Sermon

Click here to print this sermon.

July 29, 2007
C-Pentecost 9
Luke 10:38-42
Pastor Robert Raasch

A Little Help, Please!

1. I. Martha was the one looking for it
2. II. Mary was the one who found it

Too much to do and too little time to do it.”  Have you ever felt like that’s the theme of your life?  I mean, every single day you have a list of things you need to do, things you want to accomplish, things that you or other people are expecting you to do—and it’s like you just can seem to squeeze it all in.  Last Sunday, my wife and I invited over to our house all the pastors in the circuit, along with their families.  When I got home from church, Sarah handed me a list of things to do before the company arrived.  Here it is (3 feet long).  Actually it wasn’t quite that long—and Sarah got about four times as many things done on the list as I did.  But I’ll bet you know what that’s like.  You’ve got so much to do and only so much time to do it.  There are tables to set up and salad to make and brats to grill and—oh, no, the LP tank just ran out of gas—man, how am I going to get this all done?  A little help, please!

A Little Help, Please!

Here, in our Bible lesson for today, we meet two women who were in need of the very same thing, namely, a little help.  In this case,

1. Martha was the one looking for it
2. Mary was the one who found it

Let’s take a little closer look.  Our text begins with the words, “as Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village (that is, the village of Bethany) where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.”  Well, I don’t think it’s hard to imagine what Martha must have been feeling at this point in the story.  She has the Son of God coming to stay at her house.  Yikes.  How would you feel?  A little added pressure to make sure the bathroom is clean?  You don’t want to serve the guy cold cereal.  You want to offer him a good, home cooked meal, right?  You want to make sure he’s comfortable, make sure that all his needs are met.  Well, as you might expect, this whole situation has Martha little stressed out.  Our text says that Martha was “distracted” by all the preparations that had to be made.  Literally, the original language says that Martha was being “pulled in different directions.”  Again, can you relate?  You just have all these things to do.  You’re torn between spending time with your family and getting your work done at the office.  You’d like to take time off, but there are bills to pay.  Your doctor says you need some exercise, but you’re already behind on your sleep.  You’d like to volunteer in the community, but you signed up to help out with that project at church.  It’s like you don’t know which way to turn next.

Reminds me of the guy at the circus who tries to keep plates spinning on the top of long sticks.  Have you seen him?  He gets one up and then 4 and then 8 and then 12 and uh-oh, that one is starting to slow down.  Better keep that one spinning.  There’s another one.  Got to put another one up.  Ugh.  A little help, please!

Certainly that’s how Martha felt.  She too was looking for some help.  And so, who does she turn to? She turns to Jesus.  Right person, wrong question.   What does Martha say?  “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?”  Hmmm.  I wonder how many times those four words have been directed toward God?  “Lord, don’t you care?”  How many times has that thought crossed your mind? “Don’t you see what I’m going through?  Don’t you care about what happens to me?  Why don’t you do something?  I mean, it’s just not fair, me working my tail off, taking care of the kids, paying all the bills, running my parents to the doctor, studying till all hours of the night, and does anybody seem to appreciate it?  No.  Is anybody helping me?  No.  It’s just not fair!” 

Obviously, that’s how Martha felt here in our text.  She was doing all this work and her sister was sitting on the floor.  In her mind, the solution was easy.  She says to Jesus, “Tell her to help me.”  That request sounds reasonable enough, doesn’t it?  If my daughter comes to me and says, “Dad, I’m doing the dishes and Alli’s not helping me,” I expect that I’d be saying, “Alli, go help your sister.”  Jesus, on the other hand, sees things a little differently.  He looks at Martha and says, “Martha, Martha.  You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.  Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her.”

Now, I want you to notice a couple of things about that statement.  First, notice that Jesus empathizes with Martha’s feelings.  Rather than saying, “Aw, Martha, Get over it.  Life’s not always fair.  You have to just buck up,” he says, in effect, “Martha, I can see that you are stressed out.  I know what you’re going through.”  And here’s the most important thing that Jesus tells her:  “Martha, your real problem is not your stress level.  Your real problem is not your work load.  No, your real problem—the real cause of your stress—is your priorities.  They’re messed up.”  Jesus tells Martha, in effect, “Martha, of all the things you could be doing, of all the things you think you should be doing with your time, the fact is, ‘Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.’”

That leads us to a very important question, namely, exactly what was Mary doing that was so much better than what Martha was doing?  It’s important not to get this answer wrong.  I don’t want anyone going home today saying, “Yea, the pastor said that when it’s time to set the table, it would be better if I staying sitting on the couch.”  No Jesus is not encouraging us to be lazy or self-centered.  In this case, Jesus was commending Mary for sitting at his feet, “listening to what Jesus said.”  My friends, there’s the key. Mary was choosing to feed her faith through the hearing of God’s Word.  That’s what made her choice better.  Does that have an application for our lives today?  Absolutely.  You see, the question is not, “Should I help with the dishes?  Should I provide for my family?  Should I get a good night’s sleep?  Should I enjoy some recreation in my life?  The answer to all those questions is “YES!—unless you’re choosing to do those things at the expense of listening to Jesus’ words.  If I say that I don’t have the time to go to church or have a devotion or spend some quiet time in the Word because I have to clean the house or read the paper or take the family up North, then something’s out of whack.

