Listening: A Consequential Thing

[Below you'll find live stream video from this past Sunday's 8:45 AM traditional and 11:00 AM modern worship services at Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Also below is the text of the message. Have a good week!]





Luke 10:38-42

As we begin our consideration of today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 10:38-42, let’s be clear about what Jesus is not saying. Jesus is not telling Martha (or us) that hospitality is a bad thing. The Bible tells us repeatedly that it’s God’s will for us, both as an expression of our love for Him and our neighbor, that we show hospitality to others.

Our Old Testament lesson this morning, for example, recounts how three strangers showed up at the tent of Abraham and Sarah, the father and mother of ancient Israel, and how they bent over backward to welcome and provide for these visitors. Those visitors turned out to be, I believe, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It’s this incident that informs the call to we Christians found in Hebrews 13:2, in the New Testament: “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” On many occasions, Jesus says that in our hospitality toward strangers, more than anything, we extend hospitality to Him. We welcome Him. And that’s a good thing.

But, friends, there are different ways to welcome Jesus. 

One way is exemplified in today’s lesson by Martha, who is busily involved in seeing to it that everyone is fed, everyone’s glass is filled, and everyone has a place to sleep. 

Another way of welcoming Jesus is exemplified by Mary, who sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to His Word.

There are times and places for us to show each kind of hospitality to Jesus, times to get busy with serving, and times to sit and listen to God’s Word. 

Martha did a good thing by inviting Jesus and His entourage to the home she shared with her sister Mary and her brother Lazarus. 

But Jesus says that Mary did the better thing, chose “what is better,” by sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to His Word. (Luke 10:42)

Mary seems to understand that when Jesus, the Word of God, came to the place she lived speaking His Word, telling all who will listen that He has brought the free gift of forgiveness and new life for all people and calling all to trust in Him, it’s time to set down the pots and pans, time to forget about the roast, time to forgo even treasured leisure time activities and listen. 

It was time, in the words of Psalm 46:10, to “Be still, and know that [Jesus is] God…”

Martha seems to think–in the same way that we modern Christians, concerned about the apathy or even hostility toward God that exists in our world, sometimes think: that she had to serve Jesus, that she had to prop Jesus up, that Jesus needed her to throw herself into frenzied action. 

But there are times when the greatest act of service and worship we can render to God is to hear His Word, receive the assurance of His love and forgiveness, and receive the bread and wine of Holy Communion. In Mark 10:45, Jesus says: “...the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45) God transforms us from His enemies to His friends and brings His grace into our lives not by what we do for Him, but by what He has done and still doing for us!

Jesus didn’t need a scrap of the food that Martha was preparing for Him; but she needed the Word of life He was serving up as a free gift right there under her roof! So do we…week in and week out.

So what about us? 

Are we too busy to listen to Jesus? 

Are we so involved in activities and projects, at work, at home, even good and laudable ones, that we can’t keep still long enough to hear from Jesus and His Word? The fact that you're here, placing yourself under the Word of God is a very good thing!

That we need Jesus and His Word is a central teaching of the Bible. In the demands of daily life and in the face of overpowering temptation, it can become hard for us to remember that Jesus, God the Son, has already conquered our sins, conquered the power of temptations to separate us from God, and conquered death. It becomes easy when we become absorbed in mountains of activity, some of which may be designed to prove how wonderful we are or even to lift Jesus up to the world that, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12) 

At the Mount of Transfiguration, the voice of God the Father told Peter, James, and John (and us), “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” (Luke 9:35) 

Both for our own salvation and to lend the power of God to our witness and service to others, we need to push the pause button on our sometimes frenzied lives to just listen to Jesus and His Gospel Word. “...faith comes from hearing the message [the message that Jesus, God in the flesh, took our punishment for sin on the cross, then opened up eternity to all who turn to Him], and the message is heard through the word about Christ.” (Romans 10:17) 

Listen, friends: It’s the Word of Jesus and the Word about Jesus, not our work or our serving or our good deeds, but the Word of Jesus and the Word about Jesus alone, that creates and sustains and grows the gift of faith in Jesus that saves us from sin, death, and hell and saves us for life with God that never ends.

