Mary, Martha and Amy

June 7, 2026 · Ben Hoyer · 29:13

Revisiting the three arenas of vocation (family, church, and neighborhood), this message focuses on family through Psalm 68, where God is father to the fatherless and sets the lonely in families, and includes Amy sharing her own story about family.

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So we've been thinking through these like vocations because we've been trying to re-center on now that we've been through the whole story of Scripture, 30-something weeks. What do we do with our life? How do we move towards a life that we'll like or the life that we're called to, the life that we were made for? What should we do? Part of it, I was telling Amy before church, I've been hanging around more church folk lately,

less non-profit folk, since I've handed off a lot of the responsibilities I had with Credo and with Raleigh, and I'm around a lot more church folk. And professional church folk tend to talk a lot about how do we make disciples and multiply people and get more people in. In a lot of the church language, I'm like, I'm pretty dissatisfied with. I don't like the idea of my goal is to simply multiply as many people in a room as I can.

I don't like that. But I'm pretty goal oriented. I like knowing if I'm doing a good job, so I've been asking myself, what does it look like when a church is doing a good job? And the thing I settled on is we're taking these vocations seriously. So we've been looking again at what they are, the vocations of God puts us in families. What does it look like to take the role in families seriously? Why would he do that? What's the opportunity in blessing there? And then God puts us in a church.

What does he call for us to be in church for one another? What's the opportunity and blessing there? And then we're in these neighborhoods. The church historically has given us these three arenas of vocation, family, church, and neighborhood. And we've talked a little bit about each of them today. I want to talk a little bit about them and then hear a little bit of Amy's story about family. You see what she thinks about with that. But to start out is to look at Psalm 68, what we used as our call to worship. If you want to look there, there's kind of a famous verse there.

And depending on the translation that you have, like I read it in the ESV for our call to worship, it's probably most familiar to people in the NIV if you're on your phone and can pick what translation you're looking at. But in Psalm 68, a Psalm of David, he says, starting at verse 4, sing to God, sing praises to his name, lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts. His name is the Lord, exalt before him.

And then it says in verse 5, father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. God settles the solitary in a home, or in the NIV he says he puts the lonely in families, leads out the prisoners to prosperity and the rebellious dwell in a parched land. The thing there in that Psalm, he puts the lonely in families, but even before that a father to the fatherless and he protects the widow, the idea of moving through life

in a family was God's idea. And we talked about a couple of weeks ago how reckless it seems to trust humans from conception all the way through maturation to other people. But God is committed to that reckless approach. And even though people fail, he continues to come back to the family as this model. And so God says, even when families fail, I'll step in and be family for you.

If you don't have a father for whatever reason, God says, I'll be the father, but he continues to use the father as the metaphor. Sometimes we have trouble calling God father because we had a terrible father or a father who fell down and couldn't fulfill the responsibility so much that the word is obstructed in our view. But what's interesting to me is that God holds on to the word. He says, if you're without a father, I'll be your father. He doesn't come up with another word for it. He just says, let me redefine for you what the father should be. And then when he says, I'll be the protector of the widow when the widow loses her husband

in the ancient Near East and has no kids, she's all alone. He says, I'll step in as the role of the child to take care of the mother. I'll be the, I'll be, take care of the widow. So it's crazy to me that God continues to use the family as a metaphor for blessing,

as the vehicle even for blessing. Like Jesus doubles down on it. So God, he creates humanity and then from the beginning he recognizes it's not good for humanity to be alone. So we'll make a special helper. They'll work together. They'll form family for this reason. A man will leave his wife and join and they'll become one. And then he's like, you two have kids fill the earth and subdue it and he sticks with that over and over again and even at the time of David after we've been through Noah and Babel after we've been through all the failures of Israel and slavery in Egypt.

Still the time of David, he's using father as the metaphor. And then when we get to Jesus, Jesus is still doing that. I was trying to think of the number of times Jesus reunites families. Remember when Jarius comes and asks, hey, my daughter is sick, would you heal her? And then she dies and people are like, Jarius give up hope and Jesus comes back and says, raises the daughter back to life and gives her back to her dad. There's another time, remember when the widow is following the casket of her son to the

burial ground. And weeping, she's got nobody left and everybody is weeping for her because she's going to be all alone. And Jesus comes and puts his hand on the funeral buyer and raises her son back to life, reunites the family and says, go back. And even when Jesus is like at his worst, at his most vulnerable, most frustrated, most confused and he cries out to God, he calls him dad, right? It's so significant that Paul says one of the great things that we will have is that we

get to call God dad, that the metaphor of family, the vehicle of family as the potential for blessing is so ingrained in creation that even though it fails over and over again, God remains committed to it. It's a really kind of fascinating thing to think about, especially those of us who have been through families.

Anybody been through a family? Now leave your hand up if the family that you've been through has been perfect. Oh. Okay. So why would we continue to be subjected to such deep imperfection? You know?

