move on. While I sensed this position would have less conflict and therefore less stress associated with it, it represented a step back into a sort of Christian subculture – an area I had specifically felt God was moving me out of a number of years earlier.
In addition, the first potential employer seemed in no hurry to start me in the new position and was slow to respond to requests for the basic details of the job. He also seemed reluctant to commit to the key terms like length of contract and a job description. At first, I assumed this was because he hadn’t actually advertised the job, as I had been referred to him, and needed to sort the details out. But as weeks turned into more than a month and threatened to turn into two months, the stress of not knowing was beginning to take a toll on me, and I was beginning to feel distinctly strung along. There was also the complicating factor of my current employer being in competition with me for the position.
I had spent hours praying, listening, asking for direction, looking for guidance, and truthfully at times, angsting about what I should do. I came to church one Sunday in the throes of this decision and at a breaking point. As I began talking with two friends of mine about how this was still dragging on, they both looked at me and said, “Wow, you don’t seem normal.” Though I wasn’t aware of it, I was speaking a mile a minute and they could see that I had lost my internal peace.
It’s funny how stress and anxiety can lead to a lack of peace where you can no longer hear God’s heart for you.
As they prayed for me, I could feel peace and perspective return – but the problem was still unresolved. Later that day, a friend gave me a tool that I found incredibly helpful. She asked me to look at the various options and potential next steps, and sense where I could feel God’s peace “resting.” This meant that no matter how challenging a step might appear to be, if I imagined myself walking it out, no matter the outcome, that end result felt peaceful.
As I calmed myself in Jesus’ presence and turned the eyes and ears of my heart to him, I realized that He was calling me first of all to honor myself. For me, this meant that in my current life circumstances, I have needs for a certain amount of pay and security. I recognized that if I didn’t have that, I would be constantly feeling stress and wouldn’t be any benefit to myself, my son, my friends and, ultimately, to the work to which I felt called. I realized that loving Jesus in this circumstance meant honoring myself as Jesus values me and believing that God’s plans for me are good. Jesus was calling me to love Him and love to others as I loved myself.
As I realized this, clarity about what I needed to do began to come. I was able to formulate an email to the potential employer saying, “This is the information I need, by such and such a time, because I do have other options available to me.” This felt like a bit of a gamble, because if he didn’t come through, I knew I had to honor myself and walk away. But I felt strangely free as I sent the email that night.
And guess what? He didn’t come through as I had hoped. But his response to me, which was quite dismissive, revealed his heart and brought me to the realization that this was not the kind of place I wanted to work, no matter how much it seemed to be the arena into which I believed I was called.
To be honest, I initially felt huge disappointment. But I also felt a surprising strength. I said to God, “Ok, if wanting me to serve in this other area and are placing me there, even for a time, then I accept. I will be faithful in whatever area You want to place me.”
I immediately felt peace and relief wash over me. And most surprising of all, I suddenly began to get ideas and vision for the position that had previously seemed like a step backwards. I began to see what Jesus’ desires might be in placing me there. I began to see how I could serve him. I also began to see that the important thing is not my expectation of how I think serving Him should look, or even about my advancement in my area of calling. It’s about being obedient to Jesus, about saying yes to what I see Him doing, even if it’s not what I imagined. And it’s about serving faithfully in that place, knowing that he who is faithful in little can be entrusted with much. In the parable of the talents Jesus told, the servants who were faithful in little were entrusted with entire cities and were told to “enter into the joy of the Father.”
Like Martha, I had thought God wanted me to pursue a certain calling, almost without regard to the personal cost to myself. But what I discovered was that in His great love for me, He has an easy yoke and a light burden, and that He takes us by the hand and gently leads us to the areas of responsibility He has for us. In that, there is great joy.