This is why God created the Sabbath day for His ancient people. God wanted them to hear His Word of Law that reminds us of His will and His Word of Gospel by which, through the crucified and risen Jesus, He saves us from the consequence of our complete inability to keep His Law. God commanded ancient Israel in the Third Commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.” (Exodus 20:8) 

Even though today Jesus has liberated the Sabbath so that the grace and new life He brought into the world on the first Easter Sunday is ours every single day of the week, we still need, like Mary, to sit at Jesus’ feet to hear His Word. Regularly.

Being in worship regularly when we could be tailgating at a Bengals game, sleeping in (like I did in the early years of Ann's and my marriage when, she would go to worship, and I'd stay at home worshiping at Saint Mattress of the Springs), or catching up on chores around the house can seem onerous. 

But one pastor pushes back on all that with a little scenario. Imagine, he says, that you’re part of a family that’s had a long day without the time to eat. You’re famished. Then, back home, a family member takes the time to go to the kitchen and fix a meal. Eventually, you’re told, “Come and get it.” It’s unlikely that you’d say, “Do we have to eat again? I ate yesterday.” No, you’d gladly come to eat up the food offered to you because you know you need it to live! At one level, the call to "Come and get it!" may be a law, a command: "You need food. Here it is. Now start eating." But in reality, it's a gracious word of promise, of good news: "Here's the food that I've prepared for you to give you strength and good health." That's why the Sabbath call to worship with God's people and to welcome the Word and Sacraments isn't onerous, but life-giving!

No matter what else happens in your week, you know that on at least one day of the week, Jesus will come to you and His Church just as He came to the home of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. 

And, as was true then, He will come to you through His Word: read, proclaimed, and even imparted to us in, with, and under simple elements like water, bread, and wine. 

He invites us to feed each week on His grace, forgiveness, and love. 

This is why in his explanation of the Third Commandment–to keep the Sabbath day holy–Martin Luther writes not of a day of grim obligation, but of a day of stillness and humble receptivity to Jesus. “We should fear and love God,” Luther says, “so that we do not despise His Word and the preaching of it, but acknowledge it as holy, and gladly hear and learn it.” 

When we worship with God’s people as often as circumstances allow, whether here in our home church or at another church when we’re on vacation, we join the apostle Peter who once said to Jesus, “You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)

Friends, let’s be fair to Martha. 

There are times for the kind of hospitality she wanted to exercise the day Jesus visited her home. 

But every Sunday, in the Word and the Sacraments, Jesus comes to His Church to call them, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. “ (Matthew 11:28) 

In His Word, Jesus works the gift of faith in Him within us. 

He gives us rest in Him. 

He gives us the assurance that He has died and risen for us. 

He announces that He has already done everything needed for our eternal salvation. 

In the end, there is only one thing we really need–Jesus and His Gospel. 

We need His Word and His Sacraments. 

Sunday worship may not seem like much to an unbelieving world. Sometimes, it may not seem like much to us. But, friends, joining our sisters and brothers to sit at Jesus’ feet and welcome Jesus and His Word into our hearts and minds and wills each Sunday is the most consequential thing we can do during this and every week we live in this world. Martha’s sister Mary knew that. May we always know it too. Amen

Not Like the World: The Radical Kingdom of God

[This message was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, during worship yesterday morning.]

Luke 10:38-42
You know the incident recounted in today’s gospel lesson, Luke 10:38-42, well. 

Last week I suggested that this passage serves as the exclamation point to Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, which was part of last Sunday's gospel lesson. 

The two passages, taken together, dismantle the idea that there’s anything that you and I can do to earn eternity with God. 

Eternity with God, along with the forgiveness of our sins and the Holy Spirit’s reconstruction of our personalities and priorities, is the work of God the Holy Spirit in people who daily turn from sin and trust in Jesus Christ as their God and Savior! 

All of this happens by God’s grace through faith in Christ Jesus alone. Period. End of Sentence. Full stop!

But the incident involving Martha and Mary is more than an exclamation to Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan. 

These five verses tell us something about the revolutionary kingdom of God that Jesus has brought to all who believe in Him. 

How can I say that? Letting Scripture interpret Scripture, which is what we Lutherans try to do, let’s take a look at the gospel lesson and consider other passages of Scripture that might help us more deeply understand what’s going on here.

Verse 38: “As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.”

It’s unimaginable that any other first-century rabbi would have abided Martha’s invitation to her house or said yes to the invitation! 

Although Jesus constantly was complicit with women who violated this taboo, it was strictly forbidden for a woman, who was not a wife, mother, or sister, to speak to a man in public, let alone invite the man to her house. Yet Jesus is not scandalized and there's not a hint to scandal in Martha's invitation.