I think it's because the potential of the redemption is so deep and broad. The potential of the blessing can overwhelm the failure. There's one more story of family that I wanted to look at here before we talk with Amy and it's in Luke chapter 30, Matthew, Mark, Luke. Not 30.

10. Luke chapter 10. His family was God's idea. He institutes family. He sticks with family. Even in the Old Testament says he's going to be the reuniter of families. And then in the life of Jesus, Jesus does reunite families. And then makes this like the language for the Trinitarian relationship, for the word

of God's relationship to God himself is father to son. So like definitely the family is like a place to be. But Jesus also at times, do you remember there's one time where he's teaching and he's like there's a bunch of people at the house and his mom and his brothers are outside and they can't get into the house because there's so all these people listening and somebody comes up to Jesus and they're like, hey, Jesus, your mother and your brothers are out there

and they're trying to get to you. He's like mother and brothers. Who are my mother and brothers? But those who do the will of the father like move on. And so there is something, there is some limitation to family. It's not as though family is all complete. And there's one story that kind of gets to that. It's in Luke chapter 10 starting at verse 38.

It says, now 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. What 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?

And then 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. Now, Mary and Martha are sisters and they are living together. It doesn't say how old they are, but the fact that they are the ones running the house and their sisters and they are living together might mean that they are just kind of taking care of each other. It might mean maybe they are not getting married, this is their family.

But either way, sisters, siblings have a unique little thing. We mentioned like a couple of weeks ago how much birth order matters and how your personality forms around your siblings. It's nice when they are not exactly the same so they end up kind of compliment each other. If one of them is always in control, the other one tends to be passive and an easy follower. And then it bothers them that the other one is not ever taking control or that the other one is always taking control. They get these weird dynamics in siblings.

And so you see it playing out, Jesus comes into the house and Jesus at this point in his life and career is never alone. So if Jesus is coming to his house, he has all these people that come with him and Mary and Martha invite him into their house which means they have the capacity to take care of everyone. And as soon as they get there, Mary sits down and starts listening and my hunch is, this isn't the first time Mary has left Martha to take care of everything. And so when she sits down to listen to Jesus and Martha is up making sure everybody has

what they need, this isn't the first time Mary has done that. Mary has left Martha to take care of all the things probably lots of times. And so Martha knows that Jesus is a big deal. That's why she invited them to come stay at the house. But good night, she's just exhausted for always having to be the one to do everything. And so she says, Jesus, why don't you just tell, why don't you just arbitrate here and tell this lady to get up and like help me?

And Jesus says this thing to Martha, you're worried about many things, but Mary has chosen what is great. It just so happens that the story we get, in this case Mary sat down to listen to the incarnated God. In this case, let the dishes pile up, right, when Jesus is at the house. But it's easy for Jesus to say that because this is his first time dealing with Mary shirking her responsibilities. It would be much harder for Martha to let Mary do that because she's doing it to her all

the time. I'm saying that in the family where we know each other so well, it can be so hard to like extend grace, patience, forgiveness. Forgiveness, mercy. Because we almost know them too well. So even when Mary's making the right choice, Martha can't see it because she's been next

to her when she makes the wrong choice so many times, right? And so it can be hard to be in family. Jesus doesn't tell Martha to quit. He lets Martha be Martha and Mary be Mary, imperfectly but receiving still. One of the things I hope for us is that we can create spaces in our homes.

If we're taking our vocation seriously, we're considering how are we allowing members of our family to be imperfect and calling them towards what's better? I think that we are doing that. All of us to the degrees that we're able. And so I thought it would be fun. These next couple of weeks as we look at these vocations to hear from people in our

midst who are living out their vocations. Amy is doing that with the summer bills. Amy, come on up. You guys give her a round of applause. Yeah. I'll sit up here because you're taller than me. Yeah, because you're taller. So, Demetrius is our resident family speaker. So, I'm a little bit awkward. But we'll give it a go.

So, I'm Amy. Demetrius and I have been married 21 years. I'm the mom of four pretty cool and incredible kids. I have worked with families in foster care, adoption, preschool. I've helped my friends, raised their kids. I coach volleyball. I help kids get into college, high-level athletes. I've spent my life pretty much in the context of my own family but also in other people's family.

So, the most recently I was in the hospice space helping people usher into fun. And a play. So, lots of experience with family. I did make some notes and very large font because I had to change my kids to paper. So, when Dem asked me to share a little bit about family, at first my first thought was like, I don't talk in front of people.

But I do definitely have some thoughts on that. Also, he sent the email with a subject line. I have a favor to ask if you can say no. So, I was like, okay. If you know me, I'm like, I need an out before I'm ever going to consider saying. So, that was smart. That was smart. So, yeah, that was helpful. So, yeah. So, I do have a little bit to share. I started thinking about family and what's the point?

We wake up with these people. We do live. We go to bed and we go to the next day. And living with people can be tricky. Raising kids can be super tough. I think you said a few weeks ago about parents. We're just people. And families are just more people living in one space. And it can be tough. And most of the family, like they're not just each other. The parents showed each other, but no one else has made a decision, right?

