The Lutheran Hour
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"The One Thing You Really Need"
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Text: Luke 10:38-42
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Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia.
She went the extra mile. Literally. Well, actually, she went ten extra miles.
13.1. You’ve seen those stickers on cars. It seems like everyone has a sticker on their car boasting of their accomplishments. Whether it is 26.2 or 13.1, it seems like most everyone has run either a marathon or a half-marathon. Well, at least many people have bought the stickers.
A young girl, though, recently ran a half-marathon in New York. That doesn’t really sound all that remarkable. In our world today, many people are interested in exercise and running. There are half-marathon races all over the country every weekend, and many people, young and old, male and female, run these races.
But this girl was unique. Not because we was specially abled or disabled or fast or slow. She was unique because she intended to run a 5K. That’s just over 3 miles. Instead, she ran over 13. Can you imagine running 13 miles when you intended to run 3?
You might wonder how this happened. It’s simple. She was late. When she showed up for the race, she told the starter she was late, and he pointed her to a group of people about to begin the race. The girl didn’t discover that she was in the wrong race until she had already begun. So she just kept running.
It helps to be young. A 12-year-old girl can run. Some of us need to train for a long time to be able to run that far. But she did it based on someone’s words. She was told to start and she did. She was on a course that stretched 13 miles, so she just kept running until the end.
She quite literally went the extra mile. Or, more accurately, she went 10 extra miles.
In our text for today, Martha went the extra mile. She wanted to make sure that Jesus was taken care of. She loved Jesus and wanted to make sure that His needs were met. She wanted to make sure He felt welcome in her house, and she worked hard to make Jesus feel welcome, to make sure that Jesus was well taken care of. And that’s a wonderful thing.
We do this. When people come to our house, we prepare special food for them. We change our routine and make sure our guests feel welcome and cared for. We probably clean our houses up a little bit more than normal. We might prepare food with our guests in mind. Or we might prepare other things just to make sure they feel loved.
Martha cared about Jesus. And so she went the extra mile to make sure that He was taken care of. She went the extra mile to provide for Him and to show her love for him.
Mary didn’t spend time preparing things for Jesus at all. She didn’t get in the kitchen and provide for Jesus’ needs. Instead, Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to His teachings. She showed her love for Jesus by listening to His Word.
When Martha got annoyed with Mary for not helping, she asked Jesus to help her. She asked Jesus to tell Mary to stop sitting around and help.
Jesus’s response is pointed and astounding. He does not command Mary to help her sister. Instead, He commends Mary. Jesus tells Martha that Mary has actually chosen the one thing that is necessary and that Martha is busy with so many things that she has missed what is necessary entirely.
The Protestant work ethic. We work hard because that is our duty. We work hard. That is what we are to do. Some have suggested that the result of the Protestant work ethic is the rise of successful capitalism in the western world. We go the extra mile, they say.
A lot of us, we work hard. We sacrifice in order to work hard. We save what we have earned because we have learned from the mistakes of our past. So we work hard. It’s what we do. And when something is worth the effort, we work even harder. We go the extra mile.
Many people read this story and suggest that we are either like Mary or Martha. People teach that we are all a little like Martha, and we should strive to be like Mary.
Typically, the message of a sermon on this text will command us to spend more time at the feet of Jesus, and less time doing other things in our lives. Usually people hear this story and think that it means that we should go the extra mile for Jesus by listening to Him. But that message doesn’t resonate well with us. We know that no matter how pious it sounds, we can’t spend all day reading the Bible and we can’t spend all of our days in church. The idea that we need to go the extra mile for Jesus simply wears us out. And is an actual fact, quite impossible.
Things need to get done; spiritual things, physical things. Dinner needs to be done. The house needs to be cleaned. The lawn needs to be mowed. Children need to be driven all over the place. And even if we don’t do all of those things, someone needs to go to work so that we can afford to pay for the things in our lives.
We can’t just sit around and listen to Jesus. As much as we are tempted to say that we should all be like Mary, we all know the reality of day to day living is that we need to be more like Martha. The result is that we all just feel more guilt. We all feel like somehow we need to add to our already busy schedules the time to be more like Mary and sit at Jesus’ feet. We feel the stress and the guilt of trying to get everything done and be a good Christian. We feel the burden of working hard and being conscientious and choosing the one thing necessary – to sit and listen to Jesus. The extra mile is just simply too much.
The result is that we all hear this text and we feel condemned. In one way or another, we hear this story and think that we are too much like Martha and we need to be more like Mary. Or, if we are honest, we disagree with the conclusion and feel like this teaching of Jesus simply isn’t practical. There is no way to go the extra mile and just sit to listen. If we really wanted to, we cannot just listen to Jesus all the time. That’s just not practical.
