“…there is need of only one thing.’ (Luke 10:42)
Year C: The Fifth Sunday after Trinity, 21st
July, 2019 (St Doulagh's @ 10am)
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AN OVERVIEW OF THIS SUNDAY’S READINGS
COI
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RC
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Parallel gospel readings to that of Luke are not found
elsewhere among the synoptics
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SERMON NOTES (815 words)
‘there is need of only one thing’ (Luke 10:42). In the name
of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen
Let’s hear this story again from Luke 10:
(v. 38) ‘Now
as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named
Martha welcomed him into her home’.
Remember that a
short while ago Jesus was instructing his disciples about the inevitability of
meeting hostility in some places and villages where they must wipe the dust
from their shoes (Luke
10:11). This was not the case in the house of Martha. Note that Martha welcomed Jesus but Jesus was
with others. Martha probably had a full house on her hands.
(v. 39) ‘She had a sister named Mary, who
sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying’.
Oh Oh! Does
anyone have a sometimes ‘inactive’ spouse or partner? Or a teenage son or
daughter? They might be sitting, like Mary, at the feet of a TV, a play station
or smartphone!
(v. 40) ‘But
Martha was distracted by her many tasks’.
Does anyone know
of someone who is a go-go person? I mean the sort that sets an alarm clock
early on a weekend morning; is involved in 9 different local community
organisations and is scheduled to attend 4 meetings outside of work this coming
week; is finishing a diploma; and has a perfect house and an almost perfect
family? We get the picture.
(v.40 continued)
‘so she [Martha] came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister
has left me to do all the work by myself?’
Sounds
familiar? This is the story of the one
who is running around minding her own children and the parents – his as well as
her’s – while brothers and sisters are, shall we say, far away?
(v.40 continued)
‘Tell her then to help me.’
Martha did not need an assertiveness course. No
please or would you but ‘tell her then to help me’. You know, parishes, families and workplaces
are very like that except that for the most part we are less than blunt as
Martha was.
(v.41) ‘But
the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many
things’.
He could have
been speaking to you or me: ‘Tom,, Tom you are worried and distracted by many
things’. I see thousands of people every day on train platforms, trains, buses,
cars, footpaths, cycle lanes and at meetings or just sitting there or
walking along – kind of worried some of the time and distracted by many things.
Many things. Many things.
(v.42) ‘there
is need of only one thing’.
Wow! Only one thing in life is essential. May I
respectfully suggest, as a belated resolution for 2019, that you write your own obituary
before others get to write it. The thing
needed? Love! Easy? Not really. You see,
worry – excessive worry – is the fruit of insecurity. Insecurity is the fruit
of distrust and distrust is the fruit of closure and lack of relationship.
Faith is relationship.
(v. 43) ‘Mary
has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’ I remember
half thinking that I had chosen the better part nearly 40 years ago when I
joined an enclosed religious order for a few years. The truth is that God has chosen us – all of
us – in love and truth and beauty before we were even conceived. The best-chosen
part has been assigned by God to us and everyone else and it was Jesus who
chose to stay at Martha and to talk with Mary and Martha just as he calls you
and me to this place on this Sunday morning to listen and talk with God and
with one another. (that’s why I love the bit after service where we mingle and
talk and commune and partake of delicious homemade cakes! There is a Martha around here and there is
more than one of them! J )
And what is the
Gospel saying to us this Sunday morning? Let us ask the Holy Spirit to open our hearts this morning and in the days
to come to hear again the good news. Let
us learn the art of welcoming and active service from Martha. Let us learn from
Mary the art of loving listening in the midst of our business. Let us ask God to enable us to really listen. But, who or what should
we listen to in the first place? We should listen to ourselves. There God is.
We should listen to others. You
know that the Voice of Love whispers to us every day in events, persons,
conversations, emotions, thoughts, failures, joys and sorrows. Yes, even in
suffering and maybe especially in suffering.
As one writer put
it: ‘All that is asked of me is rapt attention, here, now, to others. And I’ll
find the good life.’
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