Christ
Lutheran Church on Capitol Hill, St Paul, MN
Pentecost
9/July 21, 2013
Luke
10:38-42
Celebrating
the Baptism of Olivia Carolyn Haddorff
In the
name of Jesus. Amen.
One of
the great gifts of having Baby Olivia in our family is that all of us “mature
adults” are reminded of how we were once helpless infants, utterly dependent
upon the tender care of others.
But this
is true, of course, not only for infants.
We all depend
on one another. We all live off the
kindness of relatives, neighbors, and even strangers.
That
subtext has been woven through the readings from Luke 10 that have been popping
up in our weekly schedule of gospel lessons.
Two
weeks ago we saw Jesus sending 70 disciples to fan out across the countryside
and declare to all with ears to hear that God’s reign is happening now. Those roving ambassadors were to travel light
and keep on the move—relying on the kindness of others along the way.
Then last
week, we beheld the victim of a mugging brought back from the brink of death
thanks to the kindness of a stranger who noticed, stopped, and helped him in
his time of need.
It’s
about hospitality—the hospitality on which the 70 traveling evangelists would
depend, the hospitality of the Good Samaritan that saved the life of a desperate
stranger….the hospitality that meets us this morning, in the home of Mary and
Martha.
And
we’re not just talking about a Miss Manner’s brand of hospitality, either. We’re talking about the deep, dependable
hospitality that was such a staple of daily life in the ancient world.
In a
world without convenience stores, budget motels, ATMs or highway rest-areas,
travelers counted on the hospitality of others along the road….in the awareness
that next time, you the host (today) might be a needy guest (tomorrow) in
someone else’s home.
So in
our reading from Genesis 18 we see such hospitality on full display. Three strangers arrive at the tent of
Abraham and Sarah. Abraham immediately offers
his unexpected guests a place to sit in the shade, and promises them “a little water…[and] a little bread.” But
when the strangers are out of earshot, Abraham orders up a feast for them—with fresh,
abundant bread…a tender veal calf roasted on a spit….a generous bowl of fresh curds
and milk.
Abraham must have had a streak of
Minnesotan in him—to promise so little but deliver so much!
But such
was the nature of hospitality in the world of Abraham and Jesus.
So here
in Luke 10 Jesus shows up in the home that Martha and her sister Mary shared,
and it seems as if Martha was taking her cues from Abraham and Sarah—offering
lavish hospitality worthy of a guest like Jesus.
But
Martha had a sister, and that sister, Mary, was of no apparent use to
Martha…choosing instead to loll at Jesus’ feet, hanging on his every word.
Even
though she tried to look past it, Martha was doing a slow burn while she
served. It ate at her— the burden of all
that hospitality falling disproportionately on Marsha’s shoulders, to the point
that she finally blurted out to Jesus: "Lord,
do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell
her then to help me."
As
Martha dumped all that on her guest, she became quite inhospitable, both
by drawing Jesus into an intra-family squabble and by making her problem her
guest’s problem--in fact accusing her guest in the
process: “Lord, do you not care….?”
But in
fact, Jesus did care—he cared primarily about what Martha was doing to herself,
trying so hard to be the “hostess with the mostesst”: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and
distracted by many things…”
New
Testament scholar Elisabeth Johnson points out that in the original language of
this text, the word translated distracted
“has the connotation of being pulled or dragged in different directions.”[1]
…which
is to say that in her intense focus on hospitality Martha had completely lost her focus.
Life,
especially the busy-ness of life, does
that to us: we try so hard that we blow
it, we focus so intensely that we lose all focus. In the process, our best efforts, even our
attempts at “being hospitable” fall woefully short.
But that
was not Mary’s problem here. And contrary
to what Martha assumed, Mary had not neglected hospitality, either. Because Mary’s hospitality consisted of her attention,
her focused listening to what Jesus their guest had to say.
Again,
in the words of Elisabeth Johnson: “There is no greater hospitality than listening
to your guest. How much more so when the guest is Jesus!”
And therein, my dear friends, we
encounter a word made to order for us, living in this time and place.
For
nowadays we still pull off that surface-level, inch-deep hospitality. We ready the setting, prepare the food, pour up
the drinks, create the ambience—we do that with as much panache as our budgets and
schedules will allow.
But what
about the deeper hospitality, the Mary-like laser-attentiveness to the
other person, the guest? What about our
capacity truly to attend to, to listen to, to be fully and physically present
with one another?
Earlier
this year a provocative article in the NY Times asked: “can
you remember the last time you were in a public space in America and didn’t
notice that half the people around you were bent over a digital screen,
thumbing a connection to somewhere else?”[2]
The
article, written by a neuro-scientist, suggested that with our over-focusing on
“virtual relationships” by means of all our hand-held digital devices, we may
inadvertently be stunting “our biological capacity to connect with other people”
face to face, skin on skin.
We may
be missing—as Martha did—the “one thing needful,” the “better part” that Mary
lived for.
God
could show up in our midst, garbed in flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, and
we might be pulled or dragged in so many different directions that we’d be
oblivious to the greatest encounter with the greatest Person in our lives.
And we
might miss the most wondrous miracle of all—not that a gentle soul like Mary would
sit still for Jesus in her living room….but that Jesus would sit still for
Mary--that we have in Jesus a God who graciously seeks us out, enters our
space, continually pays deep attention to us, looks us right in the eyes to
speak his “I love you” to us again and again and again.
In a
wonderful new book, Andrew Root of Luther Seminary, contends that “relationships…in ministry are the place,
the very space created, to encounter the living Jesus.”[3]
Let me
say that again: “Relationships…are the place, the very space created, to encounter the
living Jesus.”
What
happened so long ago in Mary and Martha’s home still happens among us in the
power of Jesus’ resurrection.
Jesus
draws near to us. Jesus sits with
us.
And like
a good host—Jesus brings all sorts of gifts with him—clean water to wash away all
our dirt, fresh bread with rich wine to restore and reinvigorate us.
Jesus
draws near to us and sits with us, fashioning soul-restoring relationships in
the sacred space that God opens up between us.
And the
one thing needful for us is to be there and be aware in that sacred space where
Jesus shows up among us.
I think
you’re pretty good at that here at Christ Lutheran Church—you understand some
things about how Jesus meets us in the relational space between us. I also think you’ve been richly blessed by a
pastor who “gets it”--that God has fashioned us and Jesus has refashioned us to
be not individuals to be managed, but persons to be treasured.
You
know, we Lutherans make a big deal about the Word and the Sacraments—we really
and truly believe that when God’s Word is spoken, when the water of baptism is
poured out, when the bread and the wine are shared, God shows up and Jesus is
here to save us and send us—and we pray for Mary-like attentiveness to Jesus.
….Which means
that we will also aim for the same sort of attentiveness to all those who
travel with us on our journey to God’s tomorrow, from the tinest newly-baptized
baby to the oldest follower of Jesus among us.
There
are two other things (besides Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper) that almost
made it to the status of sacraments for us Lutherans: confessing our sin and hearing God’s promise
of forgiveness….and the fellowship, the “mutual conversation and consolation”
of Christian people, one with another.
It is
here that Jesus still meets us and all people, in the holy space God opens up
between us where there is room for Jesus, room for you, and room for me….to be
deeply attentive to one another and thus to have our lives restored once again.
In the
name of Jesus. Amen.
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