Today we celebrated PWOC Sunday at our base chapel. The Protestant Women of the Chapel is the ministry by and for women at military chapels all over the world. PWOC has four aims:
- to LEAD women to accept Christ as personal Savior and Lord;
- to TEACH women the history, beliefs, and programs of the church, all built on a solid foundation of worship and Bible study;
- to DEVELOP in women the skills of prayer, evangelism, stewardship, and social service, against a background of personal spiritual development;
- to INVOLVE women in the work of the Chapel, in keeping with their abilities and interests.
A special thanks to our wonderful chaplains who have invited me to preach and teach on more than one occasion. I am honored to be a part of a wonderful ministry team.
Giving Our Undivided Attention
It’s PWOC Sunday, a time to celebrate the work and ministry of women in our base family. PWOC – Protestant Women of the Chapel… the name captures a lot, but is bigger than you might expect. Our ranks include Protestants, Catholics and people who just love Jesus. Some worship at the chapel regularly, but not all. And with four wonderful, helpful, supportive chaplains as members of our ranks, we are not even all women. But what we are is summed up in our mission statement: We are workers together for Christ. So I thought today might be a good day to consider the story of Mary and Martha, for whom work was an issue.
[Read passage Luke 10: 38-42]
Hospitality was an important aspect of life people in biblical times. Hospitality… welcome… meeting people’s needs… it’s against this backdrop that we examine the familiar story of Martha and Mary. Like so many of the stories in the gospels, all we have are a few brief sentences. Our imaginations have filled in the details not listed and shaped our interpretations of this story.
How do you see Martha – fussing over dinner, presiding over the kitchen, balancing the dozens of details that go into feeding a dining room full of guests? I think her modern incarnation would come equipped with the efficient conveniences of an organized life, a smartphone or tablet at the ready with recipes, and information at hand to plan a perfect last-minute affair. The Martha we think we know is a woman of action – there is no doubt about it!
And what about Mary – what does she look like? Is she the dreamy, less practical sister, the one whose attention wanders from the task at hand to think of books, art, poetry, and music? Or is she a young intellectual or perhaps a mystic? There she sits, her eyes open wide, leaning forward to catch every word that Jesus has to share, her mind busily shaping questions as she listens eagerly, shutting out the world around.
It’s easy to imagine multiple dimensions to these sisters’ characters, but the truth is really only know what Jesus tells us… that they are simply two sisters, reacting in their own unique ways to the awe and wonder over this particular guest.
It’s clear that Martha and Mary have different expectations for Jesus’ visit. Martha’s head is engaged with her responsibilities, while Mary is filled with Jesus’ presence. The moment is one of conflict. Martha has pictured this going a different way. Her question to Jesus includes a request: "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me."
Many assume that Martha’s distraction centers on marshaling the resources for her household to provide hospitality for her guests. But, in truth, she could have been preoccupied with any number of concerns. Whatever they are, the important word used to describe Martha is “distracted.” Her attention was focused on what she thought was important. And when it didn’t all go the way she planned, she asked Jesus to do something about it.
In Eugene H. Peterson's The Message, Jesus replies in this way: "Martha, dear Martha, you're fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it—it's the main course, and won't be taken from her.” In this brief conversation, I don’t think that Jesus is elevating one aspect of discipleship over another. He is not discounting the need for outer preparations or exclusively commending the inward life. Instead, he is asking for something more difficult… he is asking for a change in attitude in which he becomes the focus and foundation of everything we do.
My life is busy – how about yours? Part of that is true because I want it to be that way. I like being out and about, meeting with all kinds of people in all kinds of places. I have also not perfected the use of one of the shortest words in the English language – NO, but that’s a sermon for another day. But this story begs a bigger question: where is our full attention? Are we, like Martha, distracted by all of the activities that we have to do? Or are we occasionally able to be Mary, totally focused on Jesus and who he has called us to be?
There is something in this story for all temperaments and tendencies. We could read it as a story that commends not allowing service to distract us from prayer and study. We could also, coming to Martha's defense, remember that we are not to use prayer and study as a free pass to avoid service. In the end, we have to be able to put into practice all the lessons that Jesus taught. Sometimes that will mean being alone with God. Other times it will be about being in the world – loving people and being the hands and feet of Christ in the world.
Our undivided attention -- this is what Jesus asks of us in a world that holds more distractions than Martha could ever have imagined. He is not telling us that work and family, and housekeeping, and management, and hospitality have no place. Instead, he urges us to choose Him first and let all of these other things take their place in line behind that choice.
