Luke 10

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0:00 The rest of us, we're going to keep looking at the stories of food in Luke's gospel. We're into Luke chapter 10. We are going to look at this story of Mary and Martha, kind of a famous story. But before we do that, let's pray together. Hey, Lord, thanks for bringing us here. It is good to be your church to remember that you, when you call us to yourself, you don't leave us alone.

0:31 But you put us together. Teach us how to be church for one another well. Teach us how to support one another, to love one another, to care for each other, to challenge one another one appropriate Lord. Teach us how to be church for one another, that we might, Lord, walk more deeply in the life you've bought for us, and that we might serve our city together well as you might.

1:01 Be with us now. Thank you for the story of Luke, our Luke's gospel and the story of Mary and Martha. Be with us as we engage it. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So we talked about, we've been talking about how in Luke's gospel Jesus is either going towards a meal, at a meal, or going away from a meal, that foods like this constant presence in the story of Luke. We talked a little bit about how food would be different, of course, in the first century,

1:33 especially not in any kind of metro center. So like when they're in Capernaum and Bethsaida and Nazareth and Bethlehem, and when they're outside of like Jerusalem, when they're in the countryside out by the Sea of Galilee, these are like subsistence, this is like subsistence living. These are herders that are managing flocks for people.

2:04 There's some growing happening, but it's not largely agrarian, right? They're not some big production farms. And so there's not like an excess of food lying around. They grow some wheat. Remember there's that story about Jesus and the disciples walking in the fields of wheat and they make bread, but the bread especially that you have sitting around is old and bad, right? So they like would soak it in fish guts to try and give it flavor and soften it. So whenever you would gather a couple of people together for a meal, it would kind of

2:36 be a big deal. If someone were willing to host other people, that would be a big deal because you're sharing food with people and food not only takes planning, but takes resources and money to put together. And so when Jesus is going to these homes to eat, every time it's an occasion, you know? It's not just like a small deal. Every time it's an occasion. And Jesus makes, so Luke when he's telling these stories, often Jesus is coming from

3:07 a teaching or he's teaching there and who he dines with, like the act of eating together communicates so much in the culture. Who's at the table? How is the table set up? How are people seated around the table? Who's included? Who's not included? And we looked last week at the story of the feeding of the 5,000. It was the first time that it had occurred to me the way in which Jesus set this meal up like a king providing a feast.

3:40 Like in rows of groups of 50 and you welcome them. But if a king provides a feast, you have to RSVP so he kills the right number of animals and gets the right number of food. But when Jesus sets up the feast, when he's the king, anybody who wants can come whenever they want. You can come last minute if you want because when Jesus provides the food, there's more than enough for whoever arrives. 12 Basketfuls empty. And so last week we talked about if anyone would like to come to the table of Jesus,

4:13 he has what you need. Healing, forgiveness, sustenance, provision, all are welcome. No litmus test is required. No forms to pass. That's really stuck with me this week. That Jesus welcomes all to his table and has enough for everyone. It's kind of beautiful. In Luke chapter 10, Jesus gets invited to a meal right at the end of Luke chapter 10 starting at verse 38.

4:44 It says, now they went on their way. As they went on their way, Jesus entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving and she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?

5:15 Tell her to help me. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken away from her. Anybody heard this story before? Mary and Martha? Yeah, most of the room. What kind of famous story? And the normal tack and we'll do our fair share of it here this morning is really to

5:48 rag on Martha. When I read it, I had seen just enough of the Brady bunch to hear, Marsha, Marsha, Marsha. But first before we do that, the dinner was Martha's idea. Right? Like she did it.

6:19 She's like, hey, Jesus, you want to come? We'll have dinner. Come and eat at our house. Come and have the meal with us. We'll have some people over. I'll prepare some food. Martha takes the move, man. Martha welcomes Jesus in. Martha has the vision and the hope and the optimism.

6:51 She takes the chance. She invites Jesus in all his, all that that means. Right? This is already a controversial figure. We've already seen that. People have opinions about him. Some people like him, some people don't. Some people get along with him, some of them don't. It means something to associate with Jesus. All these things Martha just goes in on. And she invites him over and we don't know. It's hard to say. But if Martha's doing the inviting, maybe she's got to take care of her own household.

7:29 Right? Maybe her husband's not in the picture anymore. Maybe he died. We find out later, of course, that Lazarus is her brother. Lazarus is Martha's brother, the one that Jesus will raise from the dead. But what struck me here when I was reading it for the first time and I was loading my shotgun against Martha. I realized, wow, Martha's Martha's idea.

8:00 And it was a good idea. Like Robin, she's like, let's have dinner with Jesus. Right? This is going to be fascinating. Good idea, Martha. And then when she's taking care of everything and she sees her sister chilling at Jesus' feet and she's like, it's an interesting move to try and get your guest of honor to tell your sister what to do. That's an interesting move. Right?

8:30 Like not, I mean, but she must be really committed to try and get Mary to do it and she knows Mary will listen to Jesus. She must be pretty overwhelmed. What's interesting then, the next thing that was interesting that I hadn't thought of before is Jesus tells, he goes, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. And Mary has chosen the better and it won't be taken from her. But he doesn't tell Martha to stop. Right? That's the next thing that I hadn't really realized.

