Luke 10:38-42; August 25, 2024; Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Someone once said to me, “Brian, you must be interesting to live with.”
Now, taken at face value, that can be translated as either a good thing, or a bad thing.
For instance, did they mean that I would be interesting to live with, because life would be better, more exciting, and more diverse? Maybe. Hopefully.
Or did they mean that I would be interesting to live with, because they would never quite know what to expect, and that I would make life more difficult for them and everyone else around me? Perhaps, maybe more realistically.
Well, I chickened out and never followed up with them to see what precisely they meant by their comment. A reminder that yes, even pastors can also be cowards. Though I suspect if you asked my wife, she would agree that I am indeed interesting to live with, but not for one reason or the other, but for both together. A mixture and union of good and bad. And you know what? She’s probably right.
For truth be told, I am a stickler for form and order. Which should come as no surprise as I am a Presbyterian Minister after all. And so, when I come home, I kind of like to enter into an orderly and clean house. You know what I mean?
And, we have a lovely little house, a twin in Doylestown, right on the perimeter of the borough. But when you enter, you are either directly in the living room or right in the kitchen. There is no foyer or entrance hall. So as soon as you open that door, you usually immediately find either people, homework, computers, or plates out in the open. And none usually bother me more than those plates. Yes, I have a sickness. Please pray for Anya.
So, I’ll sometimes come home, brimming with positivity after a great day here at Grace, only to have my mood change, not with a temper or anything, but changed all the same just because I see those darn glasses and plates, notebooks and eraser remnants. And even though I know that they are out for good reasons, like people living, eating, studying and working, I find myself getting annoyed all the same and I begin to start cleaning, grumbling all the way.
In other words, I fully admit to being annoying to live with, and easily distracted by slight disturbances. By those little things that really do not matter. By things that should never take me away from what does.
It’s a confession. It’s a failing. But knowing that I’m neither special nor unique in either failing or confessions, I must ask you, what are your distractions? What are your disturbances? That for you get in the way of your happiness (or other’s), of your goals (or other’s), and of the life you should be living and the focus you should be keeping?
Perhaps for you too it’s a messy house? Or maybe it’s a noisy group of teenagers outside your window late at night? Maybe it’s their loud music you can only understand as noise; or perhaps it’s an older neighbor mowing their lawn too early on a Saturday morning? Or maybe it’s something bigger than those things like the changes happening in our society, or just change altogether?
What distracts you from keeping your mood high and your spirits in good health? From coming home in peace, or going out in tranquility, recognizing the beautiful things in creation from nature to architecture to people?
Is it societal bias turned personal? Leaving you strangely focused on how you believe other people should dress, on whom they should love, or simply the tattoos up their arms and legs?
Or is it simply from life moving too fast around you, that you find yourself overly bewildered these days, distracted and annoyed? Unable to slow down and find your bearings as the email notifications pile up, as the assignments continue to flood in, as the practices and appointments keep being scheduled, later and later, lasting for longer and longer.
My son’s photo on the bulletin cover this morning I think gets it right. A black and white picture of trees slightly out of focus and blurry, taken from a car window of a vehicle moving too fast. From the vehicle of life moving too darn fast around him.
And, in this world that indeed moves too fast for us all, with so much vying today for our attention and all just a fingertip away, I think we need to be careful about keeping our focus on what’s important and what’s directly ahead of us. For nothing can be so destructive and dangerous than taking our focus off the path, distracted by a text or a tweet or something else inconsequential entirely.
So, maybe today, let’s actively, as ironic as this sounds, take time out of our days to become more inactive, so to minimize the distractions that we can control. To take time out of our day to listen, and watch, and wait. To sit, and pray, and meditate. So, to free our minds, hearts, and souls. So, to be better receptors of what God is calling us to do, and less enablers of what the world is wanting to force us to do.
And let’s just say that you leave today saying, “Amen Pastor, I’m going to give it a shot!” only to go back to your routines, forgetting all of this by tomorrow… well, know that you’re in great, good company.
Because… Martha, Martha…oh, dear Martha.
Oh yes, Martha, in our story, is the same Martha that we will later hear about becoming a personal friend of Jesus. Who would later remain faithful when he arrives a bit too late to save her brother Lazarus.
In those stories Martha shows understanding and faith, if not patience and a razor-like focus. But here, she is like me coming home to those plates in the sink, annoyed and distracted by things that really should not matter.
Jesus, who is there right before her tells her, “Martha, you are worried and distracted by too many things, but there is only thing, and Mary has chosen the better part (Luke 10:41).”
And, I imagine that his words probably sent Martha into hysterics if not grumbling under her breath. I mean, come on Jesus, she must have thought. I am here running around to get everything ready and orderly for you, while she just sits there and too close to your feet for comfort. How the heck then has she chosen the better part?
And you know those thoughts and that feeling, don’t you, my friends? I mean, have you ever found your spouse just sitting there while you are running around like a lunatic just to get things done? Now, imagine if someone you respected came into your house and said “you’ve got it all wrong” while the lump on the log over there has got it all right.
Yeah, I think that would bother most of us. But even though we can sympathize with this and understand Martha for trying to play the good and busy host, and getting annoyed thereafter, we are yet reminded by Jesus to learn a thing or two from Mary, so to remember to put things down from time to time. To stop and be attentive. Especially when something special and important is happening right before us.
But, here near the end, I don’t want you getting any ideas too big. Or too small for that matter. Don’t leave today thinking that you can just go home and say, honey, don’t blame me, but Pastor told me I should do more of nothing!
Nor should any of you pretend to be like those old anchorites — that funny sect of medieval Christians who took this passage literally; and thus so withdrew from activity to focus on prayer only, that they neglected even to clean up after themselves despite their brethren pleading for them to pitch in, all while saying, “we’ve chosen the better part!” No, don’t be like them either!
For as Gregory the Great, the former pope once wrote, “while the contemplative life has perhaps greater merit than the active life, the most desirable state is the union of them.” The union of both.
So, even though next week, and all throughout September we will read from the letter of James and hear about faith only being alive if it is at work… we must try to remember Mary too, and her example before us today, so to practice stopping, and pausing, and listening, and being attentive. So that we don’t get going too fast, headstrong down a wrong path.
Because if we’re too busy and consumed by our distractions, we just might miss seeing Jesus enter our homes, and hearing him call out our names, and watching him draw us into new and maybe more interesting roles that we should each be playing.
Amen.
