Don't be distracted!

Luke 10:38-42

In Luke 10:24-37, we saw Jesus being accosted by a religious lawyer – a theologian – who wanted to know what he had to do in order to earn his place in heaven. And Jesus told him to love God with all the he was and all that he had; and to love his neighbour as himself.

But the man wanted to justify himself. He wanted Jesus to tell him that he'd done enough. But to do that, he needed a tight definition of 'neighbour' and a limited definition of love.  To answer that question, Jesus told him a story - the parable of the Good Samaritan.

A man – a Jew - is beaten and robbed and left for dead. Two religious men walk along the road, but deliberately ignore the half-dead man. They refuse to show love and compassion to their fellow Jew.  Then a Samaritan goes past. He stops to help his enemy and demonstrates extreme, sacrificial, costly, generous love.

So Jesus turns to the self-righteous lawyer and says, 'Go and do likewise.'

But of course he can't.  And that's the point. He couldn't – and we don't. We cannot do enough to satisfy God's command to love. And when we do love, our motives are mixed and our love is corrupted.

What are we to do? Do we give up? Are we condemned to a life of guilty failure?

No. We come to Christ for constant forgiveness. And we come to Christ for constant strength to go out and do better next time.

That is the important context for what comes next.

In v38, Jesus and his disciples are on one of their many journeys, and they come to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him – and presumably the disciples as well – so Martha had 13 hungry men to feed. So off she goes, into the kitchen.

But her sister Mary sits down with the men and listens to Jesus, leaving Martha to get on with it.  Imagine the scene – Martha's filled the largest mixing bowl she has with flour and water and is kneading the dough.  As she kneads the dough, she thinks about Mary – sitting there doing nothing to help - and she kneads it a bit harder...  Now we're not told exactly what Martha was thinking, but we can have a pretty good guess because we know how we'd react!

And the more she thinks about how much there is to do, and how Mary isn't helping, and how she's working her fingers to the bone, her resentment and anger rises. She mutters under her breath. And slams down the jug of water – hoping Mary will get the hint!

But she doesn't. And she ought to. You see, Martha knows the men won't help – in that culture they never did... - but Mary ought to be helping. That's what women should do. But there she is, making a spectacle of herself sitting at Jesus' feet like some hussy! How embarrassing!

So Martha smashes her fist into the dough and storms into the living room, 'Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me!'  And it's all a bit like a scene from Larkrise to Candleford, and one the many arguments between Ruby & Pearl...

But then, what appears to be a simple argument, is turned into a complex and important point by Jesus:

'Martha, Martha you are worried & upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.'

Now this has often been taken to as Jesus giving his approval to the contemplative life of nuns and monks, or the importance of silent retreats, but we must remember the context.  And the context is that Jesus has just said that, though we always fail, yet we are to try to love God and to love our neighbour with every ounce of strength – with every bone in our body.

Jesus concluded the parable of the Good Samaritan by saying, 'Go and do likewise.' 

Yes, we fail, but that doesn't mean we don't try. So Jesus can't simply be saying that we must never do hard work. The key, as ever, is to read the Bible carefully. What does it actually say?

Look at v40 – 'Martha was distracted by all the preparations'. Luke's explanation of what was going on was that Martha was distracted. You see, for all Martha's hard work, she was distracted from Jesus. What else could it have been? Mary's sitting at Jesus' feet giving him her full attention. Martha is distracted from listening to Jesus.

So it's not that hard work is never a good thing, rather that doing things becomes bad when they distract us from listening to Jesus.  And surely we all experience this. I certainly do each and every day.

I go into my study at about 8am each day, and begin the day by reading my bible and praying. But... I do tend to switch on the computer first....and open my list of emails... And I sit at my desk where, on my right hand side sits my 'to do' list... and next to that is a pile of letters, agendas & minutes...

And while you won't have the same distractions as me, I bet you do get distracted – especially, if, like me, you're naturally a 'do-er' rather than a 'thinker'.

What else does the Bible actually say about Martha? Well, in v41, Jesus says, Martha, Martha you are worried & upset about many things...

Not only is she distracted, but she's worried and upset about all the preparations and about Mary's behaviour.

She's cross with Mary. And she, like the Lawyer of the previous passage, has come over all self-righteous:

'I'm working my socks off here, and she's doing nothing. It's not fair.'

Again, if you're anything like me, you can feel her anger! We too have indulged in self-pity, self-righteousness.

And Jesus says, 'There's something more important than what you do for me. The Christian life begins and continues by listening to me. Receiving from me, not doing things for me. Yes there's a time to do, but don't let that distract you from first things – grace comes first. Action comes later.'

The apostle Paul put it like this, 'it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Grace first – works second. Receive from God first – give to God second.

That sounds upside down, but the to those who are so used to the ways of the world, God's ways often seem like that. What God wants from us is a relationship - first and always.

But there's one other and very important point here:

It is often said that the Bible and Christianity is sexist and patriarchal. But here, Jesus is turning contemporary social norms on their head. In those days, Rabbis did not have women disciples. A woman would not have sat at the feet of a teacher and learned. But Jesus welcomes Mary as a disciple. This is surely one reason why Martha was so upset. Mary's place was in the kitchen while the men sat and listened and discussed.

But Jesus says, 'No. Women are welcome too.' It's Jesus – it's Christianity – that says, Women can be as close to God, through Jesus, as men. Jesus calls women to the same personal intimacy with God that men had thought was their privilege.

Before God, men and women are equal. That doesn't mean there aren't different roles – Jesus did not appoint a woman as an apostle, and the Bible repeatedly calls for men to take to lead at home and in church. But just because our functions are different, does not mean that we are unequal before God.

Far from it. And that was a radical departure from cultural norms. Jesus gives women the same status as men, the same access to God, the same Holy Spirit fills all. Jesus welcomes women, teaches women, listens to women. 

Next year, the ruling body of the C of E – General Synod – will vote whether or not to allow women to become bishops.

And in the run up to that, we will hear a lot of nonsense in the media – and some sections of the church – about how failure to allow women to be bishops makes them second class citizens and shows how the church is patriarchal and sexist. That could not be further from the truth. In Christ, we have equal access to God. That is equality.