Lectionary 16C/ Proper 11

Luke 10:38-42

This part of Luke’s gospel – the ten chapters that began when Jesus set his face to Jerusalem – is called a travelogue, a narrative that describes the encounters people had with Jesus on his final journey to Jerusalem, where he is crucified, dies and is raised. Many of the stories here are unique to Luke, including the one we hear today. Martha and her sister Mary only appear in Luke and then in John with their brother Lazarus.

Before today’s gospel, Luke told us that Jesus had sent the 70 out with instructions to accept the hospitality of others when they arrived in a town. And then, when he was teaching, Jesus told the story about a neighbor who showed mercy and loved generously.

We know some of his disciples traveled ahead of him, and we can imagine that news of what he was saying and doing reached the people in the towns there before he arrived in person. From his teaching, it was clear that following Jesus and being his disciple requires humility and self-sacrifice, a willingness to serve others first. As Martin Luther wrote in his essay “Freedom of a Christian”: [i]

A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.
A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all…

Explaining the apparent contradiction, Luther writes,

Both are Paul’s own statements, who says in [First Corinthians], “For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all,” [1 Cor. 9:19] and in Romans, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another.” [Rom. 13:8] Love by its very nature is ready to serve and be subject to [the one] who is loved.

So when Martha extended hospitality and welcomed Jesus into her house, she was showing her readiness to serve her Lord. But then, wearily and grumpily, she cried out to Jesus, “Lord, do you not care?”

With her outcry, she exposed her own brokenness, her self-centeredness and fear – her sin. Like a petulant child, she complained against her sister Mary who was sitting, actively listening to all that Jesus was saying. In contrast, Luke tells us that Martha was distracted by “her many tasks.”

The Greek verb that describes Martha is translated as “dragged around” or “drawn away.” For anyone sitting here thinking about your grocery list or what chores you need to do when you go home, you can relate to Martha’s predicament. There is work to be done – necessary and important work – and someone has to do it.

When Jesus answered her and told her that Mary had chosen the better part, he was not saying that Martha had chosen poorly in offering hospitality or that being attentive to the task at hand is bad. But Martha had lost sight of why she was serving. She became frustrated and resentful. Pride and anger turned her gaze in on herself where she could no longer see or hear her Lord.

Dutch priest Henri Nouwen taught that we spend much of our lives answering one question:
“Who am I?”

and he said that, often, we answer:
1) I am what I do.
2) I am what other people say about me.
3) I am what I have.

Nouwen preached that these ways of seeing ourselves are three lies of identity that we are told by the Enemy, demons or the devil.[ii] When we succumb to one or more of these lies, we no longer see ourselves made in God’s image and we no longer hear Jesus call us by name and tell us he loves us. All we see and hear are the lies.

In her distraction, Martha fell captive to the three lies that her identity was found in what she was doing – the works or the many tasks she had taken on; in what others were saying about her – that she was a generous host to her guests; and in what she had - a welcoming home where they were comfortable.

Like Martha, we get caught up with the everyday work of life, making our lists and checking off our tasks, and we become preoccupied, thinking about what’s next: “Oh, I need to make that appointment, pay that bill, run that errand; oh, and I have to go here or there….” And we busily fill up every space in our lives and are drawn away from Jesus. And when that happens, the background noise of life is so loud that we can’t hear Jesus anymore and we think Jesus must not care.

But when Martha complained that Jesus must not care, her corrected her and told her “only one thing is necessary” and the “one thing” was not her works, her hospitality or her home. It was Christ himself.

Martha saw herself as unappreciated and overwhelmed,
but Jesus gently turned her gaze from herself, her works and her needs to her Lord so that she could see herself as God saw her,
wholly loved,
a beloved daughter of God.

Nouwen preached, “What is said of Jesus is said of you. You have to hear that you are the beloved [child] of God.” When you know that Good News, “All that you do is nurtured by the knowledge that you are the beloved.”[iii]

Meeting Jesus invites us to encounter God’s Word in the flesh. Jesus invites us to listen and, as Nouwen taught, “hear again and again: “I love you because I love you because I love you because I love you.”[iv]

Let us pray…
Holy God,
We give you thanks for your Word that creates faith and sustains us with your promises.
We give you thanks for your Son Jesus Christ
who comes in flesh and shows us your mercy;
who forgives our sin and self-centeredness;
who lives among us in our lives and in our world today,
repeating the words, “You are my beloved.”
May the Holy Spirit lead us out into the world to share the Good News of your abundant love.
Amen.

[i] Martin Luther. “The Freedom of a Christian.”
[ii] Henri Nouwen. “Being the Beloved.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFWfYpd0F18
[iii] Nouwen.
[iv] Nathan Kline. “Identity Theft.” https://www.friendlyhillschurch.org/blog/identity-theft