So, we're just all in that space. I do believe God sets us in families to live out our communities in a space that is, we're free to fail and we're free to reach for our goals. And I'm thankful that the Lord doesn't ask us to live alone in that. So, this first question was, what do we owe each other? What is it that we owe each other? So, my thought was all we can really give to one another is to be present.

To be present in failure and to be present in joy. So, I have a couple thoughts on each of those buckets. Sitting with a discomfort of someone else's shame and family and not looking away or trying to fix it is a huge good, right? Allowing space to be infinite, imperfect, mortal, I believe is the mercy of God in human form. So, like, there's a lot of opportunities to do that in families. Say that part again. The first part you said.

Sitting with someone. Allowing space to be finite, imperfect, and mortal is the mercy of God. Allowing space for other people to be finite, imperfect, and mortal is God's mercy. So, we're not saying God's mercy. Because God does that for us so we can do that for people in our family. I think so. Yeah, cool. Yeah, I think so. So, giving space for kids to fail, right? Giving space for spouses to be rude or not always patient and then still showing up in

the improvement among each other. It's a picture of God's mercy. So that's the tough side, right? Being present in failure, if your kids have screwed up, not looking away from them and they're shame, right? Like, that's God, right? He looks at us in our imperfection and he loves us. So, I think we have the opportunity in family to be that workers. On the flip side of that, there's a lot of joy to be had in family.

A lot to celebrate. So, being present with your family and their joy and their accomplishments and their success is super fun. I did ask Wes for his permission to share this, but I feel like it was a good example of someone reaching for something. If you guys know Wes, he's always wanted to be a gator, right? So, for two years straight, I think Hazel asked for prayer in the back room back there for Wes.

And we kind of were, I mean, Megan and Ben were, you know, holding that desire, both of our, we all, you guys know Wes, like, we were all kind of like, I sure hope he did enough to get through the gauntlet of admissions to become a gator, right? So when Wes got his acceptance, I think we all breathed a collective side release, right? But I thought about that and I thought about Wes' accomplishment in the absence of family

or even the context of our church. And he didn't do it in a silo and had he accomplished his goal, but no one cared, right? Like, what's the point? You know? I mean, good for you, but like, if he's in a silo or he's alone and there's no one there, there's no sister, like, asking God, right? What's the point? So, anyway, I'd like to call this pretty cool.

I don't know if you guys are sports people, but that's why I'm not very church. College athlete, I'm here to college athlete, all these hopeful college athletes, so. But I was thinking about, I don't know if you guys watched sports, but right now it's like a college baseball season. And yesterday, Demetrias and I are all in the moderate, or a Troy University coach, or a surgeon, made it to the college World Series, baseball. And I just think about, like, even the accomplishments of humans and family, the head coach is 41.

The first thing I saw when they, the game ended on a walk-off was his kids running. Like, full speed, you know, he grabs one of his arms, hugs her, puts her down, and you're coming up, like, right? Or, like, Demetrias likes to watch golf a lot, and golf is boring to me. But like, there's a story behind it, and when those women are men, like, when, like, there's so much failure in golf, but when they succeed, it's like, they're going to their family.

Like, they're white, they're kids, and they're sharing that joy together, and I think in the context of family, like, our joy of someone last yesterday, it just, it creates a bigger joy than you have someone to share with. And so in the context of family, we have the failure side, where we can be present in it, and we also have the fun stuff where we get to just enjoy the accomplishments. So, well, that was pretty fun. You're doing great, yeah.

So, let me see what else I had here, guys. I wrote out a lot. Talk a little bit about how your faith interacts with your role in family, whether that's as a daughter, a sister, a mother. So, I mean, I think the way faith interacts with family in general, in family, like, we're fully known, and we're fully loved, right? That's the goal, right? I mean, we don't do it perfectly. We do a lot of repair in our house.

But giving space to fail, and giving space to have joy, we're not hiding, right? So, we're fully known and fully loved. I think that is the grace of God, is the mercy of God. And no one knows us more fully than the God in great faith. That's great. So, not hiding from him in our shame, trusting him with our dreams, and knowing that at the

end of the day, like, we're just loved. So, as a little person, I never knew what I wanted to do when I grew up, but I knew I wanted to be a mom, right? So, like, I was that kid that always cared to take a baby around my face, like, way past when it was, like, cool, too. And I found out as an adult, like, little kids, like, pretend to get married. I never did that. I mean, I did. But I always dreamed about being a mom. So, that was kind of my thing.

And I had a great mom. I had a great mom. And so, you know, you've said before, no one gets through childhood unscathed, right? Which is true for me, too. But thankfully, I did have a really good mom. And so, you know, I think about how, as a mom, to answer your question, like, when God gives you that old baby, like, I teach you.

Like, and I think it's good for us, too. Like, the way God looks at us. Like, our work and our value is fully, it's really, really, really, really, really, really fully, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really

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