Thank you, Meg. Meg’s story is still very much in process. But I want to make this one observation about it. Meg apparently is being led by Jesus in a way that she did not anticipate. Sometimes, as Tom Green’s and Meg’s stories illustrate, Jesus will lead us in a way that we don't anticipate – even in a way that may surprise us. We see this in the story of Mary.
Jesus’ desire for Mary to sit at his feet was for that culture really surprising—radical even. Jesus was calling Mary into a role that was in the culture reserved only for men. In Jesus’ culture, as is true in some parts of the world today, houses were divided into male spaces and female spaces. The boundaries were strictly demarcated. Jesus had wanted Mary to cross that invisible, but very important boundary in the house. The living room was where men would meet. The kitchen belonged to the women. For a woman to be seated comfortably among the men would have bordered on scandalous in Jesus’ day. When we read in the passage that Mary sat at the feet of Jesus, it may seem like an innocuous posture. But sitting at someone’s feet in this kind of context in Jesus’ day didn’t mean that a person was looking up at a person adoringly as though he were a rock star. To sit at someone’s feet was an expression which meant that a person was a rabbi’s student. If you were a rabbi’s student, it meant that you wanted to a rabbi yourself.
Mary isn’t just sitting at Jesus’ feet for personal enrichment. It is not like she is auditing a class at Regent College summer school. They didn’t have that luxury. In Jesus’ day when a person sat at someone’s feet, it was a sign that they were that person’s student and that they too would one day become a teacher.
Jesus sometimes calls us into a place, like Meg and Mary, that may surprise us and others too.
So like Martha we can “work for Jesus”; that is, we can choose what we want to give him or, like Mary, we can ask him what he would like and do what he wishes.
And now I want to transition and discuss how we discern what Jesus wishes.
Like, Mary how do we discern what Jesus wishes? As I shared last Sunday, I shared about how part of the way we discern Jesus’ voice is by spending time praying in solitude. Last Sunday I spoke about how I used an ancient prayer method called the Ignatian examen, how I meditate on the Gospels, and attend to Jesus' voice in the circumstances of my life and in the significant choices of my life (if you were here you can download the MP3 off our website).
As I also said last Sunday, and I want to expand on it a little bit more this morning, we can also discern the desire of Jesus through community.
One of the ways that we discover what Jesus would like is by talking to people who know him well. In a way it’s not that different from how we discern what another person would like.
When I was getting ready to propose to Sakiko, I was very attracted to her, and I also had an intuitive sense and peace that she was the right person for me in a way that I never had with any of my previous dating relationships. But, honestly I did not know her that well. And she didn’t know me that well either. She assumed that as a Christian minister I would be so anti-materialistic and would have so embraced a simple lifestyle that there would no way I would be buying her an engagement or a wedding ring. She honestly thought that. I had something else in mind. I wanted to surprise her, but I did not know what kind of ring she might like. So I contacted my younger sister who was pursuing graduate studies in Tokyo and had her arrange a visit with Sakiko, and then when Sakiko wasn’t looking, to try to raid her jewelry box to find out what kind of jewelry she liked. I also asked my sister to contact Sakiko’s sister to find out whether she would prefer a gold, white gold, silver, or platinum ring. I made an effort to discover what kind of ring she would like…and surprised her.
So it is with us. In order to find what Jesus would like, sometimes it can be really helpful to talk to other people who know him well.
For example, if we want to do what Jesus desires in a big decision, it can be helpful to talk to people who know Jesus well about the decision we need to make.
For example, Parker Palmer in his book Let Your Life Speak describes how he had decided to accept the presidency of a college, but wanted to give his decision an air of respectability by vetting it past a Quaker clearness committee, a small circle of several trusted friends who help you discern God’s call by asking series of honest questions.
