A Thought For The Week Of August 8, 2016

"You are my hiding place and my shield. My hope is based on your word." One of the things that this verse makes clear is that there's danger out there in the world. Actually, as a whole the Psalms are pretty consistent on that point. So many of them seem to point to the presence of danger. This one does so: "You are my hiding place and my shield." Both imply danger. Interestingly, both are also passive and defensive. We're not supposed to go on the attack apparently. We're supposed to recognize how to care for ourselves. And, ultimately, we're to recognize that it's God who takes care of us. So, God is first a refuge. A refuge is a place we go to find safety and security when we're in danger. So when faced with danger we go to God as our place of refuge. Interestingly, that makes us, in a sense, refugees. In a time when there's a lot of debate about refugees and whether we should support and accept them, this verse tells us that we are refugees ourselves as we seek refuge and safety from God. The verse tells us secondly that God is our shield. A shield is a defensive weapon. It's not something we use to attack our opponents; it's only useful for defending ourselves. God is our shield. Therefore, God takes the blows delivered by our enemies. There's a certain resonance with the various ideas around Christ and the cross in that image. Finally, we're told that our hope is in God's Word. Perhaps the point here is that the only way we can possibly stand against those who oppose us in by being grounded in God's Word. It is our hope because it promises that all that is in opposition to God and God's people will be defeated. Indeed, we can say that they have been defeated already by Jesus - who is, after all, God's Word made flesh. When you put all this together from a Christian perspective, that's what you come out with. Finally, in spite of the fact that this verse reminds us that there is danger out there, it also reminds us that there's nothing to fear, and so we shouldn't live in fear or allow others to make us afraid. We need only place ourselves in God's care, and trust in God's power. Then - nothing can stand against us!

A Thought For The Week Of August 1, 2016

"With this in mind, we pray for you constantly, that our God may consider you worthy of the calling and fulfil with power every good desire and work of faith ..." (2 Thessalonians 1:11) Encouragement is a wonderful thing. I think it's fair to say that everyone needs at least a little bit of encouragement now and then. It's one of the reasons I write this short blog entry every week - to try to provide some encouragement to those who take the time to read it. Perhaps the need for encouragement is the basic message that we need to take out of this verse. Paul reminds the Thessalonians that they are constantly in the prayers of he, Silvanus and Timothy. I've noted in recent months that there's a growing reaction against people of faith responding to tragic events with the words "you're in my prayers," or similar statements. In one way I understand the reaction. Prayers alone, after all, can be pretty empty. Perhaps prayer can even be used as a way of avoiding having to do anything concrete in response to circumstances. Prayer should never be used as an avoidance mechanism. Prayer, hopefully, spurs us to do something.  But then I take a look at this verse (and at similar statements Paul makes in his other letters.) Paul certainly isn't hesitant here about telling the Thessalonians that he's praying for them. We don't know what their circumstances were. Maybe they were experiencing difficulties; maybe they were just experiencing life. But Paul seems to have expected that the simple fact that they knew he was praying for them would have an impact on them; that somehow, by and through his prayers, God would work within the Thessalonians to bring about good. Perhaps just the encouragement of knowing that they were being prayed for would itself lead the Thessalonians to increased goodness and increased faith. After all, to know that someone is praying for me is encouraging to me, and reminds me that my prayers encourage others. That isn't to say that we should stop with prayer. If there's something more we can do to make a positive difference, we should do it. But there are situations that are distant from us or that we have no control over, in which we still want to reach out to those afflicted. Don't stop praying for others, and don't stop telling others that you're praying for them. Telling people that they are being prayed for is a source of encouragement. It reminds them that they're not alone and that there are people who care. Prayer is, by its very nature, a powerful thing. Definitely we should do more for other when we can - but at the very least we should pray for others.

July 31, 2016 sermon: When Wisdom Fails

I, the Teacher, when king over Israel in Jerusalem, applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with. I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind. What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted. I said to myself, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me; and my mind has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a chasing after wind. For in much wisdom is much vexation, and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow.