Let me suggest that the question of whether you are like Mary or Martha, that’s the wrong question. When we concentrate on Mary and Martha, we miss the whole point of the story. The story was not written so that we try to be more like Mary and less like Martha. The story was not told so that we focus more on us. We feel like we need go the extra mile for Jesus by listening more. We feel convicted that we need to go the extra mile and do less somehow. And in so doing we still wind up doing more.
The whole point of this lesson is to focus on Jesus. The whole point of the Gospel of Luke is Jesus. The Bible is not written about you and me. We are not supposed to read every story and try to identify with one of the characters. Instead, the Bible teaches us about Jesus.
This story is ultimately about Jesus. What do we learn about Jesus in this story? How does the story of Mary and Martha point to Jesus?
You see, Mary chose the right thing because she allowed Jesus to be exactly Who He came to be. She received from Jesus His Word and His love. This is our act of worship. This is how we believe. This is how we trust. Faith and trust means not trying to run our lives for ourselves. Instead, we love and trust Jesus by repenting of our sins and letting Him give us His gifts of love, forgiveness, and grace.
The Gospels are not written to teach us what people did for Jesus. There are very few stories of anyone doing anything to benefit Jesus. Instead, the main story of the Bible is what God is doing for us. The overarching story of God is what He is doing for those Whom He loves.
But here’s the good news. This is your story about what God has done for you. This is who you really are in Him. You are one who is loved by God in Jesus Christ. You are one who has been served by God. You are one who gets what God gives; life, salvation.
We tend to measure people by what they deserve. We think that if we work hard, we should be rewarded. It’s the basis of our economic and social system. And that might be good to a degree. It might be a good idea for socioeconomic growth. But it is a horrible idea when it comes to who we are, especially before God.
God demands that we love Him perfectly if we are going to go it on our own. God demands that we love others fully. He created us to love Him fully and others as ourselves. But sin has corrupted our nature so that we love ourselves first and foremost. We love God only as long as our lives go well or He allows us to do what we want. And we love those in our lives whom we deem worthy of our love.
God says that kind of behavior is sinful and not worthy of His love. God says that our sin removes us from receiving His love and His gifts. God says that we are enslaved to that. Like Martha in our story, our sin makes us self-centered.
Even when it comes to our life of service, we tend to serve selfishly. Listen to Martha’s words. She demands Jesus to tell Mary to help her. Martha might think she is serving selflessly, but in reality, she is jealous of her sister. She is so consumed with how she is affected that she tells Jesus what to do!
Can you image that? Can you imagine telling Jesus what to do? Can you imagine having the guts to tell God what to do and how to do it?
That is actually what we do when we ignore God’s commands and desires for our lives and live however we want. We tell God that we know better than He does. We ignore God’s will and do whatever we want, we are in effect telling God He doesn’t know what is actually best for us.
We also tell God what to do when we decide how to worship Him or serve Him. When we spend more time performing for God than receiving from Him, we have reversed His plan. He does not desire our performance. He desires to serve us and to give us His love.
Our response to all of this is to thank and praise Him first and foremost. But that response can only come when we have first received what He gives to us.
We are so sinful that we even turn our religious life into a selfish pursuit, just like Martha. But just like Martha, you are loved. Jesus loves you. Not because you are like Mary, but because that is Who He is.
You see, our story about Martha and Mary is really in a section of Luke that is all about love. Before our story, Jesus was discussing with a scholar the way to read the Bible. The scholar said that the real message of the Bible is to love the Lord with all of your heart and soul and mind and strength and to love our neighbor as our self.
Jesus said that he was right. Those are the two greatest commands and the summary of what our lives should be like.
Luke records two stories to explain this kind of love. The first is the Good Samaritan. You know that story. A man was beaten and left for dead, we’ve talked about that. A priest and a Levite walk by the man. These are two religious leaders of the day, but neither stops to help. They are too busy, too consumed with their religiosity. Along comes a Samaritan; an outsider, a man of no worth or value in that society of that day, a man with no status.
The Samaritan stops and bandages up the wounded man. He helps the man and even pays for all the care the man needs to fully recover. The conclusion of the story is that the Samaritan loved his neighbor.
Our story of Martha and Mary follows that story of the Good Samaritan.
What if these two stories are told to illustrate what Jesus means when He says that God desires to us to love Him with our whole heart, mind, strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves? What if we read these stories as though they are teaching us the truth of love?
You see, Jesus came to reveal God’s love, actually to love you God’s way. He came to love you like the Good Samaritan. Jesus was an outsider. He was different. Yet He came to pay the price to bind up our wounds. He came to carry us and to restore us. Jesus came to bear the sins of the whole world. He loves all people. He gives us His life.
And Jesus came to love us with the love of God. He came to love us fully with the love of God. He gives us all of God’s love. You see, Jesus loved His Father with all of His heart, soul, mind, and strength. He loved God the Father fully.