Parker was certain the job was for him, until someone in the circle simply asked, "What would you like most about being president?" Parker responded "Well, I would not like having to give up my writing and my teaching…. I would not like the politics of the presidency, never knowing who your real friends are…. I would not like having to glad hand people I do not respect simply because they have money…. "
Gently but firmly, the person who had posed the question interrupted him: “I asked what you would most like?" "Yes, yes, I'm working my way toward an answer." Then he resumed his litany of complaints. … Once again the questioner called him back to the original question. But this time he felt compelled to give the only honest answer he possessed, an answer that appalled even him as he spoke it. "Well…I guess what I'd like most is getting my picture in the paper with the word president under it." After some respectful silence… Finally the questioner asked, "Parker, can you think of an easier way to get your picture in the paper?"
Palmer reflects, “By then it was obvious, even to me, that my desire to be president had much more to do with my ego than with the ecology of my life.” Palmer later conceded had he taken the job it would have been bad for him and a disaster for the school.
Though less glamorous than the presidency of a college, Palmer decided to continue to work in relative obscurity as a teaching fellow in a rural, wooded community in Maryland. The exercise of prayerful discernment with trusted friends enabled him to discover and embrace how God was leading him to stay.
We can either “work for Jesus,” that is, we can choose what we want to give him, or we can ask him what he would like and do whatever he wishes.
We discern what he wants as we seek him in solitude and prayer and in community.
And Mary did this. According to verse 39, she sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. In John, Chapter 12, just days before Jesus' death on the cross, Jesus had another dinner in Bethany and Mary was again present. Mary took some extremely expensive perfume – perfume that was valued at a year's wages so the equivalent of thousands and thousands of dollars– and she poured out this perfume on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair and the whole house was filled with the fragrance of this perfume. Then one of the disciples objected, "Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages." Jesus responded, "She has chosen the right thing. She has anointed me with this perfume to prepare me for the day of my burial."
Mary again had done what Jesus wanted. It seemed that at this point in Jesus’ life – even though he had been predicting his death, even though he had been saying things like “I will lay down my life for the sheep”... none of his disciples seemed to anticipate his actual death. As far we can tell, Mary seems to intuit his impending death and therefore pours out this perfume over his feet and prepares them for his burial. How does Mary know? How does Mary sense what Jesus wants? According to the story of Mary and Martha, we see that she sits at his feet as she listens to him.
If we want to become people who do not “work for Jesus,” that is, we can choose what we want to give him, but like Mary would rather do what he would like, we will become people who take time to sit at Jesus' feet and listen to him.
For many of us it will mean we will need to simplify our lives in some way to make this happen. Mary left the kitchen to sit at Jesus’ feet. She simplified her life. No, there’s nothing wrong with making a seven-course meal when we are entertaining, if we do that in a way that doesn't ruffle our spirit and in a way that doesn't take away our time with Jesus. But in this story Jesus seems to be saying to Martha, at least in this instance, something simpler would have been better if it meant that she could spend time with him.
For some of us, the call to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to him is also a call to simplify our lives--so that we can listen to him--and so that we can receive his Spirit… so instead of “working for Jesus,” we do “Jesus’ work”—so that like Mary we do what he would like us to do.
Pray:
The Way of Jesus: M4 (11 02 27)
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: Working for God or Doing God’s Work?
Text: Luke 10:38-42
BIG IDEA: We are not called to work for God, but to do God’s work.
When I have traveled and spoken in poor countries that were formerly behind the Iron Curtain – like Romania, Slovakia, and Kazakhstan – I've been amazed at the sacrificial hospitality of the people. People who are truly impoverished have saved for months to prepare something special for me. When I've been there, I've often been served coffee which (at least at the time when I was there) was extremely expensive for the locals and considered something akin to liquid gold. When the cup was already poured for me and brought out to me, I would always be moved by the generosity of the people and would gratefully drink it. But, the truth is I don't drink coffee. I don't particularly like coffee. I prefer water. But the people of these countries simply assumed that because I am from North America, I must love coffee.
