May 1, 2016 Voices of Faith: In the Marketplace

Some people tell the same jokes over and over.  As a minister, I hear one particular joke over and over.  At some point, you’ve probably made this joke.  I’ve heard it so many times I keep count, and have now heard it 17,684 times.  If I begin the joke, you can probably finish it – I sure wish I only worked…

…one day a week.

People seem to enjoy joking that ministers only work one day a week (but if we work one minute overtime on that day we hear about it!).  And though a few people might think there is only one day a week that ministers work, the majority of people understand that there is much more to vocational ministry than what happens on Sunday.  That being said, there are still many misconceptions about what ministers do with their time.  I once had a young man come into my office and ask, I know what you do on Sunday, but what in the world do you do the rest of the week?

It is also fair to say that many ministers fail to understand what life is like in the workplace, especially in our modern age, when so much change has taken place.  I’m in my fourth decade of ministry, so I haven’t worked a “real” job since I was in my 20s, with the exception of some experience gained as Tanya and I had a small business of our own for some years.  I understand that I live in a bubble that is different from what many of you live in every day as you go to work and deal with all the various issues that arise from being a member of the marketplace of employment.  I do know, however, that life in the workplace is neither simple nor easy.  It is, among many things, competitive, demanding, stressful, and kind of crazy.

As we continue our series of messages about Voices of Faith, this week our topic is Voices of Faith:  In the Marketplace.  Our Scripture text is from the book of Acts and tells us of a time when Paul had traveled to the city of Athens.  While in Athens, Paul went to the marketplace, where he began to debate theological matters with those who had gathered there.  The ancient Greeks loved to debate ideas, and that debate often took place in the marketplace, where not only goods and services were exchanged, but also ideas.  It is from this setting that we get our term marketplace of ideas.

Listen to this morning’s Scripture text from Acts 17:16-23 –

16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.

17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.

18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?

20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.”

21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.

23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

1.  Allow your work to be a calling.

It’s very much worth noting, I think, that the early church was led by people who were not at all like me, in that they were not vocational ministers.  They did not “do” minstry for a living.  They were not educated in colleges and seminaries, they did not have libraries of helpful resources, and they did not have conferences and workshops to attend that helped them to understand how to do their work.

Peter and some of the other disciples made their living as fishermen.  Matthew was a tax collector.  Does anyone know what Paul did for a living?  He was a tentmaker (Acts 18:3).  Paul took no financial support for himself as he conducted his ministry,  While he wrote in I Corinthians 9:1-18 that it would be perfectly proper for him to earn a living from his ministry work, he chose not to do so, and in numerous passages he wrote of the fact that he supported not only himself, but others as well (Acts 20:34 that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions.  In I Corinthians 4:12 he again affirms that we work hard with our own hands. In I Thessalonians 2:9 he writes, surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you.  And, in II Thessalonians 3:7-9 he writes, for you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example.  We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it.  On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you.  We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow).

For Paul, his work was a calling, and nothing stood between him and that calling.  Whether or not his words were received joyfully, or rejected with scorn, Paul continued his work and ministry without hesitation.  For the early disciples, their work was a part of their calling.  It was not only a means to support themselves and their families; it also provided opportunities to interact with people and to integrate the work of God’s kingdom with the work of their vocations.

I’m going to assume that not everyone sees their work as a part of God’s calling, but it is.  It’s not just vocational ministers, such as myself, who are called by God; every person has the call of God upon their lives.  We are part of a church that believes very strongly in the idea of the priesthood of all belivers.  Every believer is, in a very real way, a minister, not just those who are offocially set aside for the work of ministry.

Trust me, the world does not need everyone to be a vocational minister.  We need them, yes, but we need teachers, and doctors, and factory workers, and electricians, and plumbers, and bankers, and real estate agents, and farmers who see their work as a calling of God.  When I interact with people, whatever I say, the reaction is often well, he’s a minister, that’s what he’s supposed to say, and it may or may not be heard.  But when one person in the marketplace talks to another person in the marketplace, it is heard.  If one teacher tells another teacher about the importance of their faith, that other teacher hears it in a way they simply don’t hear from someone like me.  That’s why it’s so important to understand that if you want someone to talk to a friend, family member, or coworker about the importance of faith, I’m probably not the best person to do that – you are.  Your voice in important in the marketplace, and is, most likely, heard in a way that mine is not.

