Let The Dirty Dishes Wait!

Today we are going to look at a story of Jesus with perhaps his closest friends. Beyond the circle of his disciples, Jesus closest friends were the sisters Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus. Several times as Jesus travelled from Judea to Galilee, we find him staying at their home in Bethany, and this story is from Luke 10.

I was in a meeting with some church members this week and someone from outside the church asked the question, what as a church are we most proud of and what ministry do we celebrate. I didn’t answer first because I am always interested in what others see as the strengths of the church and one of the first things someone lifted up was our outreach into the community through our work at the Faith Centre. As a congregation we are still the strongest supporters of FC and it is the volunteer hours that so many of you give in the sorting room, the food bank and the thrift store that helps keep that ministry alive and serving the needs of so many people in our community. Someone else mentioned the mission trips we take, and then we talked about the Christmas Dinner we serve free to the community and then someone else mentioned the Christmas Musical. As I listened to people share, I was really excited because everyone around the table shared with passion and enthusiasm. People were eager to talk about the strengths and opportunities they saw in their church, and the love they had for the ministry of Faith Church was genuine and contagious.

I was pretty excited about all it all, but then I realized that everything that was being shared involved our doing something. We are a busy church: football dinners, the 5th quarter, local outreach, mission trips, FaithCentre, Christmas Musicals and the Christmas dinner are just a part of all that we do as the people of God. We are a busy church, and don’t misunderstand me, that’s a good thing. All our ministry and outreach and service is good, and these activities not only provide opportunities for us to reach out to those in need around us (which is clearly the call of Jesus), but they also provide us opportunities to build strong and healthy relationships with one another which I also think is God’s will for his people. So all the work we do at Faith Church is good. We have heard the word of God from the book of James that says, faith by itself, if it has no works is dead. Using that definition, then we can confidently say that we are a church that is alive and that we are a community of faith, but as people shared that night about football and Christmas dinners, musicals and mission trips, I couldn’t help but think about the story of Mary and Martha.

Mary and Martha had Jesus as a guest in their home and while Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet listening and learning, Martha was busy working to care for the needs of all the people gathered there. No one can argue that the service Martha provided was not valuable and important, it was, but we find in this story the hidden dangers of too much activity and too much busy-ness. In 10:40 it says Martha was distracted by her many tasks, and in 10:41 Jesus says, Martha you are worried and upset (other translations again say distracted). The danger in being too busy is that we become distracted and can lose our focus. Being too busy can cause us to lose sight of God and Martha’s response to Jesus shows us where this lose of focus and distraction can ultimately lead us – and it’s not a pretty sight. Look at Luke 10:40.

We can learn a lot from this one sentence. Let’s start at the end of the sentence and work backward. The first thing that often happens when we get too busy is that we only focus on ourselves. Mary says, I have been left to do all the work by myself. She has become self focused and self absorbed, and this leads to self pity. Mary is feeling sorry for herself here. As the evening wore on with Jesus all Martha can think about is how she has been the one doing all the work. Not only has she prepared and served the meal – but now she’s the one who has been left to clean up and do the dishes.

One way to tell if we are too busy is if we start feeling sorry for ourselves because of all the work we have to do. You see lots of work and activity is not a bad thing if we remain focused, but if all our activity becomes a burden and we start feeling sorry for ourselves and consumed with self pity, it might be a good idea to stop and evaluate what’s going in our lives and see if we have taken on too much, or if we haven’t asked for help. It’s important to do this because self pity often leads to greater problems, like anger, frustration, and judgment. Again, look at what Martha says, she doesn’t just say, I have been left to all the work; she says “my sister has left me to do all the work”. Martha’s not just feeling sorry for herself, her self pity has led to feeling anger at her sister and so she is quick to point out to Jesus how Mary has not pulling her weight. Martha’s self-pity and judgment has distracted her from the humble loving relationship she has had with her sister and it has created in her a harsh and critical spirit.

Once again, one way to tell if we are too busy is if we start being critical of those around us who we don’t think are doing enough. If we are quick to point out the problems and the faults of others, if we are quick to point out what others aren’t doing, we might want to evaluate what we are doing and again see if we have just taken on too much, or if we are doing things for the wrong reasons, or if we just need to stop and ask for some help.

Too much busy-ness not only leads us to be critical of others, it can also lead us to being critical and questioning of God. Look at how Martha begins her complaint to Jesus, “Lord, do you not care?” Martha’s distraction and self pity has not only led her to become critical of her sister Mary, but she also questions Jesus love and concern for her. In the course of this one evening she has gone from faithfulness to frustration, and she has gone from knowing God’s love for her to questioning that same love. It is possible for us to become so busy that we not only lose sight of God and what God’s will and desire might be for our lives, but we can get so busy that we lose sight of God’s love for us. Too much activity can cause us to question God’s ultimate care and concern for our lives which can lead us farther and farther away from God.