In fact, I’ll take it one step further.  If I choose serving my Lord over listening to my Lord, I’ve got things mixed up.  Now, maybe you’re thinking, “How would that happen?”  Well, if the only time we see someone in church is when it’s his turn to usher, or when someone is always volunteering to work at the school sporting events, but is never kneels here at the Lord’s table, that’s a problem, isn’t it?  When a pastor contacts that person and says, “I’m concerned about how rarely you are feeding your faith, what’s their response?  “What do you mean?  Don’t you see all I’m doing at church?”  Hmmm.  Is that Martha’s voice I hear?  Is someone guilty of mixing up their priorities?

Let me stop right there.  I have to admit that a sermon on Mary and Martha can leave a person feeling awfully guilty.  “Man, I haven’t been as faithful as I should be in listening to Jesus’ words.  We haven’t spent as much time in the Word as we should.”  I want you to take all those thoughts and lay them at the foot of the cross.  That’s why you’re here today, to receive God’s assurance that your sins are forgiven.  But now, I also don’t want you to go home saying, “The pastor said we can’t do the dishes instead of doing a devotion.”  Or the pastor said, “It’s wrong to go to our cabin for the weekend.”  No, that’s not what I said, because that’s not what Jesus said.  Notice how Jesus deals with Martha.  Does she say, “Martha, you can’t do that”?  Or, “You must do this”?  No, Jesus simply says, “Martha of all the things you are free to do, ‘only one thing is needed.  Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken from her.’”

Now, I want you to notice two things about Jesus’ statement there.  First please don’t misunderstand what Jesus means by “only one thing is needed.”  It’s not that Jesus needs Mary at his feet.  It’s that Mary needs to be at Jesus’ feet.  Her listening to Jesus is for her benefit, not his.  Isn’t the same thing true for you and me today?  Our reason for coming to church is not to do God a favor.  No, the reason we want to spend time in God’s Word is because we realize we need it.  We realize that if we don’t take the time to feed our faith, if we allow other things to become more important to us than listening to Jesus’ Word, then what happened to Martha will also happen to us—we’ll become worried and upset about all kinds of things that are not all that important.

My friends, do you see the connection Jesus is making here in our text?  He’s teaching Mary and Martha—and you and me—that when we take time to sit at his feet, when we take time to feed our faith with the Word and Sacrament, then we are all that much better equipped to handle the myriad of responsibilities that are piled on our plate on a daily basis---and with the proper attitude to boot.  The bottom line is this:  When we’re feeling stressed out by all the things going on in our lives, when we feel that we’re being pulled in too many directions, when we’re frustrated by our own inability to get the job done, that’s when it’s time to give more time to Jesus, not less.  It reminds me of what Martin Luther once said, “I’ve got so much to do today that I’m going to have to spend twice as much time in prayer and meditation to get it all done.”  Isn’t that the point that Jesus made in his Sermon on the Mount?  After talking about all the things that have the potential to stress us out in our everyday lives (“What shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear?), what does Jesus say?  “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given you as well” (Matt 6:33).  In other words, when we put God and his word at the top of our schedule, then everything else falls into place.

The question is, from a practical standpoint, how do you do that?  How do we give the Lord more time in our everyday lives?  Well, it starts with worship, right?  It means making a commitment to be in God’s house each week, whether it’s Saturday, Sunday or Monday—or it’s at the WELS church up north, or looking up the nearest WELS church on our family vacation to Colorado.  Yet, that’s just the beginning.  Can you think of some unique ways for you to spend just a little more time at Jesus feet throughout the week?  Maybe you can pick up a Meditations book or the Forward in Christ magazine.  Or better yet, subscribe to these publications.  Let them send them directly to your house.  Go to the WELS website and download a Bible study or daily devotion.  Or better yet, have them automatically emailed to your computer each day.  Maybe you want to pick up a one year Bible, that’s broken down into bite size segments to read each day.  Or maybe you need a little more accountability.  You need others to help you understand what you’re reading and apply it to your life.  Then you’ll want to sign up for one of our small group Bible studies, many of which will be starting up again next month.  Or again be a part of the large Bible classes we’ll offer this fall.  These are all ways to spend just a little more time at Jesus’ feet this week.

And you know, when you do that, when you spend more time in God’s Word, you realize that Jesus’ promise here in our text applies to you.  What does Jesus say?  “Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her.”  Think about it.  The things that God gives you through his word cannot be taken away from you.  In his Word, God assures you that he is not holding your sins against you.  There’s nothing that separates you from God, because Jesus has knocked down the wall that once divided you from God.  You have God’s unbreakable promise that your life as a child of God will not end in death but will continue to eternity.  Through his Word, God gives you the ability to deal with yesterday’s disappointments, today’s challenges and tomorrow’s uncertainties

Here in our text, Jesus certainly equipped Mary for what was coming in her life—whether it was the death of her brother Lazarus or the burial of her Savior and Lord.  God will do the same for you and me through that same living Word of God.  So what are you going to take home today from this sermon on Mary and Martha? (I’ve already told you two messages not to take home.)  So here are three things I do want you to remember:

1. Jesus knows exactly what you’re going through.  He empathizes with your day to day struggles just as he did Martha’s.

2. More often than not, the stress in our lives is not created by our workload, it’s created by our misplaced priorities.  When we give more attention to the things of this world than the treasures of the next, our lives get out of whack.

3. Investing time in God’s Word always pays dividends in terms of our attitude and our ability to cope with whatever life brings.  Only God’s Word can truly prepare us for time and eternity. 

And that, my friends, is God’s answer to the believer’s request: “A little help, please!”  Amen.