2.  The marketplace is not only in need of faith, it is often looking for faith.

We live in a day and age when we are often presented with false equivalencies.  A false equivalency presents something as a fact, when indeed it is not.  An example would be the idea that faith and science is incompatible.  Often presented as a fundamental truth by skeptics, it is simply not true.  Also not true is the oft-presented idea that faith and the marketplace are incompatible, when, in fact, the marketplace is not only receptive to faith, it is often looking for faith.

In March, Harvard University hosted a group of scholars who participated in a meeting with the title of From Wall Street to Main Street: The Search for a New Moral Compass for the New Economy.  The panelists involved in the meeting came to the agreement that religious communities need to be actively engaged in shaping both the nation’s economic reform policies as well as its moral direction.

(http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/03/faith-and-the-marketplace/)

The World Bank has joined with a number of religious leaders to bring their expertise on market and faith values to an effort to eradicate extreme poverty by the year 2030.

(http://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/faith-world-bank-group-and-ending-poverty)

These are but two examples of the ways in which the marketplace is reaching out to faith to help find solutions to some of the most pressing problems of our day.  In spite of the division that some people want to believe exists between faith and the marketplace, the two can work together very effectively together, and often do.  Because we live in an era where there seem to be so many lines of division drawn between different groups, it’s easy to fall for the misnomer that there is, and ought to be, a division between the marketplace and faith.

Having said that, we must also note that,

3.  The marketplace is a great collective of ideas that sometimes clash with one another.

Paul certainly had mixed reactions when he spoke about God in the marketplace.  Sometimes, he was very well received, while at other times, he was jeered, run out of town, and even beaten and arrested.  Still, Paul persevered.  One certainly has to give Paul an A+ for perseverance and diligence!

I think, in our present political and social context, it is impossible to talk about the marketplace without speaking to one of the most contentious debates in a long time, and that is the debate over religious freedom and the marketplace, specifically the debate over whether or not businesses ought to have legal protection if they choose to reject business from individuals with whom they disagree.  We could spend a lot of time on this topic, and we don’t all have the same point of view – and I respect your right to your view whether or not it is the same as mine.

But before I tell you what I think, let me say this:  I think there is more grey than there is black and white in most issues.  I wish I could see more issues in terms of black and white, but I mostly see grey, and it’s because I think most issues are more complicated than we make them out to be.

I have, for instance, a cell phone in my pocket.  Like most of my electronics, it was manufactured largely in China.  Last week, in my message about persecution, I talked about what believers in China face, in terms of harassment and persecution.  Recently, the president of China gave a major speech in which he reaffirmed the Chinese Communist Party’s commitment to atheism and signaled that there are increasingly difficult times ahead for Chinese believers (http://time.com/4306179/china-religion-freedom-xi-jinping-muslim-christian-xinjiang-buddhist-tibet/).  There was also a tragic example recently of the manner in which the Chinese government continues to destroy churches.  A government-backed firm bulldozed a church, and when the pastor and his wife attempted to stop that action, the bulldozer operator ran over them, burying them under dirt.  The pastor was able to dig himself out of the dirt but could not save his wife, who suffocated to death (http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/04/19/wife-of-chinese-church-leader-reportedly-buried-alive-and-killed-after-protesting-churchs-demolition/).  The question then becomes, should I use a product, sold by an American company, but manufactured in China?  I am spending money on a product that helps to support a government that practices religious persecution and has a terrible record on human rights.  I am, as a friend reminds me of us all, complicit in things that I neither want to be, or should be, complicit in.

Having said that, we live in a nation very different from China, thankfully, when it comes to human rights and the freedom of religion (but I still must consider how I spend my money, certainly when that money supports things with which I do not agree, such as the persecution of believers in other parts of the world).  So allow me to offer a basic summation of what I believe, and it is this question:  why would we want to do anything in the marketplace other than treat people with kindness and love, whether or not we agree with them about who they are, how they live, and what they believe?  To be kind and loving to another human being does not mean you have to violate your conscience and beliefs, even if a political or religious leader is trying to convince you that you are, in fact, violating your conscience and beliefs. 

