Mary and Martha --- can't you just picture them.  Mary is sort of dreamy --- head in the clouds, or in a book --- and Martha, well, she's the good old work horse, the one who gets the job done.  She's the one who gets the kitchen cleaned up while her sister is out talking to her friends, the one who orders the groceries and gets things tidied up for company.  Mary seems to be sweet, dedicated to learning, intent --- and Martha, well, Martha probably wears orthopedic shoes and has a dish cloth over her shoulder most of the time.  I don't know, but that is sort of the picture that comes to my mind when I think about these two.  And for all the talk about GO and Do in the Bible, it is Mary who is celebrated in this story, Mary who is held up as the example of one who has chosen well.  So one works her brains out and the other just sits, and the one who sits gets all the gold stars!

          In the gospel of Luke, this story is immediately after the one we had last week, the story of the lawyer who wanted to know how to inherit eternal life, and Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan and then tells the Lawyer to go and do likewise. Get to work, get out there and help.  So what is with the quick turn around?  Some would say, the stories remind us to have balance in our lives --- and yes, balance is good.  It is great to sit and study, but someone has to come up with lunch.  So, is that what Jesus says here, go and live a balanced life?  No, not in this story, he says, Martha, get over yourself, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things --- there is need of only ONE thing.

          Don't you sometimes wonder when you hear these stories, what came next?  Did Martha throw down her towel and go off to her room and have a good cry?  Did she go fuming off to the kitchen muttering under her breath, "Sure, easy for you to say, I am the one who has been slaving over a hot stove all day so that you would have something to eat when you got here".  Did she sink down next to Mary at Jesus' feet and say, forgive me Lord?  Did she order out for pizza?  And how about Mary, did she gloat?  Did she reconsider and say, no, I must go help my sister?

          Mary, a young woman sitting at the feet of a rabbi was another grand slam at boundary breaking.  To sit at the feet of the rabbi was to be engaged in learning and listening, and it was a right that was not extended to women.  The women had a role --- tend the home, tend the children, leave the difficult things like study and learning to the men.  They will tell you what to think when necessary.  Don't worry your pretty little head about any of that, what could you possibly do with all that information anyway.  Society has a structure and we will uphold the structure --- and Jesus comes along and says, not in my kingdom.  First we hear the story of the Samaritan, breaking all the boundaries and rules --- and then Mary, a woman, completely out of place, but by Jesus own declaration, exactly where she needed to be. Women, Samaritans, the sick, the ones who did not fit in --- all were given their rightful place in the kingdom of God, the place of disciple.

          And Martha --- she meant well, she was aiming for hospitality, trying to fulfill her designated role, but she missed the mark, and got more concerned about herself --- "My sister has left ME, to do the work MYSELF, tell her to help ME."  Martha forgot that the first rule of hospitality is to focus on the guest, not on oneself.  She got so busy preparing for the guest that she almost missed the guest himself.  Before we can DO the word of God, we have to hear it.  It was not Martha's work that was the problem, it was that it became her whole focus, her distraction, her busy-ness.

          Busy-ness, for which one meaning is lively but meaningless, is connected to the word business.  In business you have probably heard the phrase, keep the main thing the main thing.  Sometimes we have to stop and ask ourselves, what business are we in.  What is the business of the church?  What is the busy-ness of the church?  Are there some things we are doing that are distracting us from the main thing?  "Inspired by Christ, living and growing in faith, we are a loving and open community of worship, witness and service in God's world."  That's the mission statement of Lake of the Isles Lutheran, the statement you see printed in your bulletin each week.  We say that first and foremost we are inspired by Christ.  And that is the message to us, keep the main thing the main thing, and the main thing Jesus says is the word of God, and our attention to that word.

          There is a wonderful phrase from a poem by Mary Oliver --- What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? As we ponder Mary and Martha, we might think about our own lives, our own preoccupations, and our own busyness.  We might wonder if we are in fact choosing the main course in this one wild and precious life we have.  WE might start to feel like no matter what, we can't quite get it right.  If we get busy in too many directions, we can lose sight of what is important.  If we just sit at the feet of Jesus, how does anything get done?

          If we aren't listening to God, how will we ever know what it is that we are to do?  And listening to God requires our attention, our attentiveness.  We come together in worship, and we listen, or we read Scripture and we listen, or we pray and we listen --- and then we go out, out into the world to participate in God's mission.  Mary chose the main thing that day --- Jesus came and she sat right down, paid attention, assumed the role of disciple.  What if we committed ourselves right now to be people of prayer?  Pray for this congregation, for the insights that we need to discern the call of God and the opportunities that God is placing before us.  Pray that we will be open to the transforming grace of God and that we will continue to find ways to be a sign of that grace in the world.  Pray that each person will know how deeply they are loved by God, and that they will be strengthened for their ministries in the world.

          The ONE THING that Jesus talked about, the main course, is the love for God that informs our action.  Inspired by Christ, we live and grow in faith;  we are a loving and open community of worship, witness, and service.  It all goes together. Mary, as a disciple wasn't going to sit there forever, she was going to be strengthened for her ministry.  Martha needed to figure out how to serve from her connection to her Lord, not from her own sense of busyness and self-importance.  Our worship, witness, and service are grounded in who we are as a community inspired by Christ.  Our ability to be open and loving is grounded in the same way.

          When we come together here, we are preparing for our mission out there --- we come as Mary to sit at the feet of Jesus so that we can do the work that God wants us to do, so that we don't run around like Martha with no thought except how much we are handling all by ourselves.  How do we choose the better part?  We stay grounded in God's word and prayer, we keep the main thing the main thing, we gather so that we can be strengthened for our work in the world.  WE trust in the God who has come to do away with the boundaries that would limit or deny our participation, and we go out to be a sign of God's transforming power.

AMEN