Sometimes as we relate to God, we assume that he wants something. We make an effort to give him “coffee.” But God may want something else. Today we are going to look at a story of two women who offer Jesus gifts. Both women love Jesus, both are sincere, but Jesus prefers first one gift rather than the other. This morning we are going to look at what Jesus wants and how we can go about discerning what he wants.
If you have your Bibles please turn the gospel of Luke, chapter 10, verse 38.
38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10:38-42
In this passage (v. 38) we read that Jesus and his disciples are on their way. Where are they going? Jesus and his disciples are on their way to the capital city of Jerusalem for the last time before his death. To get to Jerusalem they had to travel through the Jerusalem suburb of Bethany, which is about 2 miles east of Jerusalem. It would be like your coming into Vancouver from the Fraser Valley and having to come through the suburb of Burnaby.
When Martha hears that Jesus and his disciples are coming to town, Martha, a good friend of Jesus, insists that Jesus and his students come to her home for dinner. She and her sister Mary and their brother Lazarus are close to Jesus and they have opened up their home to Jesus in the past. In fact there was probably no home where Jesus felt more at home than the home of Mary and Martha. Martha wants to show how much she loves Jesus and these men by preparing a lovely meal for them.
I am always amazed at people, like my wife and others, who prepare cold foods from out of the fridge, while preparing hot foods on the stove—and make it all come out at the right time, so that everyone has a good time. To me it seems like a kind of minor miracle.
Martha was that kind of person, but she was having a hard day in the kitchen. She had been working in the kitchen preparing the meal with Mary, but when Jesus and his disciples arrived, Mary left the kitchen and sat at Jesus’ feet to spend time with him and to learn from him. But Martha is getting stressed out in the kitchen. We don't know exactly why. This past summer, we had 20 people over to our house for dinner one evening. Sakiko prepared the whole dinner. All I had to do was barbecue the beef and chicken. Fairly simple--right? Well for some reason our barbecue – normally really reliable – wasn't giving off much-needed heat at all. For some reason it would not get much warmer than 200°. I was able to cook the beef. It ended up being medium rare but more rare than medium – that was fine. The chicken was taking forever to cook. Sakiko had the rest of the dinner completely ready, but I was taking forever to cook the chicken... and experiencing stress... Maybe Martha wasn't getting enough heat from her oven and for some reason the bread wasn't rising... Perhaps everything else was ready, but one thing wasn’t working properly and so the whole timing of the dinner was being thrown off…. She's frustrated and needs help – and she's irritated that her sister Mary has left her alone in the kitchen.
She storms into the living room and sees Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet. Martha doesn’t talk to Mary but talks to Jesus and says, “Don’t you care that I have to get this meal all by myself? Tell Mary to come help me.” Martha was expecting that Jesus would come to her defense, and Jesus says, in effect, “Martha, you are worried and upset about many things. One dish would have been enough. Mary has chosen what is better.”
I know that preachers have often given Martha bad press, but I don’t think Martha was a bad person. Martha was a wonderful person. She generally served people. She would have been the person who if you were sick would have made lasagna and brought it over; she would be the kind of person who would help organize a special surprise birthday party for someone special in your life. Martha is not a bad person. Martha is a wonderful person, a giving person, someone you could count on.
In this story, Jesus is not suggesting that if, like Martha, you are a person of action, you are less valuable than a person who person who contemplates like Mary.
In the Scriptures and in the history of Christianity, both action and contemplation are important. Mother Teresa said we are contemplatives who act in the world. Both contemplation and action are valued by God. Ideally, like Mother Teresa, we are contemplatives who act in the world.
Contemplation and action are both important. They are not mutually exclusive. Part of the way we know that is because in the passage that immediately precedes this one, Jesus tells us the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus through this parable teaches that when you see a person in need – in this case the person is someone who has been violently mugged and left on the side of the road to die – and are able to do something about it, and then do something to care for that person, you are truly acting as a neighbour to that person. My seminary professor Haddon Robinson has said your neighbour is anyone whose need you see and whose need you are in a position to meet. When you act and meet that person’s need, according to Jesus, you are acting as their neighbour. Jesus and the parable of the Good Samaritan – which immediately precedes the story of Mary and Martha –praises action.
