The Extra in the Ordinary - The Rev Judith Medeiros - 7-20-2025

Including Reading: Luke 10:38-42, read by Sherry Shaffer

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The gospel reading today is from Luke Chapter ten, verses
thirty eight through forty two. In this scripture, Jesus is
traveling with his disciples and busest Martha and Mary, who
care for him. As they went on their way, they

(00:22):
came to a town where a woman named Martha lived.
She cared for Jesus in her home. Martha had a sister, Mary,
Mary sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to
all he said. Martha was working hard getting the supper ready.

(00:44):
She came to Jesus and said, do you see that
my fister is not helping me. Tell her to help me.
Jesus said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worse. I
worried and trouble about many things. Only a few things

(01:06):
are important, even just one. Mary has chosen the good thing.
It will not be taken away from her.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well, I would have been furious to working away in
the kitchen, anxiously preparing food for Jesus while my sister
just gets to sit next to him and take in
all he has to say. I mean, I would have
been upset too, but I probably would have kept my

(01:55):
mouth shut, fuming, sulking, resenting that my sister never thought
about me. She always makes me do everything. Never once
did she think to say, oh, oh, excuse me for
a moment, Jesus, I'd like to check in with my sister.
I would have been crushed when Jesus.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
Said, Judy, judy, judy, your sister has chosen the better part.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
I would have been humiliated to tears. My shame would
have been unbearable. Here I am working so hard to
make everything perfect for the most splendid guest that has
ever walked through my door. All my life, I have
been taught that God, what God loves more than anything

(02:55):
is hospitality. I mean, you know, it's what made Abraham
the father of our faith. I mean there he was
out in the desert in the middle of a conversation
with God when three staring strangers suddenly appear out of nowhere,
and Abraham runs off and makes them lunch in the

(03:18):
middle of talking to God. And afterwards, when he comes back,
God says, well done. That is why God loved Abraham,
because Abraham took care and said the stranger. So here

(03:38):
I am in the kitchen, pouring my heart and soul
into baking bread, beautifully arranging the figs the tomatoes, the olives,
the goat, cheese.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
And what do I get in return?

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Shame with a capital S. That'll follow me all the
days of my life and beyond through thousands of years.
Oh yeah, Martha, she's the one who chose chores over Jesus.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Right.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
This story of Mary and Martha has hurt and confused
many a woman in particular, but all of us in general.
Biblical writers and scholars have not always been kind to women,
and like some other Bible stories, have been misrepresented and misunderstood.

(04:33):
And that's because we see through human eyes. We bring
our own perspectives, our own stereotypes, our own prejudices to
the story. We don't see with God's eyes. We don't
see behind the lens of the Biblical story, and we
need to remember that that gives us an opportunity to

(04:57):
have a keener understanding of the mind and heart of God.
The hardest part is just getting out of our own way.
Just like a great movie or novel, we can't start
in the middle and expect to know what's going on.
We'll have missed the beginning. When the characters and the

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relationships are forming, and when the plot is set into motion.
We don't understand the movement of time. How did this
all begin? What's the history between these people? And why?

Speaker 3 (05:31):
Now?

Speaker 2 (05:33):
No one wants to walk into the middle of a movie,
Yet that is often what is required of us when
we listen to a sermon. So where are we now?
Are we at the beginning early in his ministry? Are
we at the lake shore gathering the disciples? Are we
being amazed at miracles and perplexed by debates?

Speaker 3 (05:57):
Where are we on this journey?

Speaker 2 (06:01):
Well, Jesus is coming towards his last days.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
He's headed towards.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Jerusalem, and he wants to stop and visit his dear
friends Mary and Martha and Lazarus. You see, their home
feels like his home. He can relax with them and
just be himself. We need to remember that Jesus has

(06:29):
no home. He's been walking from town to town for
three years. So he settles in to the comfort of theirs,
where he can breathe and relax and tell stories and
laugh and be present to this moment in time in

(06:50):
the company of his very good friends. Summer can be
like that for us, a time when we feel more relaxed.
We make plans to travel to sunbathe to swim, to
sit on our deck, to read a novel, and hopefully

