July 18, 2004; Proper 11, Year C
The Rev. Harold "Skip" Comer, Rector
Guess who’s coming to dinner? Jesus! What would you do? I would imagine that there would be a flurry of activity around the house. And look out for those who do not help get everything ready. Knock, knock! Some one’s at the door. Putting down the dinner plates you go to see who it is. Well, hello Jesus, you’re a bit early, we’re not quit ready yet, but please come in.
What do you do? Do you sit down and talk with him or excuse yourself and finish setting the table. And what about you wife, she’s still in the kitchen cooking. Well, certainly you would go and tell her that Jesus is here. She comes out to welcome him and then excuses herself to finish cooking dinner. As she walks back to the kitchen Jesus says, Martha, Martha, forget dinner, let it burn. Come and visit with me, for that is more important than the wonderful dinner you have prepared for me.
The story is really kind of absurd. I carried the story of Martha and Mary from our Gospel reading this morning one step further by adding, “forget dinner, let it burn.” It just seemed to me that Jesus might as well have said it, when he told Martha, “you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
To be honest with you I sympathize with Martha, probably because I am a Martha type. Martha types have been identified as task oriented, often said to be work alcoholics. That may be a bit unfair for Martha, for there is no indication that she was keeping busy just to avoid Jesus. She was doing what she thought was important, yet as we know from the story, what she was doing actually took her away from what was really important.
As you all know by now, Barbara Searls died on Tuesday night after a long and hard battle with cancer. Over the past year, Marilou and I have spent many hours with Jim and Barbara, talking and praying with them. During her last week or so one of us was there every day. On Tuesday morning I went to a meeting in Muskegon, then went to Munson to see Chester Koop, and on my way home I stopped and saw Barbara. About ten o’clock Tuesday evening Jim called me and said that he believed that Barbara was taking her last breaths. What kind of a minister would I have been if I had responded, “Jim, you know I had a long day and I am very tired. I just saw her a few hours ago, how about if I come over in the morning?”
There are some things in life that are more important than others. If we don’t have each other, then we are not the type of community that Jesus tried to establish.
Have you ever wondered why we have the Letters of Paul in the New Testament. It would seem that there should have been more writings about Jesus and how we in later generations would be able to develop a relationship with him. Instead, we have thirteen or fourteen letters addressed to early Christian communities and other followers of Jesus. These letters are important. Important not only for their content and instruction on the living a Christian life, but important because they help us to understand the importance of community. In the New Testament these communities are essential for the health, vitality, and growth of Christianity. That is why Paul was so concerned about what was going on in them. He knew that if the community was not healthy then the individual Christians would not be healthy. Where do we seek out relationships? The answer is in many different places. More specifically, where do we go to find and nurture our relationship with God and Jesus Christ? We may think that we can find it in a sunset, in a beautiful flower, or a walk in the woods. While God is there, we do not gain a true sense of the relationship we desire in these objects. We seek out a community of faith that is filled with the Holy Spirit, in which there is not only a relationship with God and Jesus Christ, but also with each other. It is in this environment, if it is healthy, then our relationship with God and Jesus Christ will grow.
Last week we heard the parable of the Good Samaritan. One of the lessons to be learned from the parable is that Christianity is about more, a lot more, than obedience to laws that are found in the Bible. Anybody can choose to follow those laws, yet that does not make them a Jew or a Christian. To become a Christian, and remain a Christian, we must have a relationship with Jesus Christ. That relationship can happen only one way – making time to spend with Jesus so that we get to know him, and more than know him, to love him.
Let me give you an example from Barbara. Several weeks ago there was a concern because Barbara had said that she did not feel that God was very close. As I pursued this I realized that she was expressing a common feeling. God is somewhere out there. Yet when I asked her about Jesus, she said, “Oh, he’s right here beside me.” Where did she gain that sense of the presence of Jesus beside her bed? While there are many people who have written about this type of experience, I don’t believe that it comes out of a book. I believe that it comes out of the experiences in a community of faith that is focused upon the worship of God and responding to the call of Jesus to follow him. This along with the presence of the Holy Spirit draws us into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
It is not an easy relationship to maintain, or even enter into, because it is different from our everyday experiences of human relationship where we can physically touch each other and hear what the other person has to say. Yet it is what we are called to do. Not impossible, yet as in the story of Martha and Mary, we have to be willing to put other things, other responsibilities, even practical responsibilities aside, and be attentive to the presence of Jesus.