UCC Church of Charlotte

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Waiting
Genesis 18:1-10a
Luke 10:38-42

Grace and Peace to you this morning.  Grace and Peace.
    
In our Gospel reading this morning, we find ourselves with what looks
like the world’s simplest lesson in comparing and contrasting two
different styles of waiting:  Mary and Martha.  One waiting on Jesus
as a restaurant waits on a diner: fixing the food, bringing the
drinks; she is busy serving.
    
The other waits upon Jesus as a disciple waits upon him: sitting at
his feet, listening to him.
    
And it is clear that Jesus says one is better than the other.
    
But Jesus is so often extolling people to put their faith into action,
to live what they believe, to offer the welcome, to heal the sick, to
listen to the lonely, to be doers of the word, and not merely hearers.
So Martha’s busy-ness in the story is not the whole of the problem.
    
Jesus does not rebuke Martha for her work.  He says instead,

    …you are anxious and troubled about many things;
      one thing is needful.
    
It is not the work that is the problem.  It is the anxiety, her being
troubled about many things, that is the problem.
    
One of the challenges we have as a church (and as individuals) is that
we can get so busy that we forget why we are busy.  We can be out
doing really good stuff, but lose sight of why such good stuff is in
fact good.  We can get so involved in a building project, or a mission
opportunity, or a fundraiser, or whatever it is, that we let the
project come before the reason for the project.
    
One thing is needful.
    
And Jesus says that Mary has chosen it.  I believe it means that Mary
has chosen to remember who she is and who has claimed her.  She is
giving herself to who God has made her to be, and to remembering her
connection to God, and to learning what God wants for her.
    
She (scandalously) sits at Jesus’ feet, like a disciple.  She has
thrown her lot in with the kingdom of God that Jesus is preaching.
    
It isn’t about working or not working, being busy or not being busy
(although it is still important to keep Sabbath time – this sermon is
not an excuse out of that!).  It is about the faith we are growing
into as we are working and as we are resting, as we are busy and as we
are Sabbathing.
    
Abraham and Sarah are a fascinating story of two people who are
waiting in another way – waiting for the promise of God to come true
in their lives.  And lest we think the Bible is concerned only with
the perfect, Abraham and Sarah vacillate back and forth between Mary
and Martha’s conditions.
    
They rely on God, going where God calls them to go, listening for God
even in the strange and scary moments of life.  But also they succumb
to their anxiety, with Abraham passing Sarah off not as his wife but
as his sister in Egypt, so that Pharaoh won’t have him killed when he
sees Sarah’s beauty.  Or Sarah’s jealousy over Hagar’s child, the one
she helped make possible when God was delaying the promise for too
long.
    
The covenant of the Bible is begun with a family that gets it right
and gets it wrong.  They try and fail and try and succeed and try and
fail, and through this we learn some important things.

God’s covenant is not based on us getting a B average in faith.

We belong to a long line of people who lived by faith but also messed up.

We belong to a God whose love is not for our perfection, not for what
we have accomplished, not for our power or our piety, not for our
finally getting the right answer.

We belong to a God whose love for us is.  Not because.  It simply is.
And God is willing to live as a human being and die a human death to
get the point across.

God’s love is no more diminished by our bad behavior than it is
bolstered by our good.

It is this covenant, this love, this forgiveness, this joy, that can
carry us through the busy times and the Sabbath times, when we
remember who we are and to whom we belong.

Without it, no amount of busy-ness will fill the gap or soothe the soul.

With it, not even the gates of hell can prevail against us.

Frederick Buechner said it better than I can,

Believing in [Jesus] is not the same as believing things about him
such as that he was born of a virgin and raised Lazarus from the dead.
Instead, it is a matter of giving our hearts to him, of come hell or
high water putting our money on him, the way a child believes in a
mother or a father, the way a mother or a father believes in a child.

I believe that is part of why we come each Sunday morning to this
sanctuary to sing and pray and listen to the word and to hear some
loudmouth go on and on about it.  Because it is so easy to slip back
from the reason for all that we are doing and to go back to just the
doing of it.  It is too easy to do the good, and the not so good, and
forget why the good is good, and the not so good isn’t.  I believe we
show up Sunday after Sunday because we need that time when we can sit
at Jesus’ feet, like Mary, like the other disciples, and hear again
the words that breathe life into us.
    
That’s why I’m here this morning.  That’s what I’m needing.  Maybe you are too.

Thanks be to God.
Amen.