Martha also seems not to have gotten the permission of her brother, in that culture, the head of the house, if she could issue her  invitation to Jesus. 

Whatever negative conclusions we may draw about her from the rest of this incident, Martha understood that the kingdom that Jesus came to bring was and is different from the kingdoms of this world. 

The apostle Paul would describe this difference well. He said that for those who are in Christ, who believe in Christ and are part of His Church: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

But even Martha, who rejoices in the salvation and direct access that God graciously gives us through Jesus, because Jesus is truly God and truly human, doesn’t understand the implications of this very well. Verses 39-40: “She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!’”

Now, we often view this just as Martha being resentful of her sister not doing the work that Martha is doing. But there’s more to it than that. 

You see, for most women in first-century Judea, welcoming Jesus and His other disciples with extravagant hospitality was more than a social duty, it brought them dignity and appreciation. 

Do you remember when Jesus visited the home of the apostle Peter and found Peter’s mother-in-law sick with a fever? Luke 4:39 says that Jesus “...bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them.” 

I used to think it terribly unfair that as soon Jesus healed the woman from her fever, she had to start serving the guests. But for Peter’s mother-in-law, as perhaps for Martha from today’s gospel lesson, exhibiting radical hospitality was her holy calling, her area of spiritual giftedness.

Martha’s problem was that she thought that all of Jesus’ female disciples had the same calling that she had. They were, she thought, all to act as hostesses while the men listened to Jesus. 

As conservative and Anglican New Testament scholar N.T. Wright notes in his commentary on this passage: “to sit at the feet of a teacher was a decidedly male role.” 

And to sit at Jesus’ feet, listening to Him intently, as Mary was doing, was not just an act of worshipful adoration. You see, rabbis--teachers--gathered students to prepare them to become rabbis or teachers to others. 

The Church needs hostesses and hosts, just as the Church needs accountants, handypeople, Sunday School teachers, worship leaders, musicians, small group leaders, Scripture lesson readers, cooks and bottle washers, folks who take care of the altar, ushers, youth and children’s leaders, and others. It also needs preachers and teachers of the Gospel Word. And that is what Mary’ was saying her call was when she sat at Jesus’ feet to listen to Him.

Martha thought Mary was being uppity. Martha is really telling Jesus, “Lord, tell Mary to go back to the kitchen where she belongs.” Some women and some men do belong in kitchens. It’s where they’re gifted. But other people--women and men--belong in the pulpit.

This is essentially what Jesus is telling Martha in the last few verses of our gospel lesson. “‘Martha, Martha,’ the Lord answered [the double use of Martha’s name denoting Jesus’ sadness for her], ‘you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.’” 

To, through faith, experience Christ living in us and to see the Holy Spirit using our own unique gifts and callings to bring God glory and to tell the world about Jesus is a calling that cannot be taken away from the Christian.

“Martha,” Jesus is telling her, “just because Mary’s discipleship doesn’t look like yours, doesn’t mean she’s less faithful than you. Just because only men have been preachers and teachers in the past doesn’t mean that’s how it’s going to be or got to be in my Church. Her discipleship, though rooted in the same truth, the same will of God, the same Word of God, and the same Gospel, won’t look exactly the same as yours.”

In The Horse and the Boy, a book in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, a young girl asks Aslan, the Christ figure of those books, about what will become of her old nurse back in her home country. “Child,” Aslan answers, “I am telling you your story, not hers. No one is told any story but their own.” 

This is Jesus’ message to Martha and to us as well. Yes, as members of Christ’s body, we are accountable to the Word of God and to one another, but we dare not presume to take the place of God by telling others what the story Christ has written for them must be. 

Martha was to employ her gifts within the body of Christ, just as Jesus was calling Mary to use her particular gifts in that same body. We need each other and each other’s gifts as Christians and it would be wrong--not to mention boring--to expect every other believer in Jesus to be exactly like us.