So why is it that Jesus commends Mary, and not Martha, for having done the right thing? If Jesus isn’t commending Mary for contemplation per se, if he is not condemning Martha for action per se, why does he favour Mary’s choice?
He approves Mary because Mary is doing what Jesus wants her to do. Jesus wants Mary, in this instance, to spend time with him, to learn from him. He would have preferred that Martha had chosen the same.
How do we know that Martha had chosen what was second or third best?
Obviously, at the end of the passage Jesus said, “Mary, and not Martha, has chosen a better way.” But we also have hints in the passage that Martha is acting outside of Jesus’ will for her. As we read in verse 40, Martha was distracted by all the preparations that she thought had to be made. She stormed into the living room, interrupted everyone and said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? Tell her to help me.” And Jesus responded, “Dear Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is essential.” One of the ways we know that Martha has chosen a path that is out of Jesus’ will for her is that she is worried and upset; she is all worked up.
Thomas Merton in New Seeds of Contemplation wrote that “unnatural, frantic, anxious work, work done under pressure of greed or fear is never willed directly by God.”
Evelyn Underhill wrote, “Fuss and feverishness, anxiety, intensity, intolerance, instability, pessimism, and wobble, and every kind of hurry and worry—these are signs of the self-made, self-acting soul.”
Part of the way we know that we may be out of the will of God is that we feel frantic, anxious, harried and hurried. When we are in alignment with Jesus’ will for us, even though his call may be demanding and hard, we will experience rest in our souls, a sense of energy and joy, gratitude and alignment with God. Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light. As you follow me, you will find rest for your souls.”
As we discussed last Sunday, part of what God calls us to do is to prayerfully listen to Jesus and to discern how he is calling us.
So we are not simply “working for Jesus,” but doing “Jesus’ work.” Some of you may remember the Jesuit priest, Father Thomas Green, who led a retreat for Tenth several years ago. He was a wise and wonderful man. He died a little over a year ago. His writings and his counsel to me have been a great gift.
Tom Green served as a spiritual director and professor of theology at Ateneo University in Manila. Tom gives this example that may help shed light on this passage.
He says, “Imagine that my birthday is approaching and a friend wishes to give me a gift. There are two ways she can go about it. Here’s one way. She can first try to decide what I would like and what she would like to give me, and then shop for the gift of her choice. Or she can ask me what I would like and give me what I request, provided she can afford it. Suppose she does it the second way. And suppose when she asks me what I would like, I say, ‘Blue cheese,’ since in my family I am known as a blue cheese addict, and since blue cheese is rare in the Philippines, the example is not at all farfetched. But for my Filipino friend it does present some problems. Blue cheese is scarce and it has an odour which Filipinos find repugnant, and those who have tried blue cheese in the Philippines generally don’t like it! So my friend might reply, ‘O-o-o-o-h, blue cheese! I could never that to anyone as a gift!’ So she finds herself with a problem. She knows what I would like, but she has no desire to give it to me. What will she do? It all depends on whether she really wants to give me a gift of her choice, or give me what I would like, however repugnant it might be to her.
Here is the main point. In our life with God, we can either ‘work for Jesus,’ that is, we can choose what we want to give him or we can ask him what he would like and do whatever he wishes.
If we decide what we want to give Jesus and he will surely be grateful and pleased by the love symbolized by our gift. It may not be what he really wants and what he can really use.”
This is what Martha seems to be doing in her busyness with all the cooking and cleaning and setting up. She is motivated out of her love for Christ, which he appreciates, but this is not what he wants. He would have preferred her to make a simple meal, and like Mary to have sat at his feet and listened to him.