And when He died on the cross, He paid the price for all of your sins and all your lack of love for God and for neighbor. When Jesus died on the cross, He took away from you all your guilt and failures.
In the place of your sin, He gave you His love. His perfect love. And that is His role in your life. He is not in your life to be served so that you have to live up to certain expectations. Jesus came to give you God’s perfect love, to teach you in His Word about the God of love. He came to serve you by dying for you and rising again.
But when it comes to the most important thing in life, we think that we have to work hard and go the extra mile for Jesus first. We think that we are really religious when we serve how we think we should serve God. But today, Jesus reminds us in the story of Martha and Mary that one thing is necessary. Jesus has fulfilled all that is necessary. He has done it all for you and that’s the one thing that ultimately matters.
Yes, we work hard. And that is great. We are called to serve neighbor in our work and in our day to day responsibilities. And we should work hard at the tasks that God has given us. But we never do so in order to earn God’s favor. We work hard to serve others because we have been loved by God with an incredible love.
We don’t need to go the extra mile to get the one thing necessary. We run like the young girl who accidentally went 10 extra miles. We run as far as necessary. With those who are running with us. We love because we have been loved. We serve because we have been served and we go to whatever mile our neighbor needs us to go.
There is one thing necessary. It is not your work. It is not your effort to go the extra mile. The one thing necessary is God’s love, His eternal extra miles of grace for you in Jesus Christ. And that one thing has been done. That one thing necessary, Jesus, is God’s love given to you freely. You have all that you need, put your faith in Him, in His Word, in His promises and you’ll see. Amen.
Action in Ministry for July 17, 2016
Guest: Dr. John NunesANNOUNCER: You’re listening to The Lutheran Hour and this is Action in Ministry. Pastor Seltz, we all find ourselves in a different journey in life.
SELTZ: Mark, what I love is no matter how rough or broken or tragic your journey, there always is hope for a new start.
ANNOUNCER: To talk with us today about that is The Rev. Dr. John Nunes, the new president of Concordia College, New York; prior to that he was CEO of Lutheran World Relief and professor at Valparaiso University in Indiana and Concordia University in Chicago. He’s the host of a video resource titled: The Journey From Unbelief to Faith.
SELTZ: Dr. Nunes, thanks for joining us.
NUNES: Thanks for having me, Pastor Seltz.
SELTZ: John, tell us about the people we meet on this journey.
NUNES: We have four very distinct, very unique stories on the Journey From Unbelief to Faith: someone who is deeply embedded in science and evolution; someone else who comes from the Jewish background as a part of their tradition, and culture, and faith; another person who came from a deeply violent and volatile…a family background that she had to work her way through; and then the fourth person who was deeply embedded in a new age, pseudo spirituality. So, four very distinct stories.
SELTZ: Wow.
ANNOUNCER: But the title, the Journey From Unbelief to Faith shows us that the journey doesn’t end with unbelief; so how does God work in the lives of all these different individuals?
NUNES: Our God is a God of second chances. Through the work of the Holy Spirit working through the Word of God, working through the people of God, God finds a way to bring people to Himself. No one is so far out that they can’t be brought back in. That’s the power of God working through the Holy Spirit Who calls us, Who gathers us, Who enlightens us in our faith and keeps us set apart and sanctified in God’s business.
SELTZ: And these people, John, were influenced in various degrees by others. How easily, though, can people be led down the wrong path?
NUNES: You know, Pastor Seltz, the kind of world in which we live is without much need for evidence. Politicians argue about it, psychologists try to work at it, environmentalists can tell you about it. We live in a world that is broken at one level or another and it is tragically broken. It’s quite easy for us to be led down a wrong path in life. The greatest miracle, however, is God’s miracle, the miracle of faith, which I think sometimes, Mark and Greg, is even greater than the miracle of creation; that God can out of dead things create a living faith.
SELTZ: In these stories, too, you have these people who just know there is something more. I remember them saying, “For some reason I started to go to church. For another reason I went to Bible study.” They really don’t know what they’re seeking, but little by little they’re led closer to Christ. Talk a little bit more about how that happens as well.
NUNES: In each of the stories there is a very unique set of events that seem at the time to each individual to be purely serendipitous; something that seems to be coincidental or coming from nowhere. But then in the long view or in their retrospective view, it’s clear that God is active and at work in the lives of each of these people bringing them on that journey from unbelief to faith.
ANNOUNCER: And what do these stories say to those who are already Christians?
NUNES: Never give up. Never give up praying. Never give up hoping. Salvation is never outside of the realm of possibility for anyone. Jesus Christ died for everyone. No one is too far out to be brought back in. No one is too far gone to come home to the God Who created them and loved them. In fact, Pastor Seltz, I was in Detroit yesterday and I was at a church and there was a baptism of an 89-year-old man whose entire life, he had disavowed Christianity. He was an avowed atheist, and yesterday I celebrated in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit his coming to Christ. So, the word to the believers, to the church, is never give up.
