"Lord, Do You Care..."--Pentecost + 6, July 21, 2019

Sermon for Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, St. Ann, MO, Year C, Proper 11, July 21, 2019

Luke 10:38-42

               ³⁸Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. ³⁹She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. ⁴⁰But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”

          ⁴¹But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; ⁴²there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

          I don’t generally like to begin a sermon with a warning, but today I am making an exception. 

          This little story is a dangerous text. 

          It seems so simple, doesn’t it?

          Mary and Martha.  We make little jokes about them:  “Oh, look at Judy—she’s such a Martha!  Always in the kitchen.  Ha ha ha.”

          But this—this little five verse story about the sisters of Lazarus—this is a deceptively complex Bible story masquerading as a sibling spat. 

          In order to understand the story of Mary and Martha—and Jesus, who never gets included in the little headings in our Bibles—we’ve got to do a couple of things.  We’ve got to think about where and how we read it. 

          Now, by where, I don’t mean where you sit when you hear it. Sit where you want.  But pay attention to where the story falls.

          Where is this story?

          Luke’s gospel.

          Chapter 10.

          There are three key places to start if you really want to understand Luke’s gospel:

1.  The Magnificat—Chapter One.  Mary’s song about how God’s justice turns the world upside down.

2.  The Missionary Journey in chapters Nine and Ten

3.  The post-resurrection story of the road to Emmaus.  Final Chapter, twenty-four.

          The rest of the book is important, of course, but those sections are essential.  You probably already know the Magnificat and the Road to Emmaus story.  (If not:  google!)

          But what the heck is The Missionary Journey?  Or what is probably better called the Narrative of Missional Journeying?  Isn’t pretty much all of Luke a travel story about mission?

          Right in the middle of a gospel in which Jesus seems to be constantly on the road, are two chapters which basically lay out the work of discipleship and mission.  We’ve been reading from them for a few weeks now.  See if you recognize some of these stories:

          Chapter Nine begins with the sending of the twelve disciples, with the instruction to “take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money—not even an extra tunic.  The chapter goes on to include the

•        Feeding of the 5000

•        First and second Passion Prediction

•        The Transfiguration of Jesus, which gets its own Sunday in the late winter, so we forget that it is also in Chapter 9.

•        James and John, the Sons of Thunder, complaining that someone is doing ministry in Jesus name:  “Lord, we saw someone casting out demons in your name.  So of course we told him to stop!”

•        And then the turning point of the whole gospel, at verse 51, when Luke announces, “When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” 

          Everything before this is Prelude.  Everything after this is Passion, or at least the Road to Passion.

          Chapter Ten begins just like Chapter Nine, but with the mission expanded.  Now Jesus sends out seventy apostles, with very similar instructions—don’t take anything with you.  Just preach and teach and heal.  No travel pillows.  No little bottles of shampoo.

          The other two highlights of Chapter Ten are the parable of the Good Samaritan, last week’s gospel text, and, finally, the climax of the Narrative of Missional Journeying:  this little story about Mary and Martha.

          Better read it carefully.  Not reading it carefully enough is the other danger that this text presents.  The key to this text, and honestly to this whole section of Luke, is figuring out where to focus. 

          This is a story about Martha.  Mary is present, but from the beginning—"Jesus entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him”—this is Martha’s story.

          So what’s going on with Martha?

          She seems a little upset.

          Why is she upset?

          Because we always call this the story of Mary and Martha, it’s always tempting to make it a contrast story.  Martha is upset that her sister isn’t helping her, that she’s doing all the work.

          But what does she ask Jesus?

          “Lord, do you not care?

          Is she upset that Mary isn’t helping?  Yeah, it looks like it.  She does ask Jesus to tell Mary to help.

          But what she wants to know first of all is whether Jesus cares.

          Do you care about what is happening to me today, Jesus?

          Do you care about me, Jesus?    

          We see this question only twice in the gospels.  Anybody remember the other time?       

          Mark, Chapter Four.  Jesus and the disciples are out on the Sea of Galilee, and a storm brews up.  Jesus is curled up in the back of the boat, fast asleep, when they wake him to ask, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

          Don’t you care about us, Jesus?  The disciples want to know.  Martha wants to know.  We want to know.  Don’t you care about us, Jesus?

          What’s the answer?

          Yes.  If you hear nothing else I say, hear that.  Jesus loves you.  To death.

          Jesus cares about all of his disciples.  And he cares about Martha.  But less about whether she is not getting enough help from her sister.  He cares that she is worried.  And distracted. 

          He wants her to focus.  (There’s that focus thing again!)  Mary is focused on what Jesus is saying, and that’s important, because this is the Road to Jerusalem part of this story.  Jesus isn’t going to have time to come back and say this stuff a bunch more times.  They’ve got to get it today.

          They’ve got to focus.

          That’s why this story concludes the Narrative of Missionary Journeying.  Because the point of these two critical chapters is that we have to focus on the mission.  Cut out the distractions.  Drop our baggage—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money.”  The mission will be about feeding people with what is there already, with food we collect and with the word of God.

          By the way, I really appreciate the way this congregation is committed to both of those missions, as evidenced by your wonderful hunger ministry.

          The point of this section of Luke, and all of Luke and the whole gospel narrative Is that what we disciples need to know what Jesus cares about.

          Martha is asking the right question, albeit in perhaps the wrong way.

          What do you care about Jesus? 

          The whole point of the Narrative of Missional Journeying—these two chapters from Luke that we’ve been in for the past month—the whole point is for the disciples to learn where to focus.  And where do we need to focus?  On what Jesus cares about.

          Because when we understand that, we understand the mission that Jesus is on, that he left in the hands of both the Holy Spirit and *us*.

          So what does Jesus care about?