Mary and Martha, Followers of Jesus, a sermon based on Isaiah 64: 6-8 and Luke 10: 38-42, preached on July 20, 2025

It feels good to be back here. I’ve been gone for three weeks. During my time away, I completed a 117-page draft of my final project for my doctorate. I’ve been a student in the doctorate program at Columbia Theological Seminary since 2018. It’s about time I made some progress, considering how this program is meant to last three years, and I have been in it for seven. Thanks to this study leave, I’m well on my way. I’ll turn in my 117-page paper to my first and second reader in early September, editing between now and then. Should my advisors approve, I’ll defend my thesis in October. The defense is public. If you would like to attend what may turn into my execution, you are welcome, but seriously, several of you have asked about my progress and what I’ve been writing about. I’m honored by your interest, and I’m especially thankful for your support and encouragement. No one made me feel guilty for taking so much time off, which was very nice because not everyone gets the luxury of taking a break. Before I felt comfortable to take so much time off, I just floated the idea to the Clerk of Session, Lisa Fanto-Swain, and Susan Palacios, my executive assistant. I nervously mentioned taking three weeks off, and in response, they said things like, “It’s about time” and “Of course you should. Stay away from here and finish your degree.” That was so good to hear because like you, I live in this world of tremendous pressure to keep going and to keep doing. It’s hard to give myself permission to stop. To get focused. To walk away from busyness to prioritize, but they encouraged me to do it, and so I did. I took three weeks off, wrote 117 pages, then I came back here last Monday, and sitting on my desk was a thank-you note from Denise Lobodinski: a thank-you note that said, “You taking a break to focus on something important gives us permission to take a break.” My friends, I did not expect this result and neither did Martha. We are now on the eighth Sunday of another summer sermon series. For the last several years, your pastors have focused on something special for the summer, a theme or a particular book of the Bible. This summer, we’ve been focused on followers of Jesus, be it John Mark who was our focus last Sunday, or the women of the Gospels from the Sunday before. (I loved how Cassie said that we might think of some of them as the real housewives of Jerusalem). One of the many benefits of me being gone was that my absence gave other members of the staff the opportunity to step forward. Pastors who don’t often preach had the chance. Church Administrator, Melissa Ricketts, was the acting head of staff. Some might say that Melissa is always the one who really runs the church, but while I was gone, it was official. My point is that in a world of busyness and activity and anxiety over what must be done next, I ask you this morning to take a lesson from Mary and Martha. Martha was busy. We are all busy. Notice that Jesus said, “Mary chose the better part.” Why would Jesus say that? It’s important for us to understand what He means, for we live in a world of doing; however, we were created to be human beings, not human doings. Why do we try to do so much? Why attempt to do two things while achieving neither? I can’t listen while looking at my phone, but I keep thinking I can. Multitasking is an illusion for most of us, so we must stop doing to worship the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Does the need to do ever keeping you from the most important part? It happens all the time with funerals. In the Gospel of John, Mary and Martha’s brother dies. Before Jesus raises him from the dead, there must have been a funeral. The funeral is not described, but I can picture it. I can picture Martha busy, and I can see Mary crying, and if Mary was crying at the funeral then she chose the better part because while there is so much to do in the wake of death, while there are so many details to attend to, it’s possible to take refuge in the details to avoid the point of the funeral. The point of the funeral is grieving and receiving comfort from friends and family. Yet Martha stayed so busy attending to the details that she wouldn’t stop to let anyone comfort her. No. When she finally let herself fall apart, no one was around for her to lean on. My friends, it is good sometimes to be busy, but you also must stop to weep. If you never stop to weep then you will never receive the comfort of a community. That’s why Jesus said, “Mary chose the better part.” We must stop trying to do everything in order to slow down and do the one thing. Otherwise, we’re just spinning our wheels. It says that, more or less, right in the Bible. Take out your Bible and look up our second Scripture lesson because I want you to notice something. Look on page 844, the page right before our second Scripture lesson, and notice that the Parable of the Good Samaritan is followed by the story of Mary and Martha. Why would the Gospel writer place them side-by-side? It’s because this message of Jesus is so important that he gives us the same lesson twice in the hopes that it will sink in. The message of the Good Samaritan simplified is this: In a world of tragedy, where there are so many bodies lying by the side of the road, stop to help just one. Do good to just one. Put aside doing everything and caring about everything. You can’t help them all. You can’t stop the Texas dam from breaking. You can’t bring peace to the Middle East. But if you see a child crying, slow down. If your friend is in pain, take time to listen. Notice the pain of the people in your neighborhood. Don’t waste your empathy on problems you can’t do anything about when you have the power to do something good for somebody today. In our world, I wonder if the devil wants us overwhelmed by tragedy that we give up hope and so distracted by all that needs doing that we never do anything to make a difference. Jesus says, “Mary has chosen the most important part.” Listen to what Jesus asks us to do: Give the thirsty a cup of water, give the hungry a meal to eat, visit the isolated in jail and in the hospital, don’t be overcome by evil. Overcome evil with good, and if you start to feel like you’re ready to give up, slow down and remember the words to the hymn: My Shepherd will supply my need, and his name is Jehovah, not Martha. Do you know a Martha? I knew a Martha who went to visit the Vatican, and someone asked about her visit saying, “Did you get the Pope straightened out?” My friends, there is work for us to do. There is a calling on your life, but sometimes you must stop to remember that while something needs doing, you were not called to do everything. Do something, but if you try to do everything, you never will. Don’t try to save the world, for the world already has a Savior. While I was out, I went to the optometrist because I can be one of those people who thinks he’s too busy to go to the doctor. It’s ridiculous. I know that, so I went to the optometrist. I hadn’t been for two years. He was updating my prescription, and he asked me if I ever used optometry as a metaphor in my sermons. I was like, “Who does this guy think he is?” He said, “Sometimes, all you need to do to see clearly is to change your lens.” When you look out on the world and see all the problems, do you use the lens of “I’ve got to do something about that,” or do you say to yourself, “Thanks be to God who is working His purpose out?” I was gone for three weeks, and for those three weeks, I had to write a paper, but I wrote about the good that God has done in this place. I reflected on what’s changed because of the pandemic. God was doing a new thing in 2020, so we came out of the pandemic a different church from the one who went into it. Before the pandemic, we didn’t have the Pantry on Church feeding 400 families. Before the pandemic, we had no presence in the Cobb County Jail, but just last month we distributed 432 Bibles and helped the men and women there check out 450 books. Did you know that we run the jail library now? It’s true. That wasn’t happening before the pandemic, and that it’s happening now helps me to realize that even in a moment when we were all stuck at home quarantined, God was at work. Just because we didn’t do it, that doesn’t mean that nothing got done. That’s the lesson Mary teaches. Her story helps to teach a bunch of Martha’s like us to stop and watch as the Potter shapes this broken world by the power of His hand. Slow down long enough to notice that, while we are called to serve, we are simply joining God, the Potter, who is always at work shaping and changing creation, “making all things new.” Halleluia. Amen.