(Ecclesiastes 1:12-18)

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     Ecclesiastes is one of the most fascinating books in the Bible, in my opinion. I love it because it's very down to earth. Tradition has it that it was written by Solomon, and of course tradition also has it that Solomon was a very wise man. So the thing that intrigues me about Ecclesiastes is how fatalistic – and even sometimes how negative – it seems. As you read through it you seem to find an attitude of “stuff happens,” and “woe is me.” Or even “woe to us all.” It’s as if Solomon believes that things are never going to get any better. Even in this passage we read this morning, at the very beginning of the book, you find the words “it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with.” Honestly, there are times in this book that Solomon sounds downright depressed about his lot in life. Solomon – who possessed great wealth, who inherited the throne of his father David, who was God’s chosen instrument for building the great temple in Jerusalem – spends much of the twelve chapters of this book sounding depressed. As Christians, we’re probably not as familiar with the Old Testament as we should be – but Solomon’s is a name we know. In that sense he’s a towering figure. And here he is – downcast and seemingly ready to give up. What gives?

     Well, first, I’m going to be honest with you - we’re not entirely sure that Solomon wrote the book. In fact, many people think he didn’t write it. The author only identifies himself as “The Teacher,” after all. It could have been Solomon. As a man renowned for wisdom, being called “The Teacher” would make sense, and we know from later in the book that The Teacher was a man of great wealth – and Solomon was a man of great wealth. But we can’t be sure. I’m going to refer to the author as Solomon, based on the old tradition, but whether it’s Solomon or not, I think the book is still relevant.

     I suppose that I like Ecclesiastes because of Solomon’s honesty, and because he’s very easy to relate to here. Let’s be honest – how many of us haven’t had those days when we’ve got out of bed in the morning and for one reason or another realize pretty early on that we probably should have stayed in bed. How many of us don’t have days when we feel like throwing our hands up and saying “what’s the point of it all?” That’s where Solomon was on that long ago day when he wrote this book. It’s a very honest piece of writing. He’s not portraying himself as any sort of spiritual giant. He’s cynical. Based on this book, someone once described him as the “pre-Thomas Thomas.” You know – good old Doubting Thomas from the Gospel of John? The one who just couldn’t believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead. “Show me; let me touch him. Otherwise – what’s the point?” Sometimes in speaking with colleagues I’ve jokingly talked about the evolution of clergy. We start out as idealists, believing we’re going to change the church; we become realists, understanding that the church isn’t going to change; and we end up as cynics, wondering why we even bother trying! From time to time I suspect that we all get a little bit cynical about things, which is probably why I think there are some valuable lessons to learn from this book that we don’t really speak about all that often.

     Mainly, I suspect that this book appeals to me because in spite of its connection with a man who has always been seen as the epitome of wisdom, it reminds us of the limitations of wisdom; the limitations of knowledge. We know a lot of things, but sometimes the more we know the farther we seem to get from God and from the attitude that should characterize a person of faith. And if real wisdom is the knowledge of God, then sometimes we think we know so much that we don’t realize how far we are from really knowing God. As Dorothy said to the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, “How can you talk if you don’t have a brain?” And as the Scarecrow replied, “Well, some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they?'” Is anyone here going to argue that? So I wanted to reflect just for a few minutes on wisdom, and its place in faith.

     Solomon’s choice of words and basic attitude might take a while to get used to, but once you really listen to him, you realize that he just might be on to something. He has tried and tried and tried again to figure out his life through reason and wisdom, and it seems almost as if God got pushed out of the equation. Solomon seems to believe that God is either strangely absent or coldly uncaring, and in the end he can’t make sense of things this way, and so he finds himself frustrated – and that’s understandable. Ecclesiastes becomes his way of venting his frustration or of documenting his struggle with faith and God. After being a lifelong bachelor, C.S. Lewis fell in love and got married at the age of 58. She died of cancer just four years later. Lewis was devastated, his faith was shaken, and he was angry with God for bringing this woman into his life only to leave him bereft soon after. Lewis wrote a little book called “A Grief Observed” to document his journey from absolute despair to renewed faith, with all of his struggles and questions and doubts laid bare, in the hope of helping others in the same situation. I think Ecclesiastes is Solomon’s “A Grief Observed.” His circumstances were different, but he’s also documenting and trying to work through the questions and doubts he has about faith and how meaningless life can sometimes seem, and – like Lewis - perhaps he airs his frustration to help those who have the same doubts and questions and are also thinking of life as meaningless. Ecclesiastes is Solomon making the faith real and raw, and it reminds us that even the most faithful among us have inevitable times of questions and doubts and despair. Maybe the most shocking thing that Solomon grasps is that wisdom wasn’t enough for him; knowledge wasn’t enough for him. There had to be more. Knowing about God had failed him; perhaps Ecclesiastes is the start of Solomon realizing that he had to do more than know about God, and he had to actually begin to know God before God could really make a difference in his life.