So we need to be careful that we don’t get so busy in life that we lose focus of God and just focus on ourselves, because self focus not only leads to self pity, criticism and judgment of others it can cause us to question God’s ultimate love for us. And it doesn’t matter if we are busy with family, jobs and life, or if we are busy with mission, service and ministry. Remember, Martha was busy serving Jesus when she became distracted and worried. Too much activity in the church is also something we need to guard against.

So what’s the answer? Well please hear this loud and clear – the answer is NOT to stop working. The answer is not to stop serving God and taking care of our family and being involved in mission and ministry in the world around us. Notice that Jesus never told Martha to stop working. The answer is balance. Look at what Jesus says to Martha, you are worried about many things, but only one thing is need and Mary has chosen what is better. Mary has chosen the one thing that is needed for a balanced life and that is to take the time to sit at the feet of Jesus to rest and reflect, to sit at the feet of Jesus to listen and to learn.

One of the important truths we learn from Jesus interaction with Mary and Martha here is that serving without sitting can lead us in the wrong direction. Serving God without ever sitting at the feet of Jesus to listen and learn will not lead us closer to God. In fact, serving God without taking the time listen can lead us farther and farther away from God and the life God wants for us. Isn’t that what happened to Martha? All her serving and activity has led her to a place of criticism, judgment and doubt. We can keep ourselves so busy even in our service to God that in time we find no joy in our service and no meaning or value in the work we do for God. Without that joy and value we lose all sense of direction in life and in faith and what often happens then is that people just quit. We call this burn-out and unfortunately we see too much of it in the life of the church. So serving God or serving others without sitting at Jesus feet can lead us in the wrong direction and can ultimately take us far away from God and the life God wants for us.

But sitting without serving is powerless and faithless. Sitting at the feet of Jesus in worship and study without ever getting up to serve God or the people God places in our lives is what James would call faith without works – and that is no faith at all. Look again at James 2:14-18.
So the answer simply can not be to stop serving and putting our faith to work. Sitting in worship and Bible Study but then never serving God is not the answer; the only answer is to serve after sitting. The balance we need to strive for in life is to serve God and the people around us after we have spent some quality time sitting at the feet of Jesus in worship and study. That is the only kind of order that brings power and direction to our faith and to our lives.

Now this is an important message for us to hear today because we are headed into a busy season of the year. Not only is this a busy time for children, youth and families with the start of school, but this is a busy time for us as a church as well. We have football dinners and 5th quarters starting up in a couple weeks. We have an outreach picnic planned for next week and Christmas musical planning and practices will soon be under way. And I hate to say this, but before long the holiday bazaar and the Christmas Dinner will begin planning because there are only 115 days left until Christmas. So the reality is that things will get even busier then they are right now, which means it will be easy for us get too distracted, worried and upset in the weeks ahead, so today is a good day to hear this message of Jesus that reminds us that Mary made an important, even a vital choice that night because Mary chose to sit at the feet of Jesus to rest. She took the time to reflect, listen and learn before she went out to serve.

So I want to encourage you this week, to take some time to sit at the feet of Jesus to rest and reflect, to listen and learn. If you go to the Grange Fair today or this week, don’t just go to find your favorite food stand, find some time to sit quietly and reflect on God’s word for your life. Maybe sit with your family or friends and share what God’s doing in your life, or what you want God to do in your life. If you have the opportunity to get away this week from the busy-ness and worries of life, take the time and make sure you spend some of it with God. If you can’t physically get away – at the very least, let the dishes go for a couple hours and take a walk in the evening or sit on the back porch, or come here to the church and sit at a picnic table under the trees in the back yard and rest, relax and reflect on what you hear God saying to your heart. It is important for us to take this time now so that we can enter into the fall focused and faithful, not distracted, critical and burned out.

Maybe even more important than taking time this week, however, is ordering our lives in such a way that we take the time every week to sit at the feet of Jesus to listen. We all know how busy life is and how easy it is for us to lose our focus, so we need consistent times where we can stop and simply sit at the feet of Jesus. Make sure you take the time for regular worship, make the decision now to join a small group this fall, or a Sunday School class where together we can sit at the feet of Jesus and learn. Let’s make sure we serve God but only after we spend some time sitting in God’s presence. So let the dirty dishes wait, chose what is better, choose the way that leads to life and take some time to and sit at the feet of Jesus to listen and to learn and to be filled with his love.