Brothers and Sisters in Christ, listen to the first stanza of the hymn One thing’s Needful. “One thing’s needful Lord, this treasure teach me highly to regard. All else though it first give pleasure, is a yoke that presses hard! Beneath it the heart is still fretting and striving, no true lasting happiness ever deriving. This one thing is needful; all others are vain- I count all but loss that I Christ may obtain!”
We are here today for the greatest treasure to be found in the world: God’s Living Word. Anything else we might seek with all our energy and devotion is in the end a yoke of slavery that presses down so hard that you cannot have peace.
“There must be more to life.” People think this all of the time, when the minutes and hours pass by looking at your phone, watching the news, taking care of daily responsibilities. Even things we put a lot of time and energy into, a home renovation project, a personal hobby you work a long time on, a cooking recipe you carefully develop- all brings eventually that feeling of is this all? “There must be something more!”
St. Paul saw this when he writes in Philippians, Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ There is something more to life- but not exactly something, but some person- Jesus. Verse two of the hymn shares this joy in knowing Jesus as our true calling in life:
Mary listens to Jesus in joy “all earthly concerns she forgot for her Lord And found her contentment in hearing His Word.”
The phrase Jesus speaks: “One thing is needful” brings simplicity and sense of purpose to our lives. When we feel overwhelmed with the number of uncertainties to a day, we can look to Jesus and know that one thing is needful- to listen to Him, to look to him in faith. We may feel there are things we must do, they are the number one priority. But after one thing we must do is finished, we always find the next thing that is so urgent. We lose the big picture, that knowing Jesus is the one thing all of us really need.
I have said the words out loud plenty of times, “I need to do the dishes, I need to visit this person in the hospital, I need to eat something” Less often do I hear myself say, “I need to just stop everything and study the scripture.
Mary and Martha have the privilege of hosting Jesus at their home. Jesus and the disciples were passing through the village and they stopped at their home. In other words this was an unplanned visit.
Talk about a once in a lifetime surprise visit. You can imagine the desire to impress and be a gracious host would continue for as long as Jesus was there. It might be a little difficult relaxing and taking in the evening with Jesus as a guest. Can I fix you anything else Lord?
There is nothing wrong with putting great energy and devotion into your role as host. It is likely that Martha was the owner of the house and therefore had the responsibility and privilege of preparing a meal for Jesus.
We see a very similar situation in the appointed Old Testament reading (Genesis 18:1-10) where Abraham works to prepare a feast for the Lord in the form of these heavenly visitors that have come to his house. Abraham works hard in his role as host. He does not even try and make small talk with his guests until the task is complete. Abraham’s service is welcomed by God.
In our American culture, people are lonelier than ever. Hospitality, being a host, taking the time to focus on the physical and emotional needs of another is rare. Public places where people can gather and talk also are much less common.
It has required extra time and work- but our congregation has developed routines of offering hospitality to guests and visitor and regular attending members, time to share together over food after the service.
Yet even in the act of love of being a host, there is a risk of missing the forest for the trees. If you are spending too much time getting everything just right so that you are not able to focus on the people you are hosting- then in a way it is your own pride you are feeding instead of your guests.
Martha falls into this category, as she losses touch with Jesus and Mary and is doing the preparations all herself. She wants her work to be recognized as more valuable than the work of listening to Jesus. Work that began as a devotion to Jesus became complicated by the sins of resentment and envy. “Lord don’t you care that my sister just sits, while I am slaving away here in the kitchen?”
In her mind she was completely justified in her complaint. Clearly it was unfair that she was left to do all the work by herself. But then Jesus turns his attention to her, and lovingly turns her perspective upside down. Jesus tells her that one thing is needful and Mary has chosen that thing. Nothing can be said against her.
It is a characteristic of the kingdom of God that man’s idea of right and wrong is not the same as God’s. In this case Jesus was not expecting to be pampered with the best Martha could offer. Jesus did not come to be served by us, but to serve us and even lay down his life for us. He does not need us to work to please him, but instead he is here to be our Savior and fill us with the joy of his Word.
In verse 38 as the gospel reading begins, we read the disciples were on their way. Where were they on their way too? Simply put they were on their way where Jesus was leading. Jesus was on his way to the cross.
There would be perhaps no other opportunity like this for Mary and Martha to hear from Jesus. For Mary it was a time to listen from the start, for Martha it became a time to serve to the exclusion of listening.
The scripture describes Martha as being distracted. For Martha the distractions were not necessarily self centered pursuits. Martha was doing things that a person can reasonably expect to do. Likewise, we often find ourselves with situations in which others need our help to the point where we become distracted from other things we are also responsible for in life.
The number of things that may happen in a week to distract us is seemingly inexhaustible. Because it is so easy to become distracted, these words of Jesus are so important: One thing is necessary. There are many times when we must order things in our lives, but when the time comes for us to receive God’s Word, that is beyond doubt the only thing necessary.
God’s Word challenges us to ask, Do you view hearing God’s Word as a fundamental basic necessity of life? As part of our human nature we experience an internal battle between balancing the things that we really need to do and those things that we would like to do.
Our greatest need is to receive the gospel and receive God’s perfect love in Christ. The things we consider most needful by our human perspective are exactly the things that can and will go wrong. The gift of the gospel never disappoints us.
If I look honestly at myself and at my sin, when it comes to properly choosing what is needful, I fail every week, and even every day with some of the decisions I make to be busy doing what I want to do instead of listening to God’s Word. All of us fail, just like Martha in putting the right priority on our time with Jesus. Because of sin we make the wrong choice all the time as far as what is needful.
But just as Jesus forgave Martha and lovingly corrected her priorities, He forgives us and leads us back to His Word. He leads us to confess the words of Psalm 27 “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.”
St. Paul closes his letter to the Philippians encouraging them to think about and see opportunities to live according to the order of God’s kingdom: Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Sometimes in counseling appointments, I hear people who feel stuck in life say: I don’t have any answers, I don’t know what to think. When you feel stuck, when you wonder what to think in life, you can find clarity and simplicity of purpose by reminding yourself that Jesus has come to you, he forgives you and restores you as a new creation. When things look complicate, we need only look to Jesus and there is simplicity. Looking to Jesus we see what it is honorable, just, pure, and lovely. Those things that threaten to distract us, we can see that they do not meet this same standard of truth, honor, purity. Certainly you will not find many movies or shows on tv meeting this standard.
May our Lord’s love for us shown on the cross provide this perfect clarity to us each and every day. and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Amen.