At this point I am going to invite Meg Johnstone, a member of our community, to come and share the time where she discerned a time God was calling her, not to work for the Lord, but when he was calling her to do his work.
MEG’S TESTIMONY:
Over the last year, it became increasingly evident that, for a number of reasons, I needed to change my job. I have been actively pursuing new work for more than a year. I have had a number of interviews and referrals, one of which had led to a good contract, but had not yet found a permanent position. However, in early January, I suddenly found myself in the happy place of having two possible job options to choose between.
One of these options was the job I felt I wanted and that felt like my next logical step in the area of media to which I feel called. However, it had the distinct downside of being a temporary contract that only might work into something longer-term – no guarantees. The pay was initially better, but the position offered fewer hours and no long-term security.
The other job option felt like a step backward in some ways. While it was an opportunity to take on an increased leadership role, it was in a realm of media in which I already had experience, and from which I had felt called to move on. While I sensed this position would have less conflict and therefore less stress associated with it, it represented a step back into a sort of Christian subculture – an area I had specifically felt God was moving me out of a number of years earlier.
In addition, the first potential employer seemed in no hurry to start me in the new position and was slow to respond to requests for the basic details of the job. He also seemed reluctant to commit to the key terms like length of contract and a job description. At first, I assumed this was because he hadn’t actually advertised the job, as I had been referred to him, and needed to sort the details out. But as weeks turned into more than a month and threatened to turn into two months, the stress of not knowing was beginning to take a toll on me, and I was beginning to feel distinctly strung along. There was also the complicating factor of my current employer being in competition with me for the position.
I had spent hours praying, listening, asking for direction, looking for guidance, and truthfully at times, angsting about what I should do. I came to church one Sunday in the throes of this decision and at a breaking point. As I began talking with two friends of mine about how this was still dragging on, they both looked at me and said, “Wow, you don’t seem normal.” Though I wasn’t aware of it, I was speaking a mile a minute and they could see that I had lost my internal peace.
It’s funny how stress and anxiety can lead to a lack of peace where you can no longer hear God’s heart for you.
As they prayed for me, I could feel peace and perspective return – but the problem was still unresolved. Later that day, a friend gave me a tool that I found incredibly helpful. She asked me to look at the various options and potential next steps, and sense where I could feel God’s peace “resting.” This meant that no matter how challenging a step might appear to be, if I imagined myself walking it out, no matter the outcome, that end result felt peaceful.
As I calmed myself in Jesus’ presence and turned the eyes and ears of my heart to him, I realized that He was calling me first of all to honor myself. For me, this meant that in my current life circumstances, I have needs for a certain amount of pay and security. I recognized that if I didn’t have that, I would be constantly feeling stress and wouldn’t be any benefit to myself, my son, my friends and, ultimately, to the work to which I felt called. I realized that loving Jesus in this circumstance meant honoring myself as Jesus values me and believing that God’s plans for me are good. Jesus was calling me to love Him and love to others as I loved myself.
As I realized this, clarity about what I needed to do began to come. I was able to formulate an email to the potential employer saying, “This is the information I need, by such and such a time, because I do have other options available to me.” This felt like a bit of a gamble, because if he didn’t come through, I knew I had to honor myself and walk away. But I felt strangely free as I sent the email that night.
And guess what? He didn’t come through as I had hoped. But his response to me, which was quite dismissive, revealed his heart and brought me to the realization that this was not the kind of place I wanted to work, no matter how much it seemed to be the arena into which I believed I was called.
To be honest, I initially felt huge disappointment. But I also felt a surprising strength. I said to God, “Ok, if wanting me to serve in this other area and are placing me there, even for a time, then I accept. I will be faithful in whatever area You want to place me.”