Martha seems to have gotten what Jesus taught her. The Gospel of John tells us that just before Jesus was crucified, He was back at the home of Martha, Lazarus, and Mary for yet another dinner. John says that, “Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair.” (John 12:2-3) 

Martha serves without bellyaching and Mary once more becomes a lightning rod for criticism by doing another controversial thing. (That’s an occupational hazard for preachers.) This time, it isn’t Martha who attacks Mary. Martha seems by now to appreciate her sister’s calling and giftedness. This time the attacker is Judas, the one who will betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. “‘Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages,’ [he bellows]. He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.” (John 12:5-6) Maybe somebody should have told Judas to focus on following Christ himself. Maybe that message would have fallen on deaf ears. Maybe it was too late for Judas to hear it.

But it’s not too late for us! Jesus has called each of us to follow Jesus with our own unique gifts and personalities. 

The differences between us as disciples of Jesus aren’t something to be lamented, not something to be complained about, not something that should cause us to try making others conform to our image. Our call as Christ’s body is to encourage one another to follow Christ so that He can reconstruct us in His image, so that Christ, His lordship, and His love will be manifest in each of us in the unique ways He has in mind for us. 

We need lots of Marthas, Marys, Lazaruses, and others to fulfill the mission Christ has given us to pursue together: to be and to make disciples of Jesus Christ. 

May we always honor God by respecting one another’s uniqueness as children of God. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

God Says to Love Everyone...How Can We Do That?

[This message was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio , his morning.]

Luke 10:25-37
One point of Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, which makes up today’s gospel lesson, is that every person in the world is my neighbor. Whether that person lives in Centerville, Washington DC, Iran, Haiti, Guatemala, or South Africa, whatever religion or whether they have no religion, she or he is a human being made in the image of God. She or he is also someone for whom Jesus died and rose and to whom He makes the offer of new and everlasting life through faith in Him.

But if we view Jesus’ parable as a simple admonition to see every human being as a neighbor we are obligated to love, we will be getting only one point. 

Since when has an admonition from God to we fallen human beings, ever been sufficient to change our behavior? 

The God we know in Jesus Christ also admonishes us not to have other gods, but we still tend to worship all kinds of things. 

God admonishes us not to take His name in vain, yet people do it all the time...even preachers teaching false gospels. 

God admonishes us not to commit adultery, not to steal, not to covet what belongs to others, not to lie, not to sleep in when we should be worshiping God; yet people still ignore God’s admonitions. 

Even the Christian who knows God’s Word inside out can say with the apostle Paul: “Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me...I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” (Romans 7:21-23, 25b)

Our daughter has a dog, Peanut. He’s a loving and well-dispositioned animal who likes nothing better than being petted. But he’s still a dog. He still sniffs at the grass to find the right place to do his business, still barks at strangers, and still views anything within eyesight of our condo as part of the universe of his pack, which includes the three of us and him, and excludes anyone else. These are common dog behaviors. And no matter how compliant Peanut is to us, no amount of admonition will ever stop him from following his dog nature. I could tell Peanut, “Stop being a dog” until I’m blue in the face and it wouldn’t change him. 

Admonitions from God, God’s Law, can’t change us either. We can be given God’s commands--including Jesus’ command that we see all people as neighbors to be loved--and remain unreconstructed sinners who never stop following our sinful human nature. 

So, what good is it for Jesus to tell us to love our neighbor if, within ourselves, we have no capacity for loving our neighbor as we love ourselves? 

Well, Paul says, also in Romans 7, that God’s Law does have an important function: “it was the Law that made me know what sin is…” (Romans 7:7) God’s admonitions--His Law--forces me to wrestle with the fact that I am a sinner. And sinners deserve death and condemnation. That, in turn, should cause us to take the wise step of looking for Someone Who can save me from my sins and from myself. But that’s not the only reason that Jesus tells the parable of the good Samaritan!

Remember how Jesus happens to tell the parable in the first place. An expert in Biblical law asks Jesus, “[W]hat must I do to receive eternal life?” (Luke 10:25) The guy is looking for some plan of performance by which he can earn eternal life from God. 

We might paraphrase Jesus as asking the man, “Since you’re hung up on what you need to do, what does God’s Law in the Scriptures, say that you should do?” The man summarizes the Ten Commandments' admonition that we love God completely and to love our neighbors as ourselves. “Good answer,” Jesus basically tells the man. “Do those things and you’ll have life with God.”

Of course, if you and I could do those things on our own, we would have life with God...and there would be no reason for Jesus and His cross. The problem is that since Adam and Eve, the whole human race has inherited sin from them. We’re born sinners, separated from God. 