9:02 It's not like he's like Martha, stop walking around and sit down. He could have told her that. He's not afraid to tell people stuff. Right? He could have said, the dishes will wash themselves. Have a seat for a minute. Right? He didn't say that. Right? He just said, you're anxious and worried, Martha. You're anxious and worried, Martha. It's not as though the work she was doing was bad.

9:36 It was a good idea for Jesus to come to dinner and somebody's got to make it. It was a good idea for Jesus to come to get dinner and somebody's got to make it and somebody's got to set it out in front of everyone. And when you have guests, somebody's got to do that. Right? And you don't want everyone. I mean, it's nice to be comfortable in people's homes but sometimes you want to take care of people and somebody's got to do the taking care of. So what Martha's doing is not bad. There's something else that Jesus is giving her an opportunity to recognize here and it's not stop doing the work.

10:10 It's good that she invited Jesus over. And if she did, she's probably pretty good at hosting people. If you're going to host the rabbi, if you're going to stick your head out there and go, Rabbi, you should come to my house. Everyone knows Martha's house is the one you want to go to for dinner. Martha's the one who hosts the parties. We all know people like that. There are people who, if you want to have a party, you call them and go, hey, I would like to have a party but I'm not the party. Would you host the party? I'll help, I promise. Martha's like that. She's the one that does the work.

10:42 And Jesus is giving her an opportunity to recognize something but I don't think he's saying what you're doing is bad. What you're doing is wrong. And so I want the people in the room who are active and acquainted with anxiety or trouble to hear that first. When you know anxiety or trouble, it's not necessarily that you're doing the wrong thing.

11:15 Don't feel like you have failed or chosen poorly. It's not necessarily that. Remember the story when it's like in John's gospel, if you want to look there with me, I'm going to read it for you just to make sure that I get it right. In John's gospel, it's in chapter 12. I think it's in chapter 12. Maybe it's not.

11:47 You might have to take my word for it, guys. Oh, chapter 11. Yeah. Look at John chapter 11 if you want verse 17. Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem about now two miles off. This is after he's had the dinner party that Martha threw sometime later.

12:17 He's built the friendship with them and sustained it over the period of time. And then he hears that Lazarus is dead so he comes back and back to their house. Bethany was near Jerusalem about two miles off and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him. But Mary remained seated in the house. Okay, just think about this for a second.

12:49 Does that match the dinner party? Lazarus, they've handled the stuff about Lazarus. You know, when someone dies, your friends would come and mourn with you. They still have patterns of this in traditional Jewish cultures where you'd sit together for a period of time, you know, and people would come and take turns in sitting with you. In addition to that, in first century, they would have professional mourners. Sometimes that they would pay to come and just like carry on in order to get everyone

13:20 else to be sad. And so it, but they'd handled all the funeral preparation stuff. They had carried then Lazarus to the tomb and then had rolled the stone in front of the tomb like he is all the way dead and they're in the end phases and probably having what? To host some folk, right? And they had sent the word to Jesus where every was with his disciples when Lazarus got sick and he didn't come and he didn't come. And now they hear he's on somebody heard somebody saw Jesus coming and they ran to the house

13:52 and told Mary and Martha that Jesus is coming. And whatever's going on, Martha's out to meet him, man. And who knows? There's probably several things, but Martha's not waiting to see what happens. Martha's going to go address the situation. Mary is caught up in something. Right? Yeah, she's sitting. And then this is the phrase, this is what was interesting. Martha, let's see, Mary seated in the house verse 27.

14:23 Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now, I know that whatever you ask from him, God will give you. And Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. And Martha said, I know, I know that Jesus. I know he will rise again, Jesus. Right? I know. I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.

14:55 And Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection. Martha, I am the resurrection. I'm like, this is what I was thinking about. Martha, hey, this rabbi's bonkers. Let's have him over. We'll invite all the people. And then he's running around and taking care of everything. And it's building up her anxiety and stress, trying to solve everything, plan for everything, imagine everything, take care of everyone. It's stressing her out. And the problem of hosting, the hosting isn't the problem.

15:28 It's that she's trying to manage everything. And that she needs to have it all under control. And that she needs to predict what could go wrong and get there before it does. And she needs to imagine how people will perceive her and her guests and manage the perception of her and her guests in every situation. It's the same thing that when Jesus comes to raise Lazarus and he's like, he's coming in, you know, and he knows what's going to happen. He waited on purpose to demonstrate the miracle for his friends. And he walks up and Martha comes running out and she's like, Jesus, you could have handled

15:59 this. I know you could have handled this. And he's like, it's going to be okay. And she's like, I know it will be okay in the end, but it could have been okay right now. Right? She knows. Martha knows. Martha's got it under control. And the price she pays is she's worked up, stressed out. Remember the, this is then I started thinking about the other places where people get troubled

16:36 in the scriptures. Remember the very first ones, they get troubled and afraid, right? Remember what did it? They were like, the little serpent was like, hey, you could be like God. You could know how things are going to go. You could sort out right and wrong.