To read the gospels is to find Jesus in conflict with religious leaders because of his associations with people; he associated with people that the religious leaders and the pious of the day believed he should shun.  I take one simple lesson from that and it is this – if we do not offend someone by our willingness to associate with others and to treat them with love and kindness we are missing an opportunity to associate ourselves with Jesus in one of the most fundamental ways in which he lived.  As people of faith, if we are going to have a voice in the marketplace, that is certainly what we ought to be speaking.

April 24, 2016 Voices of Faith: Under Persecution

Today, someone, somewhere in the world, will lose their life.  It will not be as a result of hunger or disease.  It won’t be a result of their age or infirmity.  The loss of life will result from religious persecution.  And they will not be alone.  This tragic reality will be repeated over and over again, in many countries around the world.

This morning we begin a new series of messages.  The theme is – Voices of Faith, and the topics in the series will be – In the Marketplace, In the Family, in the Political Arena, and this morning, Under Persecution.

There are many Scripture texts that we could reference this morning.  We could turn to the book of Revelation, which is often understood as primarily referencing the future, but was written to strengthen and encourage the early church, which was experiencing a great deal of persecution at the hands of the Roman Empire.  In the early service, as the Call to Worship, I read the following passage from Revelation, which I often use at funerals, and which is one of the lectionary texts for today – Revelation 21:1-6 –

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;

4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."

5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."

6 Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.

The text I have chosen for this morning’s message is I Peter 1:3-9.  Peter was no stranger to persecution, as he was arrested on more than one occasion, was beaten, and eventually he lost his life as a martyr at the hands of the Roman Emperor.  In our recent series of messages from the book of Philippians, I remarked several times that it was obvious Paul was near the end of his life, and that realization was a powerful factor in shaping the message of his letter.  In Peter’s letter, there is also the backdrop of persecution, and while it doesn’t use that word in this passage, it is obvious as he writes –

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you,

5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,

9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

1.  The Reality of Persecution.

Perhaps you have seen the symbol in the picture above, which has become widely used on social media in recent months.  The symbol is the first letter in Arabic for Narani, which means Nazarene, and was a designation that ISIS fighters began using last summer for Christians, as followers of Jesus the Nazarene. The symbol was painted on homes where Christians lived, or formally lived. 

As ISIS fighters moved through Iraq and Syria, they began a violent purge of Christians from communities that had a Christian presence for many centuries.  In some cases, ISIS gave Christians a matter of hours to flee their homes or face death.  If they fled, they could only take with them a few items, leaving behind their homes and most of their belongings.  As a way to express solidarity with those Christians being persecuted by ISIS, Christians around the world have taken up the Narani symbol.

According to a report by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, one-third of the world’s popluation (2.2 billion people) live in areas of the world where religious persecution increased between 2006 and 2009. (you can find the report at this link –http://www.pewforum.org/2011/08/09/rising-restrictions-on-religion2/).  And some estimates, indicated in other research, put that number as high as 2/3. 

While not all countries are experiencing this rise in religious persecution, it is becoming a daily fact of life for people of faith in the most populous countries, with two of the biggest offenders being China and India.  China has been vigorous about cracking down on the house church movement, as the government fears the move toward freedom and independence that are natural outgrowths of the message of the Gospel.  China, which is officially atheistic, only allows worship to take place in state-approved churches, which probably number somewhere in the amount of 20 million people.  In the state-approved churches there are often government representatives present in the worship service, listening to what is said and monitoring that activities that take place.  In contrats to the state-approved churches, it is estimated that 60 million people – and possibly millions more – worship in the house churches, which operate without government approval and whose leaders are often subject to harrassment and arrest.  Chinese authorities have destroyed countless churches, often coming in the middle of the night with equipment to tear down the buildings.

The Middle East, obviously, is one of the most dangerous places in the world for those who are Christian, or members of other minority religions.  ISIS, certainly, has become one of the primary threats throughout the region, but it is often government authorities who aid in religious persecution.

