SCRIPTURE: Luke 10:38-42
TEXT: 42a there is need of only one thing. THEME: The New that Jesus brings comes with greater expectations. INTRODUCTION The Pentecost series I have been preaching has been based on “Spirit in Life”. Life in the Spirit sounds like something we have control over. We do not have control over the Spirit that washes over our lives, fills us and moves us beyond where we feel comfortable, capable, or confident, transgressing boundaries into faith, trust and adventure with God. What better way to witness the effects of the Spirit in a human life than to look at the life of Jesus through the gospel of Luke. So far, we have seen how the Spirit gives us the ability to see shards of light in every event and in every person. Jesus sees past Legion and sees the man and sets him free. Then as Jesus sets his face to Jerusalem the groundwork for the Peace of God is laid beyond the boundaries of Judea in Samaria as the 70 pair up and witness to what is coming, not just for Israel but for all people. Living in merciful ways transcends people, place, race, religion and culture. Lived by unlikely characters in extraordinary circumstances. We see this as an expansion of what the people of God is beginning to look like in a system that temple worship in Jerusalem cannot contain. It comes with new models, an expanded sense of the people of God and Greater expectations of our roles of what we can do. SCRIPTURE Jesus is just outside of Jerusalem, in Bethany and invited into the home of Martha. Martha takes on the traditional role of the gracious hostess. There is a great painting of this from the kitchen with Martha in the foreground, masterfully commanding the kitchen with her hand on a sack of potatoes, the other holding a basket with a melon, onions, and zucchini, on the table is a patter with suckling roast of some kind, a hanging goose, string beans, fruits, spices and other vegetables while through the door opening in the center, in the other room, we can see Mary, sitting on the floor at Jesus’ feet. Mary has chosen against her cultural expectations, for what Jesus is offering with the New Jerusalem. “Will you not tell Mary to help me? “. What used to be our role and was expected of us, is changed in what Jesus is bringing. Beyond cultural and traditional expectations, where what we do in the realm of God, as God’s people will require greater expectations. APPLICATION Jesus is offering Martha a different expectation of what a woman could be, not needing the dominate culture to identify who we are, but for us to find our value, and validation in being loved by God. When we no longer need the validation from an old system, what new possibilities are open to us in Jesus? Much of the values we hold, the measures of success, the approval we seek come from privileged Older, White, Males of the dominate culture. This is the kind of control that we have seen executed by the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade, in taking away a woman’s ability to have self-determination of the kind of life she would like to have over her own body. Jesus offers the church, a different expectation of the kind of community we can be in today’s climate. A church’s success is not just how many people attend or how much money it brings in, but faithfulness, maturity of faith, sustainability, mercy, stewardship and discerning God’s will. The voices in our background tell us how to dress, what is proper or how we are supposed to behave These voices ask the question, “What would people think? “But Jesus gives us a new perspective of who we are, with the words of affirmation; Child of God, loved, precious, saved, redeemable, special, unique, image of God, adopted, beloved, worthy of life, heir, hope, joy and good. Then it doesn’t matter what kind of hostess we are, compared to the liberating message Jesus gives us. See how what Jesus thinks of us can transform us and the communities that we are a part of and how the other voices in our head are distractions in comparison? But we can’t hear this if we are in the kitchen, distracted by concerns about whether the food is good or not. The same few people used to be in Dodge Hall kitchen week after week, preparing food for the aloha hour, but now there is a plethora of people going in and out cleaning, washing, drying and putting away. At the Equipping Tomorrows Church Leaders events we used to host, the kitchen crew would sit in the hall, after all of the food, serving and clean up was done and listen to good theological discussions that opened up their theological curiosity. We have planned parties where we fussed over hostessing that we missed spending time with the guest we invited. One of the best Christmas present Jann and I received was an invitation to lunch with a friend, where we ate at a restaurant and all we did was catch up and talk. CONCLUSION When Jesus gets to Jerusalem, the inadequacies of the Temple worship will become apparent, as they become one of the forces that participates in the killing of Jesus. God is doing something new, as the people of God begin to go beyond the familial bonds of Abraham and Sara and reach out to all people as made in the image of God. Our cherished traditions, meals, celebration will become steppingstones to something different that God has in mind through Pentecost, the church and Spirit in life. We are at this precipice as the church today, as we admire our past but move into the future God has for us. With radical imagination we will discover new ways of being the church and find greater expectation of what we can do to bring the Peace of God to our community, to be merciful to our neighbor, and discover those shards of light in every event and every person to be lifted up to bring wholeness to our world.
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