The One Thing Necessary.
*Adapted from a message given at Wesley Woods Towers in Atlanta on July 21, 2019. A link to video recording may be found here.
While Jesus and his disciples were traveling, Jesus entered a village where a woman named Martha welcomed him as a guest. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his message. By contrast, Martha was preoccupied with getting everything ready for their meal. So Martha came to him and said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to prepare the table all by myself? Tell her to help me.” The Lord answered, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things. One thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the better part. It won’t be taken away from her.”
Luke 10:38-42 (Common English Bible)
For those who do not know, my name is Jay Horton. I am a member of Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church and future pastor in the North Georgia Conference. I start seminary at Candler School of Theology at Emory University next month and currently serve as the Director of Communication at East Cobb UMC in Marietta.
Now when I tell people I do the communication for a church the next question they inevitably ask is, “what exactly does that work entail?” And to easily answer this question, I tell people I have the privilege of taking the ideas and key messages of the church and translating them into graphics, videos, and words that are easily digestible to the masses. It’s a great job, but it’s not always the easiest of jobs.
As you might imagine, some of the topics and themes the church needs to speak into the world are quite complex and multifaceted. We live in a dynamic and hyper-communicative society, where words have become cheaper and we are inundated daily with visual messages. In order for my copy or visuals,—the important material of the church—to ever have a chance of penetrating this environment, I’ve learned it takes focus. One must hone in with care on the central message of any sermon or passage of scripture. I have to find the one key thing that matters above the rest and bring it to the surface. Otherwise, my art is pointless.
As my Graphic Communication professor in college would say, “The worst graphics and videos are the ones people make when they forget about the brand.” In my case, that’s the mission of the church.
The other day I was scrolling through Twitter when this strange, be it very dramatic, commercial appeared. It begins with shots from a home birth. A father hands a newborn baby to a mother who’s sitting in a bathtub sobbing. The mood lightens a little as a string orchestra plays a deep, moving melody in the background. We see the baby growing up, taking his first bite of food, learning to crawl, learning to walk—exploring the intricacies of the world around him.
All the while, I’m sitting on my couch wondering, “What is this even advertising? Maybe this is a movie trailer?”
The instruments pick up their pace. Frame by frame the boy gets older and older. He’s now playing soccer with his friends and throwing rocks at bottles; wrestling with neighbors and learning to shave. He has his first kiss and then a moment later his first heartbreak. The shots now are darker. He shaves his head in a fit of rage, slams some doors, screams at his mother.
“What is going on here!” I think.
But then the smoke clears. His passport is now being stamped and he’s in some East Asian Country, hair miraculously restored.
“That’s strange. I’m not seeing any product placement? Maybe this is a pharmaceutical commercial. Oh, I think it’s coming to an end.”
He’s now moving out of his parent’s house and the camera pans to him leaning up against a wall in possibly his new place. Then a voice comes out of nowhere and says, “Everyday life asks you the same question, what are you going to try today?”
The man is now walking up to a… a… a… A SUBWAY COUNTER!?
“You have got to be kidding me!?”
This two-minute, epic, short film was promoting a sandwich shop!! I think my graphic design teacher would have said they missed the point of their brand.
As I reflect on the lectionary text from Sunday above, of Mary and Martha, I can’t help but think about these principles of design, of centralizing the main thing. On the surface we read of Martha, the hospitable workaholic who resents, not only her sister, Mary, who takes the position of a postulate at the feet of her teacher, but also the Rabbi himself, Jesus, who fails to “care” that the woman near his ankles is not helping her sister in the kitchen.
I have heard many a sermon, where preachers polarize these two women. They point to Mary as the dedicated disciple and Martha as the distracted house-dame. They characterize the tale as an allegory, where each woman represents a separate paradigm, pointing to the churches need to emphasize contemplative prayer over activism. Yet, this hasn’t always sat well with me; the idea that Mary is the saint while Martha the sinner.
I’m a driven person, after all. Former bosses have even said, “a go-getter.” I like serving others and staying busy. It’s Martha I relate to most in this story, not Mary. And what did she do that was so bad really?
We learn in a similar story in the Gospel of John (John 12:1-11), Jesus had just raised her brother, Lazarus, from the dead. She welcomes him, the Christ, the hero, into her home. I’m sure her emotions were quite overwhelming. She just wants to make a good impression for the man who literally saved her brother from death. Is that so wrong?
As I studied the passage for myself a little deeper, I learned that in the Greek the word for Martha’s busy-ness, her “many tasks” she is distracted by is diakonia, meaning service. Throughout Luke, diakonia or its verb form diakoneo often refer to simple food preparation or table service. The Gospel author seems to celebrate such work. For example in chapter four (Luke 4:39), after Christ heals Simon’s mother-in-law “she got up at once and served them.” And Jesus does not scold her for this. Nor does he shame the woman in chapter eight (Luke 8:3) either—Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna—who are following the disciples “providing for them out of their own resources.” He honors them. Jesus even refers to himself by the same adage in chapter 22 (Luke 22:27) when he says, “I am among you as one who serves.”