     I suspect that maybe Solomon is trying to challenge those who read his words to engage in a deeper spiritual quest. Scratching the surface isn’t enough. Just knowing that God is there isn’t enough. Just believing in God isn’t enough. Knowing all the doctrine isn’t enough. Being able to recite creeds and prayers isn’t enough. Memorizing Scripture isn’t enough. None of that is enough. Neither is trying to figure out the world and the universe and the mystery of creation and how everything works. None of that is enough either, because we’ll never be able to completely master the world, to fully explain the mysteries of life, or even really to justify their own existence. And so, we’re left with a choice: we can choose to become selfish and cynical, or we can choose to reach out to God. When we turn to God, we don’t turn our back on the world, and when we seek to understand the world more fully, we don’t turn our backs on God - we just look at the world with new eyes and trust that there is a God who can explain the mysteries of the world and the mysteries of life and the mysteries of our own existence. And when we start to do that we start to actually know God rather than just knowing about God. Then, we’re in a position to work our way through those spiritual down times and realize that life, indeed does have a God-given purpose and meaning.

     I referred earlier to the exchange between Dorothy and the Scarecrow in “The Wizard Of Oz.” I want to leave you with another scene from another movie – this one the 1951 movie version of Chrles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” On Christmas morning, after Scrooge wakes up as a changed man, he dances around the room in front of his housekeeper Mrs. Dilber and cries out in delirious joy, “I don’t know anything. I never did know anything. But now I know that I don’t know anything.” Real wisdom is about the knowing God, and that’s the real beginning of wisdom – to understand that all the knowledge of God we think we have doesn’t mean a thing. Wisdom fails us if we think that knowing lots about God is the same as knowing God. That’s just human wisdom. Real wisdom helps us to be constantly embarking on the quest to know God more fully every single day.

A Thought For The Week Of July 25, 2016

"I tell you, even if the friend will not get up and give him anything out of friendship, yet because of the man’s persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs." (Luke 11:8) Two things jumped into my mind as I reflected on this passage, but I would just note first that this is obviously a passage that's encouraging us to believe in the power of prayer and in the desire of God to answer our prayers. But really, what jumped into my mind was that the request that led up to the words above seemed a little bit trivial. If someone showed up unannounced at my house at midnight I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't go knocking on my neighbour's door asking to borrow food for my unexpected guest. That just seems strange to me. I understand the concept of providing hospitality - but in this case I'd really be asking my neighbour to provide the hospitality. It just strikes me as unusual. In the context of the story, of course, the neighbour is clearly in the role of God and the point being made could be that (a) there's never a bad time to approach God, and that (b) there's never a bad reason to approach God. I do note, though, that the neighbour isn't especially happy about the request. I wonder if God ever gets impatient with requests that are of less than immediate importance? Perhaps God wants us to try to solve some things on our own?  Still, God will answer prayer because of our "persistence;" because we keep approaching God. Which led to my second though. Perhaps in the end God responds in some way to even these less than crucial situations because God actually appreciates our "persistence" in coming to him over and over again. Indeed, perhaps it is to God a sign of our true faith and deep trust. And God does answer these prayers. That may be a bad idea to plant in people's minds, because sometimes we don't get what we ask for, but perhaps the most important point of the passage is made in the last few words: God will give us as much as we need. Not everything we want, but as much as we need. There's a huge difference between those two things that perhaps tells us something about what we should and shouldn't expect when we come to God in prayer: we'll always get what we need, but what we need may not always be exactly or as much as we want.

July 24 2016 sermon: Jesus And The Other "Gods"

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.