I immediately felt peace and relief wash over me. And most surprising of all, I suddenly began to get ideas and vision for the position that had previously seemed like a step backwards. I began to see what Jesus’ desires might be in placing me there. I began to see how I could serve him. I also began to see that the important thing is not my expectation of how I think serving Him should look, or even about my advancement in my area of calling. It’s about being obedient to Jesus, about saying yes to what I see Him doing, even if it’s not what I imagined. And it’s about serving faithfully in that place, knowing that he who is faithful in little can be entrusted with much. In the parable of the talents Jesus told, the servants who were faithful in little were entrusted with entire cities and were told to “enter into the joy of the Father.”
Like Martha, I had thought God wanted me to pursue a certain calling, almost without regard to the personal cost to myself. But what I discovered was that in His great love for me, He has an easy yoke and a light burden, and that He takes us by the hand and gently leads us to the areas of responsibility He has for us. In that, there is great joy.
Thank you, Meg. Meg’s story is still very much in process. But I want to make this one observation about it. Meg apparently is being led by Jesus in a way that she did not anticipate. Sometimes, as Tom Green’s and Meg’s stories illustrate, Jesus will lead us in a way that we don't anticipate – even in a way that may surprise us. We see this in the story of Mary.
Jesus’ desire for Mary to sit at his feet was for that culture really surprising—radical even. Jesus was calling Mary into a role that was in the culture reserved only for men. In Jesus’ culture, as is true in some parts of the world today, houses were divided into male spaces and female spaces. The boundaries were strictly demarcated. Jesus had wanted Mary to cross that invisible, but very important boundary in the house. The living room was where men would meet. The kitchen belonged to the women. For a woman to be seated comfortably among the men would have bordered on scandalous in Jesus’ day. When we read in the passage that Mary sat at the feet of Jesus, it may seem like an innocuous posture. But sitting at someone’s feet in this kind of context in Jesus’ day didn’t mean that a person was looking up at a person adoringly as though he were a rock star. To sit at someone’s feet was an expression which meant that a person was a rabbi’s student. If you were a rabbi’s student, it meant that you wanted to a rabbi yourself.
Mary isn’t just sitting at Jesus’ feet for personal enrichment. It is not like she is auditing a class at Regent College summer school. They didn’t have that luxury. In Jesus’ day when a person sat at someone’s feet, it was a sign that they were that person’s student and that they too would one day become a teacher.
Jesus sometimes calls us into a place, like Meg and Mary, that may surprise us and others too.
So like Martha we can “work for Jesus”; that is, we can choose what we want to give him or, like Mary, we can ask him what he would like and do what he wishes.
And now I want to transition and discuss how we discern what Jesus wishes.
Like, Mary how do we discern what Jesus wishes? As I shared last Sunday, I shared about how part of the way we discern Jesus’ voice is by spending time praying in solitude. Last Sunday I spoke about how I used an ancient prayer method called the Ignatian examen, how I meditate on the Gospels, and attend to Jesus' voice in the circumstances of my life and in the significant choices of my life (if you were here you can download the MP3 off our website).
As I also said last Sunday, and I want to expand on it a little bit more this morning, we can also discern the desire of Jesus through community.
One of the ways that we discover what Jesus would like is by talking to people who know him well. In a way it’s not that different from how we discern what another person would like.
When I was getting ready to propose to Sakiko, I was very attracted to her, and I also had an intuitive sense and peace that she was the right person for me in a way that I never had with any of my previous dating relationships. But, honestly I did not know her that well. And she didn’t know me that well either. She assumed that as a Christian minister I would be so anti-materialistic and would have so embraced a simple lifestyle that there would no way I would be buying her an engagement or a wedding ring. She honestly thought that. I had something else in mind. I wanted to surprise her, but I did not know what kind of ring she might like. So I contacted my younger sister who was pursuing graduate studies in Tokyo and had her arrange a visit with Sakiko, and then when Sakiko wasn’t looking, to try to raid her jewelry box to find out what kind of jewelry she liked. I also asked my sister to contact Sakiko’s sister to find out whether she would prefer a gold, white gold, silver, or platinum ring. I made an effort to discover what kind of ring she would like…and surprised her.
