Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

All Sermons are © Copyrighted and may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the express permission of the author.

The Marx Brothers are lost. Groucho turns to Chico and asks, "Where are we?" Chico says, "You can't fool me. We're right here."

Being truly lost, on the other hand, is not funny; it's terrifying. Most of us remember, from childhood, that horrible, scary feeling when, in a crowd of people, we lost track of our parents, even just for a moment. It was as if the bottom fell out of the world. Or we remember that poignant from On Golden Pond, when Henry Fonda's character, becoming slightly senile, gets lost -- can't find his way back to his cabin, a place where he has gone hundreds of times. Even sitting comfortably in a theater, watching that scene, I felt an elemental terror. Being truly lost is horrible. Jesus characterized the people of his day as being like "sheep without a shepherd," in other words, "lost." And he wept over them.

Luke is a gracious writer. In his Gospel, he doesn't describe those who are indifferent to Jesus as "sinners," or "bad people." He says they are "lost." Thus the parables of the Lost Coin, the Lost Sheep, the Lost Son. Millions are lost today. It is no shame to be lost in this world, which is a house-of-mirrors, no shame to be confused by all its claims and promises. Most of the troubled people I meet are not bad, but many are surely lost, and because they are lost, without barings on the sea of life, without chart or compass, they sometimes do very foolish things, even sinful, things. They've lost sight of the stars so their ships sails without direction, buffeted about on the sea of life. When Jesus says to Martha, "…you are worried and distracted by many things," the Greek word for "distracted" is "perispao," which means "dragged around." John Wesley, in more formal English, defined perispao like this: "to be drawn different ways at the same time" which, Wesley goes on "admirably expresses the situation of a mind surrounded (as Martha's then was) with so many objects of care, that it hardly knows which to attend to first." Sound familiar? Is that you? It's me. That's how I get lost. I, who always saw Martha as a no-fun, starched collar kind of person, can suddenly identify with her. For I, too, worry and often feel "dragged around" by a hundred "objects of care" not knowing which to attend to first. And, in that sense, I am lost. Like Chico, I know where I am, in a certain way - I'm right here. But, deeper inside, are questions like, "Who am I?" "Where am I?" "Where ought I to be going?" If I knew the answers, I would know how to order up my day. I'd be able to get first things first.

This is a wonderful story. Very human. Apparently Martha is the older sister, which would make her the hostess, for it is she who greets Jesus at the door, and she who feels responsible for the success his visit. Her little sister, Mary, when Jesus appears, disappears. She slides in among the men (quite improper) sits quietly at Jesus' feet and listens. Big sister gets angrier and angrier. Her steam begins to rise. "She never helps!" "I always have to be the responsible one!" Poor Martha! Poor Martha! She's known to history by a little snit she threw. It was a moment no one ever forgot. Martha stomped into the main room and said to Jesus, "Lord, don't you care that she's not helping? Tell her to get up and give me a hand." "Martha, Martha," Jesus said, "you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need for only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part (John Wesley says, "to same her soul."), which will not be taken away from her."

Martha is lost, swamped in her worries and her duties. The trees are in the way; and she can't see the forest! Housework is fine, cooking is good, Martha, but the Son of God is sitting in your living room! Time to take off the apron. Time to hear the Word of God.

I'll bet that, under ordinary circumstances, Martha was a wonder woman. I'll bet she was like that smiling, confident, young business woman on television, in the computer ad - you know, the one who brags that she is cruising the internet, printing a letter, checking her E-Mail, and sending a fax, all at the same time. Sometimes it's good to do many things simultaneously. Other times we necessary to focus. And, today, it's the focus that's missing. William Barclay used to say that there were two great moments in every life: when we are born, and when we discover why. Discovering the "why" of life is critical. Only then can we begin to focus. Only then can we not be lost.

Having grandchildren reminds you of things long forgotten. Some time ago, we took our two granddaughters to a restaurant, and the waitress brought them two pencils and two special place mats, each place mat covered with dots and numbers. The girls immediately took the pencils and begin connecting the dots, and soon a figure emerged. Another version is the place mat with a very busy picture on it, and the child is encouraged to find all the monkeys he or she can. You see, life can't be just random dots or a busy picture. We must connect the dots so that what seems chaotic begins to make sense. We must find the important things in the complex picture. Jesus spoke of the seed that did not grow because it fell among thorns (we're the thorns), and said the seed failed to grow because it was "preoccupied with the cares, and riches and pleasures of life." Not bad people, at least not intentionally bad, but preoccupied as Martha was. Tending to a thousand objects of care.

Last week we looked at the Good Samaritan. That famous parable appears in Luke's Gospel just before this story, of Mary and Martha. There are some interesting comparisons. Both feature unlikely heroes. In the first, it is a Samaritan (who was an outcast) and, in the second, it is a woman (of whom nothing serious was expected). There are some interesting likenesses, but fundamentally the two stories seem to oppose each other. In one Jesus tells the lawyer to "go and do." In the other he tells Martha to stop doing and sit and listen. And yet the two stories taken together describe perfectly the life of a disciple of Jesus, a life in which we listen devoutly to the Word of God and then seek to put it into action.

The monks in the middle ages loved this story, for, in it, Jesus seemed to favor their way of living. After all, they were like Mary, were they not? They were contemplative, they spent all day at the feet of Jesus, reading and copying scripture, praying, listening. They hid behind cloistered walls, and rejected the frantic, hustle-bustle world of Martha. And that is one basic truth of discipleship - disciples are nourished by the Word of God, and when we stop taking that nourishment - when we can't find time for worshipping, reading the Bible, praying - we become spiritually hungry. Eventually we starve, spiritually. Jesus is the vine, we are the branches. We receive our life from him. We can't let secondary matters distract us from our devotion to the Word of God. Mary was right. She caught the magic of the moment. When God comes into our lives, we have to stop and pay attention. Worries and cares, which drag us around, are not just bad for us. They actually get in the way, impede us in our hearing of God's Word. When I am anxious, in a panic, the last thing I want is to pray, or read the Bible. I want to put my nose to the grindstone, roll up my sleeves, and try to solve the problems all by myself -- which of course only aggravates the situation. We need to find peace, to sit quietly at Jesus' feet, and allow him to feed us. That's one basic truth of discipleship.

But the other basic truth is that we cannot stay behind monastery walls forever. The branch stays connected to the vine, and by doing so maintains its very life. But the branch must also bear fruit. We are nourished and we nourish. If we bear no fruit, Jesus said, we will be destroyed, "thrown into the oven." Our purpose is not just to enjoy the nourishment of the vine, but to use that nourishment, bearing fruit in the service of others. Shall we spend time worshipping him and learning about him, or shall we spend time serving him by serving others? The answer is, "Yes." For worship is a kind of service, and service is a kind of worship. And to have one without the other is to have only half the Gospel - with which you can't get to heaven. May God make us "hearers of the Word," like Mary, and "doers of the Word," like the Good Smaritan.