(Colossians 2:6-15)

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     It's not a band. “Jesus And The Other 'Gods'” I mean. It sounds a bit like one, but it's not. “Hootie And The Blowfish” was a band. “Jesus And The Other Gods” isn't a children's book either. No. That would be “James And The Giant Peach.” “Jesus And The Other Gods” is my paraphrase of what I believe Paul was discussing in this passage from his letter to the Colossians. What do Christians make of Jesus when faced with a society where there are all sorts of spiritual alternatives available, and when even things that aren’t very spiritual are calling us to serve them? Why follow Jesus? What's different and unique about Jesus? Why choose Jesus in a culture where there were multiple other “gods” to choose from? The strange thing is that 2000 years later the situation really hasn't changed that much. In fact, the situation never changes. There are always many different gods to choose from – and unless we have some idea of the difference that Jesus makes, we're going to have a difficult time making ourselves known. And understand that when I refer to “other gods” I'm not talking about other religions, or others way of understanding “God.” I'm literally talking about other gods – things that take possession of us and control our lives to the point at which we're serving them. We're also talking about things that do this within our own environment – within the church. We're talking about other gods that can easily capture Christians and pull them away from God, while at the same time convincing us that by serving them we are serving God. So how do we go about telling the counterfeit gods from the real thing? Well, as we’re often told about counterfeit money, experts don’t learn about counterfeit money by studying it; they get to know counterfeit money by being so familiar with the real thing that they can easily detect a fraud. That seems to be Paul’s basic approach here to Jesus. Get to know Jesus and you’ll never be taken in by a shoddy copy. So what does Paul actually tell us about Jesus that none of the false gods of our society can offer?

     He tells us that the things we should be looking for if we’re following Christ are that we find ourselves rooted in Christ, built up by Christ, strengthened in faith and increasingly thankful. Those qualities all represent the positive difference that Christ makes in a person’s life. To be rooted in something means to have an anchor that keeps you strong and grounded. A root is basically an anchor. It holds you in place. At home we’re growing a couple of eggplants in a large container in our backyard. Sometimes we get some pretty strong wind that makes me wonder if the eggplants aren’t going to be torn right out of the pot – but they’re always there the next day, seemingly no worse for the wear. Christ does that for us when we get buffeted by the spiritual winds that sometimes blow and threaten us. He holds us firmly in place. But we do change – as Paul said, Christ also builds us up. The eggplants are growing! They’re getting bigger. In the same way, we grow. Attached to the root, we become more of what God wants us to be. Attached to the root we shine more brightly and are more easily seen – not for our own glory, but as a reflection of Christ. And as we grow, we become stronger. Suddenly those spiritual winds we face stop frightening us and we realize, in Paul’s words in Romans, that if God is for us, no one can be against us. I’m reminded of a story about Martin Luther who one night was lying in his bed, bothered and disturbed by – something. And then, in his dairy where he recounted the story, he wrote that “I realized that it was only Satan, and so I returned to sleep.” This is the strength we get when strengthened by Christ. It’s the assurance that no matter what happens around us, evil cannot defeat us. And then finally, we become truly thankful. Here, perhaps, is where Paul’s words “be thankful in all circumstances” become a reality. With nothing to fear we can be simply delighted with the world around us, and thankful for the blessings that are always there but that so many miss – blessings that Christ makes us aware of.

     And then we ask - what does Paul tell us about false gods? He begins by saying that the false gods are hollow. They have no substance, and therefore no real power or strength. They can do nothing for us. They can’t help us; they can’t really comfort us. They can only control us. Think of things like drug addictions or alcoholism. All drugs and alcohol do when they reach the stage of addiction is control us We reach the point at which we are serving them; we are in bondage to them – and there’s no easy escape. He tells us that they’re deceptive. They lie. They promise us something that they can’t deliver. Drugs and alcohol seem to promise us an escape from whatever it is in our life that isn’t right, but what they really do is imprison us in a dark cell where hope is lost. He tells us that they are based on human tradition – meaning that they’re made by us. They may imprison us, but they don’t challenge us. They don’t ask us to change. They want us to stay exactly the way we are. As soon as you hear the words, “but we’ve always done it this way,” that’s probably a sign that you should find another way to do it – because you’re being held captive. And Paul says that the false gods are worldly spiritual forces. They suck us into the desire for “things” – cars or money or big houses or whatever it is, they force us to set our sights on those things rather than on the real God and we spend our lives trying to get things that are often out of reach. A couple of years ago I read of a survey done by one of the major banks that found that a huge number of Canadians (I don’t remember the exact percentage, but it was huge) expected to finance their retirements through lottery winnings. That’s either naïve hope or utter hopelessness. That’s all the false gods of the world have to offer us.