SELTZ: Wow! That’s something we all need to hear, right? To be ready to share Christ. To be reminded of the power of Christ to reach anyone, anytime, anywhere, no matter how far from faith they might seem. Dr. Nunes, thank you so much for joining us today.
NUNES: Thanks, Greg. Thanks, Mark.
SELTZ: That’s our Action in Ministry today to bless, to empower, and to strengthen your life in Christ for others.
ANNOUNCER: You can view or download this content for free at our website. Go to lutheranhour.org and click on Action in Ministry. That’s lutheranhour.org. For information on ordering a DVD copy, call 1-855-john316. That’s 1-855-564.6316. Our email address is info@lhm.org.
LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers) for July 17, 2016
Topic: What does Galatians 2:20 Mean Today?ANNOUNCER: Now, Pastor Gregory Seltz responds to questions from listeners. I’m Mark Eischer. Today we are going to talk about a Bible passage that is a favorite of many people: Galatians 2, verse 20. A lot of times when we talk about favorite Bible verses, many times they are either misquoted or taken out of context. There’s something very different about today’s verse.
SELTZ: Right, Mark, Galatians 2:20 is one of the best verses in the Bible for people to memorize.
ANNOUNCER: People say things like this is my favorite verse or this is the best verse. But really there is no better or best or worst, is there?
SELTZ: Well, the whole Bible is the Word of God, that’s for sure, but there are certain passages that summarize important teachings and they serve as easy passages to memorize in order to call to mind the really, really important things about God and His love.
ANNOUNCER: And Galatians 2:20 is one of those summary verses?
SELTZ: Absolutely. Listen to the words of Galatians 2:20. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” It’s all in there; the death and resurrection of Jesus, the hope of eternal life, salvation by grace through faith, and even sanctification, our new life in Him. It’s all in this short and precious verse.
ANNOUNCER: Walk us through and show us how those important teachings are summarized.
SELTZ: I would love to. First of all, this verse focuses our attention on Christ and what He has done for us. Jesus was crucified for us, rose from the dead for us. His death means that the penalty that our sins have earned is paid. His resurrection means that we share in His eternal life.
ANNOUNCER: What does it mean to be crucified with Christ?
SELTZ: Jesus’s death and resurrection is for all people. It is faith that delivers the forgiveness and eternal life to us individually. Faith is the means through which God gives us what Christ has accomplished for all. Therefore, those who have been baptized, those who believe in Jesus, they’re joined with Him in His death and His resurrection. When I am joined with Jesus to His crucifixion, I freely receive the benefits of His Work, His death, His resurrection.
ANNOUNCER: What does it mean when it says I no longer live?
SELTZ: Mark, when we are joined to Jesus’s crucifixion, our sinfulness, our guilt, it’s literally put to death. That “me” has been crucified with Him! My sinful nature is put to death when He died in my place.
ANNOUNCER: This really speaks to the reality of our baptism.
SELTZ: As a “means of grace,” Christ delivers the benefits of the cross, as our sinful nature is drowned in the waters of His Name!
ANNOUNCER: But the message of Jesus is not one of death?
SELTZ: No way; in fact, like Jesus Who was raised from the dead, when we are joined to Jesus in His death, we are also joined with Him in His resurrection. So, by faith in Him, your life, my life is no longer defined by us.
ANNOUNCER: Which is good news.
SELTZ: I think it’s the best news. In fact, our sin does not condemn us; death is not my eternal destination, and it’s not yours either. Instead, Jesus defines us. He makes us God’s children. He forgives our sins. This is incredible. He promises us eternal life.
ANNOUNCER: And we don’t lose our individual identity either.
SELTZ: Yes, you are still you. And Paul says that in this verse as well. My sinful nature has been crucified with Christ, and yet I am alive. Paul says this life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Christianity does not remove us from our bodies or seek to separate us from our bodies. God created all of these things.
ANNOUNCER: Really that’s how we live out our faith.
SELTZ: In our bodies, right. We were meant to be forgiven, redeemed, restored people! We are made alive to live. We love our neighbors as a reflection of God’s love for us.
ANNOUNCER: You said earlier this verse deals with Jesus’s death and resurrection. Where is the resurrection?
SELTZ: The phrases “Christ lives in me” and “the life I live in the flesh,” they both point us to the resurrection of the Jesus Who is still alive. God doesn’t just remove our sins through faith; He also gives us the gift of eternal life. Jesus is alive in His flesh. We now live and will live forever with Him. God is always a God of life.
ANNOUNCER: Thank you, Pastor Seltz. This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries.
Music Selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by Chris Bergmann. Used by permission.
“One Thing’s Needful, Lord, This Treasure” From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House)
“Jesus, Thy Boundless Love to Me” From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House)