This makes me wonder. Could it be that I and preachers before me have focused on the wrong part of the story? Maybe it is not the many tasks that are displeasing to Jesus, as service doesn’t seem to displease our Lord. He does seem to show compassion to Martha, after all. He repeats her name even, “Martha, Martha.” He loves her. He just doesn’t think she is focused on the right thing. I think that’s the point. What is amiss is not the food service or table preparation, but the fact that Martha is distracted by these things.
It should not be Mary or Martha, do I pray or do I serve, it’s I do both with God at the forefront of my mind. The “better part,” the better question is am I honoring God, am I remembering my principles of design, am I centralizing the main thing in all things.
In the 2016 biographical blockbuster, Hacksaw Ridge, director Mel Gibson tells the true story of Desmond Doss, a devout Seventh-Day Adventist and conscientious objector who during World War II signed up to be a combat medic (without a gun) on the front lines in the Pacific Theater. At first the military couldn’t understand this and would not let him go. Doss was deliberately disobeying orders to carry a gun. They said it was too dangerous. They called him a coward and unpatriotic. They even tried to court-martial him for insubordination. But when the military judge asked him why he pleaded not guilty, and why he wanted to serve in a combat unit without a weapon, Doss calmly explained his conviction.
“When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, I took it personal. Everyone I knew was on fire to join up, including me. There were two men in my hometown declared 4-F unfit, they killed themselves cause they couldn’t serve. Why, I had a job in a defense plant and I could’ve taken a deferment, but that ain’t right. It isn’t right that other men should fight and die, that I would just be sitting at home safe. I need to serve. I got the energy and the passion to serve as a medic, right in the middle with the other guys. No less danger, just… while everybody else is taking life, I’m going to be saving it. With the world so set on tearing itself apart, it doesn’t seem like such a bad thing to me to wanna put a little bit of it back together.”
In the beginning of the film, the audience sees how at first the army, and most Americans define a male patriot: as an honorable man defending his country with a weapon. However, as the movie progresses, and Desmond is allowed to go to war, and for over 24 hours straight he rescues injured soldiers from the battlefield of Okinawa, he teaches the world that what may matter more than how we serve is that we serve.
Focusing on love of God and neighbor, this is what Desmond focused on and this is what Christ calls us all to focus on as well. This is the greatest commandment and the lesson I think to be learned from Mary and Martha too.
As Catholic priest, Father James A Wallace once said, the story of Mary and Martha, “offers us an ongoing plea from the Lord to focus on him, to give him some “prime time,” some continuous full attention, just as we do for our close friends.” *
The world will pull us in many different directions. Our eyes and ears, heart and minds, can always find important things to prioritize. We need to clean our rooms, company is coming over. We need to buy a gift for a family member, their birthday is just around the corner. Did I remember to wash that shirt, I’ve got that dinner tomorrow. Or the news! I haven’t checked the news today. I need to know if that hurricane has hit landfall. None of these things are wrong, or bad things, to think about, but are we also giving God and Holy Spirit the attention they are do too.
As it says in Deuteronomy, “People don’t live on bread alone. No, they live based on whatever the Lord says.”(8:3 CEB)
Can we read scripture as much as we read the news, or as much as we watch TV? Can we come to worship each week, and maybe even invite friends and family who do not attend church regularly to do so as well with us. Can we give God the biggest priority? …I believe we can.
One of the easiest ways I know to inject more God in my life is to say thank you. Gratitude I’ve found is the quickest way back to God. When eating a meal, thank God for the food. When waking up, thank God for the rest. When struggling with a new health diagnosis or the death of a loved one, thank God for the caretakers and for the memories.
When we can see God in more things I think we find what Christ meant when he said, “One thing is necessary. “The better part.” God is that better part. That one thing necessary. Whether you sit or do, go or stay, feel like more of a Mary or more of a Martha, remember the point is to center Christ.
PRAYER:
Most holy and gracious God, be with us today. We come to you with many troubles and cares, and we ask for your peace. Help us to find ways to set our worries and work aside and just sit with you… To hear your voice… to see your beauty… to smell your splendor… taste your creation… and feel your presence. Forgive us, O God, when we fall short of your glory. Help us believe that the desire to please you does, in fact, please you. Grant us grace and free us from fear, for you are ever-present. You are Emmanuel, God with us. In the name of the Creator, the Christ, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
BENEDICTION:
As you head into this week, it is my prayer that you find your thoughts focused more on the Father, hearts continually centered in Christ, and hands honed to the work of the Holy Spirit. Be the disciples Christ called you to be, today and every day. Go in peace!
*Hall, D. J., Jarvis, C. A., Skinner, M. L. & Wallace, J. A. (2010). Luke 10:38-42 In D. L. Bartlett & B. B. Taylor (Eds.), Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (262-267). Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.