2.  The Gospel Challenges Power.

Several years ago I read a fascinating article about some research that connected Christian missionary work and the rise of democracy around the world.  The researchers discovered that where missionary work had taken place there was a corresponding rise in the spread of – or desire for – democracy.  This should not come as a surprise.  The gospel asserts that all people are created as free individuals, are meant to live in freedom, and are endowed with a God-given right to worship – or not worship – as their conscience dictates.  Democracy and freedom is what happens when people hear the message that God has created all people as equals and that he desires that they live in freedom.  Paul writes in Galations 5:1 that it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

We were not created to live under oppression, or to be pawns of political bullies and tyrants.  The early church faced much persecution because this message of equality and freedom made Rome uneasy.  The Roman Empire was not interested in sharing power with anyone – even God.  And, they were not about to allow freedom and democracy to threaten their grip on power. 

3.  Faith,Hope, and Love Wins.

The Christian faith was born under persecution.  The theme of persecution is alluded to in many of the writings of the New Testament.  I recently offered a series of messages from Paul letter of Philippians, which was written while he was in prison, awaiting execution at the hands of the Roman Empire.  The book of Acts tells us the death of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and of how, on that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.  Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.  But Saul began to destroy the church.  Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison (Acts 8:1-3).

Peter was no stranger to persecution.  The book of Acts tells us that he was taken before the Sanhedrin for trial (4:1-22), that he was imprisoned (5:17-20), beaten (5:40), and imprisoned again (12:1-19).  In this morning’s Scripture text, he writes that in this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine (verse 6-7).  Peter is saying that even in persecution there is some kind of benefit that can be found.  Who among us has not said, I wish I didn’t have to experience that difficulty, but, through that difficulty I learned…?  It is the triumph of faith that can find something good, and even beautiful, even in the midst of suffering and persecution.

This is a lesson that persecutors do not learn – you cannot overcome thepower of faith, hope, and love.  These great qualities of faith, hope, and love – the triumverate of Christian values – hold within them the greatest power on earth, and no amount of persecution can ever overcome them.  This is what led the great church father Tertullian to proclaim that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.  As much as the persecutors of the church tried to defeat it, they could not do so.  No power held by an earthly kingdom can defeat the power of faith, hope, and love. 

When Tanya and I were in St. Peter’s Square last May it was interesting to note the presence of an ancient Egyptian obelisk in that square.  What in the world is that object doing in that location?  That obelisk is one of a number located throughout the city of Rome.  They were brought there by Roman emporers as a way to demonstrate their political might.  To take such an object from another kingdom, another military power, was a way to show Rome’s superior military and political might.

Interestingly, that obelisk was probably one of the last things Peter saw as he was crucified.  And look at what occupies that vast territory now.  What was once a symbol of the might and power of Rome has now become one of the centers of the Christian faith.  Not far from that location, at the Colloseum, a cross now stand in the place where the emperor’s seat was located.  It would have been inconceivable, two thousand years ago, for anyone to imagine that a new religion, heavily persecuted by Rome, would not only survive, but thrive.  The vast Roman Empire, which dominated the world, is long gone, but the Christian faith persist.

The Christian faith was born under persecution and has not just survived, but thrived.

4.  Our blessing of freedom.

As we gather for worship this morning, and as millions more gather for worship across our country, we must remember that we are historic anomolies.  For most of the history of our faith, people did not enjoy the freedom we enjoy to worship according to the dictates of our conscience. 

Not one prevented us from attending worship today, and no one compelled us to be here.

No one will tell us how, or how not, to worship.

No one will tell me what to preach or not to preach.

No government regulators attend our worship.

No one will tell our congregation what we can and cannot do.

We need no government approval for what we do.

No one will threaten us for being here.

As Americans, we enjoy the gift of religious freedom, a bedrock principle of our society, but we cannot forget our brothers and sisters who do not enjoy the luxury of living their faith without the fear of persecution.

Perhaps we cannot fully appreciate what we have always had, but we must always advocate for the freedom of others, especially the most basic right of all humanity – the right to religious freedom.