But the teacher of the law isn’t thinking about any of that at all. Instead, he wants to find a loophole in the law. There are people he apparently doesn’t love and doesn’t think God should unreasonably expect him to love. (Like maybe Samaritans.) So, he asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” He would have been satisfied if Jesus had said, “Your neighbor is the good person you like.” But that’s not how Jesus answers the man.

Instead, He tells the parable of the good Samaritan that you know well. A man, presumably a Judean, is accosted by robbers on the road that descends north from Jerusalem to Jericho. Two religious figures, a priest and a Levite, respected Jewish persons pass by the man. But a hated Samaritan sees the wounded man, cares for him, takes him to a nearby inn, and foots the bill for the wounded man’s care. 

So, Jesus asks the teacher of the law, who of the three who encountered the wounded Judean on the road was the man’s neighbor? Unable to even say “Samaritan” in a good light, the teacher of the law replies, “The one who was kind to him.” Verse 37: “Jesus replied, ‘You go, then, and do the same.’”

Honesty before the Lord should have compelled the teacher of the law to respond, “Lord, I don’t love my neighbor like that. Forgive me. Help me to love all my neighbors.” 

Jesus is leaving the possibility of forgiveness and a new life born of complete dependence on Jesus for the man, it he will only repent and trust in Him. But he takes a pass. Uninterested in loving all people, certain that Jesus couldn’t possibly understand what it means to love the unlovable (like him, or you, or me), the teacher of the law asks nothing else of Jesus. He walks away, untouched, unchanged, unforgiven. Like most people in the world, including many in the Church, the man didn’t want to have anything to do with Jesus if following Jesus meant changing the way he wanted to live his life.

This encounter, by itself, would leave us only with God’s command that we love all people and that we, in fact, are incapable on our own of loving all people, if it weren’t for what happens next, in the verses just beyond our lesson, Luke 10:38-42. 

Let me explain why I take you there. 

In his gospel, Luke often pairs incidents. He'll have one incident involving a man followed by another one involving a woman. Sometimes he does it to create comparisons. Other times he creates contrasts.

For example, Luke tells us first that Zechariah was told by the angel that he would become father of John the Baptist and he greeted the news with skepticism. But immediately after that, the angel tells Mary that she will give birth to Jesus and she receives the news with faith.

When Jesus was taken to the temple in Jerusalem to be dedicated to God and circumcised at eight days old, His identity as the Messiah was affirmed first by a man, Zechariah, then by a woman, Anna.

At Easter, the women were told that Jesus was raised from the dead and believed it while the male disciples greeted this news with faith.


With the incident of Mary and Martha, we see this same male/female pattern, and in it, Jesus makes an important point.

There we encounter two sisters, Martha and Mary. Martha is a kindred spirit to the teacher of the law, certain of her own righteousness. Martha is also hung up on doing, playing the hostess with the mostest. Mary, meanwhile, “sat down at the feet of the Lord and listened to his teaching.” (Luke 10:39) Martha resented Mary’s apparent laziness. But when she bellyaches about things to Jesus, He tells her, “Martha, Martha! You are worried and troubled over so many things, but just one is needed. Mary has chosen the right thing, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41-42)

Now, we’ll look at this incident involving Martha and Mary in more detail next Sunday. But surely, Luke meant it to be the exclamation point to the parable of the Good Samaritan. 

It’s not enough to be told that God wants us to love our neighbor. Because, deep down, I have neither the inclination nor the capacity to love others as I love myself, the God we can only know through Jesus Christ needs to give us both the ability and the desire to love others.

How does that happen? 

It happens when we submit ourselves, day in and day out, to Jesus. This happens through the gifts of regular worship, the Sacrament, quiet time in God’s Word and prayer in Jesus’ name, and study of God’s Word with others that Jesus comes to us and God changes us. 

Jesus has perfectly fulfilled the Law of God for us and to those who trustingly surrender to Him, like Mary, He creates a new way to be human, He makes us new people who cease to look for loopholes in the Law and instead look for new ways to live in His grace while loving  others in that grace.

Who’s the neighbor I am to love? Everyone. 

How am I to do that? By relying on only Christ, Who forgives our sins and empowers us to love others with the same patience and charity He gives to us. And that, surely, is the second point of the parable. “This is love,” we’re told in 1 John 4:10, “not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” 

Live in, daily absorb, and totally depend on God’s love given to you in Christ and He will not only give you eternity, He will also change the way you view others, He will also love them through you. 

Amen


[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]