So it is with us. In order to find what Jesus would like, sometimes it can be really helpful to talk to other people who know him well.
For example, if we want to do what Jesus desires in a big decision, it can be helpful to talk to people who know Jesus well about the decision we need to make.
For example, Parker Palmer in his book Let Your Life Speak describes how he had decided to accept the presidency of a college, but wanted to give his decision an air of respectability by vetting it past a Quaker clearness committee, a small circle of several trusted friends who help you discern God’s call by asking series of honest questions.
Parker was certain the job was for him, until someone in the circle simply asked, "What would you like most about being president?" Parker responded "Well, I would not like having to give up my writing and my teaching…. I would not like the politics of the presidency, never knowing who your real friends are…. I would not like having to glad hand people I do not respect simply because they have money…. "
Gently but firmly, the person who had posed the question interrupted him: “I asked what you would most like?" "Yes, yes, I'm working my way toward an answer." Then he resumed his litany of complaints. … Once again the questioner called him back to the original question. But this time he felt compelled to give the only honest answer he possessed, an answer that appalled even him as he spoke it. "Well…I guess what I'd like most is getting my picture in the paper with the word president under it." After some respectful silence… Finally the questioner asked, "Parker, can you think of an easier way to get your picture in the paper?"
Palmer reflects, “By then it was obvious, even to me, that my desire to be president had much more to do with my ego than with the ecology of my life.” Palmer later conceded had he taken the job it would have been bad for him and a disaster for the school.
Though less glamorous than the presidency of a college, Palmer decided to continue to work in relative obscurity as a teaching fellow in a rural, wooded community in Maryland. The exercise of prayerful discernment with trusted friends enabled him to discover and embrace how God was leading him to stay.
We can either “work for Jesus,” that is, we can choose what we want to give him, or we can ask him what he would like and do whatever he wishes.
We discern what he wants as we seek him in solitude and prayer and in community.
And Mary did this. According to verse 39, she sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. In John, Chapter 12, just days before Jesus' death on the cross, Jesus had another dinner in Bethany and Mary was again present. Mary took some extremely expensive perfume – perfume that was valued at a year's wages so the equivalent of thousands and thousands of dollars– and she poured out this perfume on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair and the whole house was filled with the fragrance of this perfume. Then one of the disciples objected, "Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages." Jesus responded, "She has chosen the right thing. She has anointed me with this perfume to prepare me for the day of my burial."
Mary again had done what Jesus wanted. It seemed that at this point in Jesus’ life – even though he had been predicting his death, even though he had been saying things like “I will lay down my life for the sheep”... none of his disciples seemed to anticipate his actual death. As far we can tell, Mary seems to intuit his impending death and therefore pours out this perfume over his feet and prepares them for his burial. How does Mary know? How does Mary sense what Jesus wants? According to the story of Mary and Martha, we see that she sits at his feet as she listens to him.
If we want to become people who do not “work for Jesus,” that is, we can choose what we want to give him, but like Mary would rather do what he would like, we will become people who take time to sit at Jesus' feet and listen to him.
For many of us it will mean we will need to simplify our lives in some way to make this happen. Mary left the kitchen to sit at Jesus’ feet. She simplified her life. No, there’s nothing wrong with making a seven-course meal when we are entertaining, if we do that in a way that doesn't ruffle our spirit and in a way that doesn't take away our time with Jesus. But in this story Jesus seems to be saying to Martha, at least in this instance, something simpler would have been better if it meant that she could spend time with him.
For some of us, the call to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to him is also a call to simplify our lives--so that we can listen to him--and so that we can receive his Spirit… so instead of “working for Jesus,” we do “Jesus’ work”—so that like Mary we do what he would like us to do.
Pray:
posted by Shigematsu at 12:45 PM
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