April 17, 2016 The Seven Deadly Sins: Sloth

As we complete our series of messages on the Seven Deadly Sins this morning I want to let you know where we are going for the next month or so.  Beginning next week I will offer a brief series of messages with the theme Voices of Faith.  That theme will take us to these topics – Voices of Faith, Under Persecution; Voices of Faith, In the Marketplace; Voices of Faith, In the Political Arena; and Voices of Faith, In the Family.  That may expand as we go, depending on how I feel led.

Today we come to the deadly sin of sloth.  Ironically, I meant to do this one earlier but just couldn’t get motivated.  The subtitle to this message is, eh, maybe later.

Our Scripture text for this morning is Luke 10:38-42, which is the story of Mary and Martha. Those two personalities demonstrate, I think, the delicate balance between work and rest, and knowing when it’s time to work and when it’s time to rest.

Luke 10:38-42 –

38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.

40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things,

42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

As we consider the topic of the last deadly sin, that of sloth, I will sum up this topic with three words – Work, Responsibility, and Sabbath.

1.  Work.

If you have young children, or grandchildren, you are probably aware of the movie Zootopia.  I have not seen the movie, but I did see a preview a few weeks ago when Tanya and I were at a theater to see a different movie.  Zootopia is an animated movie, with an all-animal cast, and in one scene two of the main characters go to the Department of Motor Vehicles.  All of the animals working at the DMV were sloths, and with apologies to anyone who works in a government office, it was, I thought, rather funny casting (you can see it at this link –  https://youtu.be/bY73vFGhSVk).  I have to confess, I could actually feel myself getting tense as the sloths moved so incredibly slow.  I wanted to shout speed up!  Please!

So here is the question I have about the deadly sin of sloth – is sloth really a problem for many people?  I know we sometimes question the health of the work ethic in this country but the pace and busyness that consumes so many lives today is not at all healthy.  For many people, it’s not a question about the need to get moving and get busy as much as it is the need to slow down and stop more often than they do, if they ever do.  I’m not sure I need to tell anyone this morning that they need to get motivated and step it up; I believe the message I need to share, to many, is to slow down.

Work is a gift of God, I believe.  It is not a punishment, although we sometimes act as though it is.  Work is a gift of God that allows us to use the gifts and abilities he has given to us, it allows us to be useful, and it can bring meaning to our lives. 

But we also have a complicated relationship with our work, especially in a couple of areas.  Somewhere along the way, for many people, work became the primary means of self-fulfillment. Having a good career can be a wonderful blessing, but so often these days, it seems, career becomes so consuming that it becomes almost an idol, as it becomes the object to which we devote our highest loyalty and affection.  In the past, it seems to me, that it was more likely that people found their sense of self-fulfillment in areas of life such as family and faith.  Increasingly, it seems that people turn to their work to bring them a sense of worth, fulfillment, purpose, and meaning.  If you love your work and career, I say good for you, but I would also caution that it can be very problematic when we tie our identities, sense of worth, and sense of fulfillment to our work.  Many of us have taken note that retirement can be difficult for some people, as they struggle to fill the void that is left after leaving their work.  For some, they must re-establish their sense of identity after retiring, and find it difficult to reconnect with life apart from work.

Work also becomes, for some people, a way to avoid what might be going on in their lives; that is, work becomes a tool of avoidance.  If you keep moving, if you keep busy, you have a reason not to stop and talk with someone you need to talk to, and if you keep busy you might keep your mind active enough to even avoid thinking about some of the matters that need your careful thought.

It is this avoidance that leads some to become workaholics.  Workaholic is a word that has a modern origin, first coined by Dr. Wayne Oates back in the 70s.  Interestingly, being a workaholic doesn’t have anything to do with work.  Being a workaholic, I think, is primarily about avoidance.  A workaholic can’t slow down because if they do, it might be necessary to talk about an issue they don’t want to talk about it, and so work becomes a very convenient method of avoidance.  And our culture is happy to help with this avoidance, because we sanctify workaholism into a virtue.  We provide various rewards for those who put in long workweeks, get to work early and stay late, and take work home on the weekends.