(07:11):
enjoy our friends and families, maybe in the hot tub.
Summer is the time we attempt to carve out more
sacred space, If you will, we give ourselves permission to
slow down, to feel the sun on our faces, to
feel the sand between our toes. We leave the heated

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kitchen and the knee deep schedules and agendas. We leave
the busyness in hopes of rediscovering the essence of life. Hopefully,
we put away the calendar, and we try and get
away from the cell phones and the texting and the emailing,
and this sense of urgency that permeates our culture, a

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constant sense of urgency, and we give ourselves room to breathe,
but sometimes without even noticing it. The to do list
for the vacation is as long as the lists back home.
Read these novels, go to these museums, take this hike,

(08:21):
go to that conference, Eat at this restaurant, Get the
chores done at the summerhouse. Until one night early on
in the two weeks, a child says, will you read
me a story? Caught between the next thing to do,

(08:46):
the dishes, the campfire, perusing the map for tomorrow, We
choose instead to lie down, stretched out across the bed,
and we read together. And because this child is tired,
we know that as soon as this last story is over,

(09:07):
that child will be asleep and we can get back
to our planning for the events of tomorrow. But here's
what happens instead. When the last story is over, she says,
can you stay with me until I fall asleep? And

(09:29):
with the dimming of the light, she begins to sing
herself to sleep, and we listen as her sweet voice
quietly fades away until all that can be heard is
her breathing, And then the curtain rustling in the wind,

(10:00):
and then the cool air blows across her face, gently
moving the curls on top of her head, and we
feel a shift as an ordinary moment suddenly becomes holy,

(10:26):
simply because we are so fully present to it. I
think this is what Jesus is saying. He's not chiding
Martha over Mary, He's asking her to be fully present.

(10:53):
World renowned preacher Fred Kraddock said, if we censor Martha
to heart, she may abandon serving altogether. If we commend
Mary too profusely, well, she may just sit there Forever,

(11:14):
there's a time to go and a time to do.
There's a time to listen and a time to reflect.
Knowing which and when is a matter of spiritual discernment.
It's the ability to discern the time. Martha is being

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faithful to her way of being in the world hospitality,
but she's torn. She's anxious and jealous, resentful that she's
doing all this work alone, and she's lost herself to
her anxiety, and so therefore she is lost to the

(12:01):
moment of grace. We allow so many things to distract
us from being in the moment. We are so angry
at something somebody did that we can't enjoy the party.

(12:21):
We're so envious of our neighbors and everything they have
that we stop enjoying our own backyard. We're so focused
on getting ahead that we keep missing our child's games.

(12:42):
And as much as I wish we could all cultivate
more of Mary, I think perhaps the better part of
today's world would be to bring Mary and Martha, together,
to make them one instead of either, or to make

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them both, and to reconcile the sisters. We live in
a world full of distractions. Great philosopher and theologian Paul
Tillick said, there are innumerable concerns in our lives which

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demand our attention, our devotion, passion even but they do
not demand infinite attention, unconditional devotion, ultimate passion. They are important,

(13:50):
often very important for you and for me, for the
whole of humanity, but they are not what is ultimately important.
Figuring that out, Figuring out what is ultimately important, well,

(14:14):
that's the challenge of the Gospel. Sometimes when we discern
the moment is near, the faithful thing to do is
to drop everything and sit still and listen, like Mary.

(14:35):
Other times, when we discern its presence, the faithful thing
to do is to get busy and to commit with
all of our passion to the task at hand, like Martha.
I think that if we were to ask Jesus, which
of these two things do you think we need more

(14:55):
of Martha's Mary's reflectiveness or mar Tha's activism, Jesus would
probably say yes. This is not a story about who
is right and who is wrong, who's the better disciple,

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or what is the best way to be with God,
action or contemplation. It's about recognizing what is truly important
in a time when many things, if not all things,
constantly seek the status of urgency. It's a story about

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how to find balance in our lives and to make
time for the Holy Jesus. The teacher has been on
the road, teaching and healing, with no place to rest
his head, and he comes to the home of his friends,

(16:08):
two women, Mary and Martha, two women he loves and respects.
To who else would a good friend complain about their
sibling and tenderly and I suspect with an ounce of weariness.

(16:29):
He simply reminds Martha not to miss the most important
moments in life because she is too distracted to be present.
Amen