17:07 You could be the arbiter of truth and right and wrong. You could do it. I bet you could do it. You're the crowning of all creation. You could be like God. And they're like, yeah, I think I think I could. I think I could handle it. I think I could take the responsibility of controlling right and wrong. I think I could. I think I could do it. Yep. Where is it? Yep. Got it. Right? Immediately they are troubled.

17:37 The weight of the responsibility crushes them. They were not made, they're the crowning point of creation, but they are not the creator. You know what I mean? They're just not. There's another spot I've wrote it down so I wouldn't forget it. Oh, yeah. There's another time when Jesus is walking on the water, calls Peter out, and Peter's

18:14 like walking on the water to Jesus. Jesus call me out. Hey, if it's you, I can do it. Jesus, if you call me, I can go. And so then he starts walking on the water and then the wind starts to blow and he's looking around and he's like, what? I'm walking on water and the wind is blowing. Jesus, you got to get me out of the. Because Peter can't control the wind and the waves and the water.

18:48 He starts walking on water and Jesus calls him up and says, but you have little faith, why did you doubt? Why did you get to get to get him up? But Jesus says, why did you doubt that I could do this for you? Why did you try and control the whole situation? Why not just keep counting on me? You know? And what we could do? I thought one more story. Actually I didn't write down the text, so you'll have to take my word for it. There's a place, actually I think it's towards the Last Supper when Jesus is telling the

19:25 twelve that he's going to leave and they're starting to freak out. They're like, wait, why did you got to leave? We don't know where you're going. And he says, why are you so troubled? Don't you know I'll go into a place for you?

20:02 One like Mary or Peter or the disciples, you and I might come up against situations where we feel increased anxiety or fear. And so often, I don't want to say every time, but often this is us trying to control what's outside of our control, trying to micromanage the future, trying to determine and control

20:41 what will happen in the future or the environment around us. It's not that what we're doing is bad, it's that our notion of who we are in the midst of what we're doing is off. You are very cool.

21:16 You are very creative. You are innovative, you are loving, you are generous, your words can support and affirm your words can uplift and convict. Your creativity can make things happen. You can imagine things that aren't there yet, you can bring them into existence from food to ideas to creations.

21:46 You are very cool. And not God. You can do a lot of things. You cannot do everything. Jesus, Martha comes to Jesus and says, hey dude, look, I'm trying to control it all here.

22:22 I'm trying to get this taken care of and Jesus chilling and Jesus is like, oh, so is that. Don't you know I'm here? Don't you know I am with you? I'd love for you to put plates in front of me, Martha. I'd love for you to prepare food. But you don't have to be so freaked out about it.

22:56 It's going to be okay. All the people here are not your responsibility. They're emotions and perceptions. You can't control that. If the food comes out slower or faster, you're doing the best you can. Jesus said, I'm here, Martha, don't you know I'm here and I'm with you. I think this story in Luke, I was reading through some commentaries looking at the food

23:34 in Luke. They're like, maybe there's so much food in Luke. He puts this story in here to remind us that the food is nice to have. Jesus we must have. The food is a nice accompaniment. Jesus is the main thing. All the stuff you can do because you are cool is fantastic.

24:06 And it comes as an outgrowth of your relationship to the God, not because you are the God. And the awareness of your limitations is good when you know who picks up where you leave off. I had a staff person who worked for me once and was doing a really good job but without

24:36 a lot of oversight. He was in an area that was kind of new for her and that we were counting on. We needed her, you know, and she was working hard and I didn't know it but was getting really stressed at the responsibility on her shoulders. And after carrying this stress and starting to resent the people she felt like were putting

25:11 this stress on her shoulders came to me and said, of course I was the one putting the responsibility on her shoulders. Came to me and said, hey, how could you put me in this spot? I can't take it. It's too much responsibility. I'm too much on my own. I can't handle this thing. I said, that's fine. Don't do it. She's like, well, I can't not do it.

25:43 If I don't do it, it'll never happen. I said, sure, well, if you can't handle it, I'll find somebody else to do it. It's not worth killing yourself over. She had no idea because she didn't check in with me. She had no idea what I had planned, what I could accomplish, what I, the resources I had at my disposal.

26:13 She didn't know. And so she tried to handle what she couldn't. I wasn't asking her to do it. In this case, right? Jokes on her. She is stressing herself out, worrying herself out when no one's asking her to. You don't know what the Lord has in store for you. You don't know what he has at his disposal.

26:45 The resources he could call to your aid. I just try to be he and want to encourage you this morning to remember. I try to be a person who knows and I want to encourage you to be a person who remembers. That the God of the universe is on your side. And all the work you are caught up in is good and secondary to that relationship to the one

27:23 who holds the future. The one who can be God. You cannot. Knowing your limitations, recognizing you are not God and submitting to the one who is lets you enjoy dinner. And even the things you're good at, hosting or whatever. Let's pray that we could do that. Hey Lord, thank you for the gift of your provision, your protection, your creativity,

27:55 your care. Teach us how to receive it well. That we could walk in our gifting, understanding its limitation and submitting to you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.