2.  Responsibility.

My father was only nine years old when his father passed away, and it became necessary for him to help support his family.  My dad was a hard worker, and because of his circumstances, it was ingrained in him from an early age to work, and to work hard.  He was a steelworker – putting in long hours at the mill – and had a number of small business pursuits on the side, as a farmer, a gunsmith, a sign painter, doing tractor work, and other work as well.  It was a very rare occasion for me to witness my father either sitting down or being still.  Consequently, he worked very hard to instill in my siblings and I a strong work ethic.  All of us had regular chores to do, and one of the first for me was shoveling the ashes out of our coal furnace.  Did anyone here grow up with a coal furnace?  If so, you know what it was like to be covered from head to foot in coal ash.  I knew, on Saturday mornings, I was not free to do anything or go anywhere until I went down into our cellar and shoveled out that coal ashes.  And I didn’t like it, but it was good for me.  My parent’s insistence that I have regular responsibilities around our home was good for me, as they helped to teach me about responsibility. 

It is important that we learn to fulfill the responsibilities that we have in life, but how we do so can vary from one person to another, as we are all different in our personalities. This is why the story of Mary and Martha is so interesting, because people react to the story according to their personality type.  The Marthas of the world read or hear this story and think she’s right!  It’s the people like us that do all the work and if it weren’t for us nothing would ever get done!  And they have a point.  The Marys of the world read or hear this story and think people need to slow down.  Be more like me.  Be laid back.  That working all the time wears a body out!

Mary and Martha make an interesting contrast, because neither of them are wrong.  But take note of something interesting – Martha complains about Mary, but Mary does not complain about Martha.  Martha goes to Jesus and says, Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?  Tell her to help me!  Martha frames that question in an interesting way – Lord, don’t you care?  It wasn’t a question as much as it was an accusation – Lord, you don’t care that I have to do all the work!  Mary’s sitting around when she should be helping me!

Part of what we can understand from this passage is that not everyone approaches work in the same way, and that’s all right.  Some people have a very driven, type A personality, and some are not. Martha was a type A personality.  Maybe a type A++.  She is the one who criticized Jesus when their brother Lazarus died (John 11:17-21 – 17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, 19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.  21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died).  Only a strong personality would have the boldness to approach Jesus in such a way.

Martha was not wrong because she worked hard. I would never fault Martha for being a type A personality.  I am married to a type A personality, so I understand them very well.  I am not a type A personality.  Some day I’ll get around to figuring out what type I am, but not today.  We need those driving types of personalities in the world or a lot of things would be left undone.  But in this story, Martha failed to realize that there is a time to work, but part of the understanding of responsibility is to know when not to work. 

We have a bit more information about Martha, but we don’t know as much about Mary’s.  Perhaps Mary needed to be a bit more motivated.  Perhaps Mary was willing to let Martha do the greater share of the work.  But whatever the case may be, Mary understood that at that moment, work was not the most important.

We have to work, but we are not just created for work.  We are created by God with a spirit, a soul, and they must be tended, and that is a different kind of work.  It is a responsibility, and sometimes that responsibility supersedes work.  That being said, our final word is –

3.  Sabbath.

Exodus 20:9-10 says that for 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.

Jesus and his disciples worked hard, but they knew there was a time to rest, and at times he even led them away from the overwhelming need that surrounded them, in order to find a quiet place to bring them refreshment and renewal (30 The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. 31 Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”  32 So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. 33 But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things).  I think that if Jesus saw the need for rest, we can give ourselves a break and rest some as well.  I don’t believe in the idea that it’s better to burn out than to rust away.  I worry about burnout in the church.  As important as our work is, we need to make sure we are getting adequate rest and spiritual renewal. 

One of the most meaningful moments of my sabbatical last year came on the last day, when I went to the Abby of Gethsemani near Bardstown.  If you have never traveled to that beautiful place I encourage you to do so.  I found it really moving to sit in the back of the sanctuary there and to listen to the prayers and the songs of the monks.  And the weather that day was beautiful, and I walked up to the top of a hill across from the Abby, where there was a cross, and on that hill you could look around and see for miles at the surrounding countryside.  I told myself that day that I would return there with some regularity but have yet to return, but I go there often in my mind.

We are blessed by God to be given the opportunity to have meaningful work, but we are spiritual beings, with souls that must be nourished.  We must never forget to have times of Sabbath rest.  So rest today, and don’t feel badly about it!