Jesus asks us not to become so preoccupied with the details of life, even in our faith community, that we neglect the one in whom we have that faith. His hope is that we will not become so concerned about hospitality when it is our turn to host coffee hour that we miss worship with the rest of those gathered. We should not be so busy greeting old acquaintances that we do not see the guest in our midst. And his desire is that we do not become so involved in managing our worldly affairs that we have no time for our eternal affairs – for prayer, study, reflection, and loving God in all we do.
If Martha, there in Bethany, could find herself distracted with Jesus actually under her roof where she could reach out and touch him, how much more vulnerable are we? We have many tempting distractions at our disposal. Consider our work responsibilities, leisure activities, relationships with family and friends, and volunteering in the community. Then add to that the ability to be connected at any moment by phone, computer, text or television. Preoccupied with all we have to do, we forget that church is not where we go – it’s who we are.
Here are the questions I hope you’ll consider this week. What if we applied Mary’s kind of devotion to the way we live every day? What if our everyday lives were the place where people encountered Jesus for the first time, and wanted to know him better, not because of a bible verse we gave them, but because of the way we live out those verses? What if choosing the better part is not about what we do, but about the attitude with which we do everything? What if our faith journeys were about the way we live, not just what we believe?
Will Willimon tells a story about a Duke sophomore who we’ll call John. He was a Presbyterian who felt called to work in inner-city ministry after hearing Dr. Tony Campolo, a famous evangelical preacher, speak. After a rigorous interview process, Mark was asked to join a summer mission team in Philadelphia, and later described his first day experience to Will.
In mid-June, John met about a hundred other youth in a Baptist church in Philadelphia. They sang for about an hour before Dr. Campolo arrived, and when he did, the youth were all worked up and ready to go. Dr. Campolo preached to them for about an hour, and people were shouting and clapping and standing in the pews. Then Tony said, “OK gang, are you ready to go out and tell them about Jesus?” “Yeah,” the kids replied, “let’s go.”
So he loaded them up on buses, singing and clapping. But as they began to enter the poor neighborhoods of Philadelphia, the kids gradually stopped singing, and the bus John was on got very quiet. Then they pulled up to one of the worst housing projects in the country. Tony stood up, opened the door, and said, “OK gang, get out there and tell them about Jesus… I’ll pick you up at five.”
The young people made their way reluctantly off the bus. And they stood in little groups and whispered as the bus made its way into the distance. John walked down the sidewalk, faced a run-down tenement building, said a prayer under his breath and walked inside. There was a terrible odor. Windows were out. There were no lights in the hall. Babies were crying behind thin, scrawled walls. He walked up one flight of stairs and knocked on the first door he saw.
“Who is it?” a voice called out. The door cracked open, and he could see a woman holding a naked baby. He told her he wanted to tell her about Jesus. With that she slammed the door, cursing him all the way down the stairs and out into the street.
“What made me think I could do this,” he thought. “What kind of Christian am I?” He sat down on the curb and cried for a few minutes. When he looked up, he noticed a store on the corner, and remembered the naked baby in the lady’s arms. So he went in and bought a package of diapers and a pack of cigarettes, and went back and knocked on the lady’s door again.
“Who is it?” the same voice called again. When she opened the door, Mark slid the diapers and cigarettes inside. She looked at them and invited him in. He put a diaper on the baby, his first, and smoked a cigarette, his first and last, and sat there listening to the lady and playing with the baby all afternoon. About four o’clock, the woman looked at him and said, “Let me ask you something. What’s a nice college boy like you doing in a place like this?” So he told her all he knew about Jesus. It took about five minutes. And she replied, “Pray for me and my baby that we can make it out of this place alive.” And he prayed.”
That evening, when they all got back on the bus, Tony asked, “Well, gang, did any of you get to tell them about Jesus?” And Mark said, “I not only got to tell them about Jesus, I met Jesus. I went out to save somebody, and ended up getting saved myself. Today, I became a disciple.”
Choosing the better part can mean something different to each of us, but I’m betting that it will always be about making the transition from believer to disciple, and living with intention the life that God has given us. Will we always be successful? No, but doesn’t mean that we don’t keep giving it our best. They don’t call it “practicing a life of faith” for nothing. So as we go into the world, let us remember, we are all workers, together, for Christ.
Amen.
Thanks to Will Willimon and Alyce McKenzie for inspiring me to think of this scripture in a new way.
