It’s Time
Luke 10:38-42
The Hebrew word for “the end” is qets. This is very similar to the word qayits, which means summer, or summer fruit. A basket of summer fruit is fruit that’s ripe, and won’t keep very long. And Amos said:
Amos 8:1-12
{8:1} This is what the Lord God showed me—a basket of summer fruit. 2 He said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit”— qayits. Then the Lord said to me, “ qets— The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass them by. 3 The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,” says the Lord God . Be silent!”
4 Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, 5 saying, “When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small [—that’s the measurement for dry goods like flour—] and the shekel great [—we’ll charge too much money—], and practice deceit with false balances, 6 buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”
7 The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. 8 Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who lives in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt? 9 On that day, says the Lord God , I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight. 10 I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day.
11 The time is surely coming, says the Lord God , when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord . 12 They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord , but they shall not find it.
Colossians 1:15-23, 27-28
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
21 And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him— 23 provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven.
27 [H]ow great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 It is he whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.
Luke 10:38-42
38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40 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.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
The Sermon
Maybe we’ve peeked through this transom so often that we see and hear what we expect to see and hear.
When I stood up on Luke’s shoulders so I could peek through the widow above the door and listen in on the conversations between Jesus, Mary and Martha, I thought it was a dinner party.
I thought that when Jesus visited Martha’s house, Martha was setting the table and cooking, and while Mary could have been sprucing up the hors d’oeuvres, she was just sitting there in the living room, listening. I was wrong—or at least, there’s nothing to back me up to say I’m right.
Who said anything about a dinner party? Not Luke. There’s nothing about either the hour of the day or the circumstances; just that Martha welcomed Jesus into her home and had many tasks to accomplish. I guess everybody else already realized that, but you know me—good Presbyterian; anytime there’s a remotely religious get-together, there must be food involved. I had assumed it was a dinner party.
But I’m not alone in jumping to conclusions about this story. When the people who put together The Living Bible peeked through the same transom, they said, “Oh will you look at that Martha? Look at her, running around all over the place. You know what she is? She’s jittery. In fact that must be just the type of person she is.”
When you look at this passage as re-told in The Living Bible, it says it right there: “But Martha was the jittery type.”
Who said Martha was “the jittery type?” Not Luke, and it’s his story. Just the people who created the Living Bible, which is not a direct translation but a paraphrase.
But that’s what they saw—or that’s what they thought they saw: that Martha was “the jittery type,” whatever that is.
Could she have been? Sure. But there’s nothing to suggest it.
But saying Martha was the jittery type gives us a great explanation for why Jesus defends Mary, who isn’t doing anything except sitting there at Jesus’ feet, listening.
If Martha is the jittery type, then it’s a simple character flaw that has her not listening at Jesus’ feet. She can’t help herself. She just has to run around—if she’s the jittery type.
If it’s about the type of person someone is, then obviously there are people who are suited to hear and receive and act on the Word, and people who are not suited to hear and receive and act on the Word. Mary is; Martha is not.
But that’s wrong. Martha didn’t have to be the jittery type. Martha’s doing what any good, faithful, religious person would do, knowing that the Biblical imperative to provide hospitality is among the highest and noblest expressions of faithfulness. If someone is in your home, it’s a Godly, religious expression to treat them as you would expect to treat royalty.
And Jesus, ever full of surprises that clarify what it means to be a child of God, says Martha, Mary is doing the most important thing a human being could possibly do. She is listening to the voice of God. That takes precedence over even the most faithful of duties, even over the Biblical imperative to offer hospitality.
We have a lot of important stuff to do, in church and in your life outside of this building. But nothing is more important than listening to God.
Martha doesn’t have to be the jittery type. She’s just a good, faithful person doing what a good, faithful, hospitable person would be expected to do. Her personality type has nothing to do with whether or not she is capable of being faithful.
Her personality type has nothing to do with whether or not she is capable of being faithful.
Just as you are, you are capable of being the person God created you to be.
But it’s easy to get distracted by Martha’s constant scurrying around, and you can understand why someone may have mistaken what she was doing to try to be faithful for a mere personality trait. It’s human nature to hear what we think we’re going to hear, and see what we think we’re going to see.
Maybe that’s what happened to Amos.
God showed Amos a basket of summer fruit. It says it right there in the Bible: it was a basket of summer fruit—qayits. “Amos!” Yes, sir? “What is this?”
You mean that basket of summer fruit? “Yes. What is this?”
Uh…a basket of…summer fruit?
“ The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass them by. The songs of the temple shall become wailings.”
Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, making the produce small and the cost high, practicing deceit, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat.
This is the end! This is the end of my patience with my sinful, straying children. This is the end of my tolerance of their intolerance.
This is the end of them getting away with lying and cheating and stealing and selling out the poor for a pair of shoes.
This is the end of climbing over the backs of the less fortunate. It’s the end of the powerful using their power to belittle those who have no power. It’s the end of cruelty. It’s the end of bullying.
This is the end of watching thousands starve and saying, “Well, it must be God’s will for the preservation of the planet.” It’s the end of watching diseases ravage lives and families and saying, “I wonder what they did that made God so angry to cause that?” It’s the end of saying, “Why does God allow terrible things to happen?” when we, whom God put here for exactly that purpose, sit back and do nothing.
A basket of summer fruit, fully ripened and about to go bad—this is the end, all right.
It’s well past harvest time. It’s time for the people of God, like this basket of ripe, summer fruit, to be fully mature, and embrace the Word of God and the command therein that we love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and love our neighbors as ourselves.
Which is what Paul, or whoever, was saying when he told the Colossians, “It is Christ whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.”
It’s time. It’s time for us to be the completed version of who we were meant to be.
A fully mature apple is ready to eat; it has become what an apple is meant to be.
A frog isn’t a frog if it’s still a tadpole; when the tadpole has matured, it becomes a frog, like it’s meant to be.
You may be an introvert or you may be an extravert; you may trust your gut instincts or you may rely on viewable data; you may use your heart or use your head; you may need someone to give you a clear, definite answer, or you may chafe whenever anyone says, “This is how it’s got to be.”
You may be sanguine by nature, or you may be the jittery type.
Whoever you are, your personality type has nothing to do with whether or not you are capable of being faithful.
Just as you are, you are capable of being the person God created you to be, and doing what God has put you here to do.
And so, for all of us, no matter who you are or what kind of person, I offer you this blessing, a p rayer of the Franciscans:
May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships
So that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.
May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war,
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and
To turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.
Amen.
Keith Grogg
Carolina Beach Presbyterian Church
Carolina Beach, NC
July 22, 2007
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