     Jesus and the God revealed by and in Jesus, is life-giving. The false gods of the world are life-sapping. And the thing is that they’re all around us. We can’t isolate ourselves from them. They’re everywhere. Sometimes they’re external, like some of the things I’ve mentioned. Sometimes they get inside us and manifest themselves in pride or arrogance or negativity or hatred or anger or bitterness. But they’re there. They draw us away from God; perhaps they make us give up on God; usually, in one way or another, they take over our lives and force us to serve them. They’re kind of like the Borg from Star Trek – “you will be assimilated. From this time on you will serve – us!” As Craig Lounsbrough wrote, “Be confidently assured that any ‘gods’ that we build will always have voracious appetites, and sooner or later they will gorge themselves on that which built them.”

     That’s why it’s so important for us to stay rooted in Jesus, built up by him, strengthened by him and made thankful to God – the real God – as a result.

     There are a lot of gods in the world. But in the end they all disappoint. Only Jesus gives life.

A Thought For The Week Of July 18, 2016

"In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:16) It intrigues me that Jesus refers to "your light." I've always assumed that the light that shines from us is God's light; that it's just a reflected light. As I've often heard it explained, we're like the moon - with no light of our own, but only able to reflect another source of light; in the moon's case, the light of the sun and in our case, the light of God. And yet here Jesus refers to it very specifically and very deliberately as "your light." And I started to wonder as I pondered his words: is this a reference to our changed nature, and to our changed priorities? One could argue, after all, that everything that exists reflects God in some way. All created things, after all, reflect something of their creator. It's in the nature of a created thing to reflect its creator. But as Christians are we not called a new creation? Perhaps, because of that, it's no longer enough for us to simply reflect God to the world. That's very passive, after all. I wonder if, when Jesus refers to "your light," he might not be saying that just being like the moon, and simply waiting for the sun's light to strike you every now and then isn't enough. Perhaps Jesus is saying that we are to be active participants in God's work - that we have our own light, and that we are to actively seek out places and opportunities where it can shine most fully. The light we shine is still for the glory of God, of course, but we no longer just sit back and wait for opportunities to shine to appear. Now we seek those opportunities out, and we become active participants in God's mission of redeeming and transforming the world in the power of love. By our new nature as children of God we no longer just reflect light - we have become light, and a troubled world needs all the light we can possibly shine.

July 17, 2016 sermon: Why "Better"?

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

(Luke 10:38-42)     

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     From time to time, I've seen people wearing t-shirts that have this message on them:

     I know it's a joke, of course, but still it makes me wonder. Is it only me – or do others find it a little bit uncomfortable to think of Jesus playing favourites? It's kind of like saying “God so loved the world,” and then going on to say “but God loved [this group or that group] more than any other.” I just have difficulty thinking in terms of Jesus playing favourites. It makes me uncomfortable. I reject the very notion. But then sometimes I get challenged. And when I get challenged by Scripture I have to do some pretty heavy duty thinking about this. That's what happened this week as I contemplated this story of Mary and Martha. It's a passage that's often spoken about as an example of two ways of discipleship – Martha serves Jesus (literally!) & Mary learns at Jesus' feet. Both are equally valid forms of discipleship. Some are gifted in the areas of service and hospitality, and those are legitimate gifts of the Holy Spirit. But what takes me aback a little bit with this passage, and what I spent a lot of time reflecting on over the last few days is that Martha's ministry of hospitality (at least on the surface) seems to be declared less important by Jesus; Mary seems to get the better of the deal from Jesus. “...there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part,” Jesus said. Mary's way of discipleship is better. Is Jesus saying that things like service and hospitality don't count? I don't think so.

     Jesus understood that Martha's ministry was important and that she put everything into it. She’d actually been trying to be a very gracious hostess to Jesus and His disciples. They had been traveling across the countryside as Jesus taught the crowds, and they’d stopped by Martha’s village. She had invited them into her home to rest. And she began to prepare a meal for them. Now, this was quite a task. She hadn’t expected them and nothing was prepared for such a large group. And it wasn’t like she could run out to the local Chinese restaurant to put takeout on the table. Everything she cooked for them had to be made from scratch. But she did it happily, because Jesus and his disciples were honored guests. So what was the problem?

     Well, Christian service has to flow from learning – it should be a thought out response to Jesus and our relationship with him and what he teaches us rather than just a flurry of work. It's not enough for a Christian just to do things without any real engagement with Jesus. Our relationship with Jesus should be both our engine and our guide to the works we do for Jesus in the world around us. I don't think Jesus wanted Mary to spend her whole life at his feet listening to him and doing nothing. But at that moment this was her calling: to learn more and more about discipleship and what it really calls us to. For Mary, that was the right thing to be doing, because that's what Jesus was calling her to. But Martha had forgotten about being a disciple and had become consumed with her work rather than her relationship with Jesus.

     Martha didn’t share Mary’s enthusiasm for sitting and listening to Jesus. I’m sure that it wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy listening to Jesus, but Mary’s own gift or calling was service and hospitality. She had guests. There was work to be done – and Mary wasn’t doing it. The passage only gives us a barebones account of what happened, but let me speculate a little bit. Martha was running around in a flurry of work, and Mary seemed to be doing nothing. And little by little – Martha got upset. Perhaps there were a few noises in the kitchen to express her displeasure: maybe she set a pot down on the table - really hard! Maybe she banged a few of the eating utensils into the wash bucket. A small frown began to appear on her face, as she sees Mary in the other room – just sitting there, doing nothing. Maybe some dirty looks are directed Mary’s way. She works; Mary sits. She works; Mary sits. She works; Mary sits. And then, finally, she’s had all she can take! She stomps over to Jesus and she says: “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!!!!!”

     It seems to me that Martha had missed the point. Martha had fallen into the trap of thinking that her work and her own unique ministry should be shared by everyone, and Martha's problem was that she had forgotten that Jesus calls people to different ministries. Martha wasn’t upset because Mary wasn't doing what Jesus wanted her to do; Martha was upset because Mary wasn't doing what Martha thought she should be doing. She's not valuing Mary's unique gifts and calling. Martha herself had impressive and important gifts and talents. As I said earlier, service and hospitality are among the things listed by Paul as gifts of the Holy Spirit. They are valued and important ministries, and those who possess them are to be honoured for the contribution they make to the life of the church. But Martha had forgotten that Mary had her own gifts and talents and ministry. “Tell her to help me,” Martha said to Jesus. But Mary had chosen a different way – or, perhaps more accurately, Mary had been chosen to follow a different way. It’s fascinating to compare this story with the story of the dinner in Bethany after the resurrection of Lazarus. You see the same dynamic taking place there, which just confirms that these two women had very different callings. John 12 tells us that on that night, “Martha served,” while Mary poured perfume on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. These were women who understood their gifts and who used them. It’s just that in the incident we read today, for whatever reason Martha got frustrated and lost her cool. Was she jealous? Did she think that Mary was thinking too highly of herself? It’s interesting to reflect that in the story Martha was doing what would have been the traditional woman's work of serving in the kitchen; while Mary had taken on what would have been the traditional male role of learning and being served. Martha essentially told Mary that her place is in the kitchen, but Jesus disagreed. He challenged the traditional gender role of women. Traditional roles and stereotypes mean nothing to the Kingdom of God. We serve as we are called to serve.

     Our “actions … [flow] naturally from who we are.” (Mikael C. Parsons, Baylor University – Waco, Texas) Perhaps even more importantly, our actions should flow from how we are gifted and called by God, because if we forget that first and foremost we are to discern and use the gifts we’ve been given in God’s service, then whatever we do becomes little more than busy work that doesn’t really serve God – it just makes us think that we’re accomplishing something. In this case, Jesus said that Mary’s way was “better” – but what did he mean? Why was it better? It wasn’t better because it was more important than Martha’s ministry of service and hospitality, and Jesus never said that Martha’s ministry wasn’t important. He simply said that Mary had chosen “the better part.” It wasn’t that it was better than Martha’s ministry – it was simply better for Mary, because it was Mary’s ministry. What we have here really is a call for disciples of Jesus to discern the gifts we’ve been given and the ways in which we’re called to serve – and then to fulfil them, humbly and happily to the best of our ability. Honouring our own gifts and abilities and celebrating other’s gifts and abilities. That’s what makes the church the church.