“Mary, Martha, and Miss Lillian”
A sermon by Sid Burgess for Edgewood PC, Homewood, AL
8th Sunday after Pentecost, June 18, 2010, celebrating Lillian
Brewer’s 100th birthday
Text: Luke 10:38-42
Lillian Brewer has lived through one of the most remarkable centuries in human history. We call it the information age, or the century of communications. She learned her first telephone number at the age of six—and she still remembers it—4855J. She remembers her family’s first telephone as a box on the wall. When you picked up the receiver, a live, human voice said, “Number please.” Miss Lillian was 12 years old when her Uncle Paul introduced her to “this new thing called radio.” He had a homemade apparatus up in his bedroom. He placed headphones over his niece’s ears and Miss Lillian remembers exclaiming, “Someone’s talking!” The first movie she remembers was silent, a black and white film starring Charlie Chaplin, the “Little Tramp.” She recalls her first television set which the housekeeper called the “The Magic.” “The Magic” would come on intermittently with programs that lasted only 15 minutes.
Since these early years of the information age, many of us have joined Miss Lillian in witnessing a continuous flood of communications magic. From the “party-line” to the cordless to cell phones; from the telegram to text messages; from Sony’s first transistor radio to 130 channels of satellite radio; from black and white to color to cable to satellite television; from the main frame computer to the laptop, and now, the handheld; from a single set of the World Book Encyclopedia to the World Wide Web. In the past 100 years we have been flooded with information, surrounded by a cacophony of competing sounds, with multi-tasking the order of the day. For many of us the information age has become the age of distraction.
It just so happens that Jesus himself addresses the issue of distraction in our gospel story—the familiar story of Mary and Martha. You know the storyline quite well. Jesus, accompanied by an undisclosed number of followers, is welcomed by Martha into her home, where her sister, Mary, is apparently already a guest. When Jesus begins to speak, Mary promptly plops down at his feet to listen. Meanwhile, back in the kitchen Martha is beside herself over how in the world she is going to feed this bunch. You can just hear her rattling those pots and pans, making sure everyone with ears to hear will know that she is one frustrated hostess. Finally, when she just can take it no longer, Martha barges into the main room to interrupt the seminar. Surely, with teeth clinched, Martha exclaims: “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”
Sister Mary is not the only one catching flak here. Note that Jesus himself is included in Martha’s outburst —“Do you not care?” In short order, Martha has created a distraction for everyone in the room, as surely as if her cell phone was ringing while the TV was blaring and the radio was chirping.
“Martha, Martha,” Jesus says. “You are worried and distracted by many things.”
Stopping right there, Jesus has just described me: worried and distracted by many things on many days. Computer, Internet, telephone, cell phone, email—this task, that project, this meeting, that appointment, those looming deadlines—and, of course, the preacher works only day a week! I can only imagine what it must be like for those of you with real jobs. Perhaps you are “worried and distracted,” “anxious and troubled” by many things, on many days. So, let’s listen to what Jesus, our Lord, has to say to us. “There is need of only one thing,” he says. That one thing is devotion to Holy God, as God is revealed to us by Jesus, the Son.
Well, I can see it now. The whole congregation decamping for the Benedictine monasteries up in Cullman. Sacred Heart for the women. The Benedictine Abby for men. Morning prayers at 6:00, mid-day prayer at noon, Vespers at 6:00, compline (prayer at the end of day) at 9:00. But even at the monastery someone has to cook, someone to clean, someone to tend the grounds, someone to maintain the buildings. Several some-ones must be sent out into the community to earn pay checks to pay the utility bills, buy the food, and pay for medical care. And in our case, we would have children in tow and aging parents following close behind.
So, I suppose the monastery is not a practical solution for us. May not be a practical solution for some of the nuns and the monks, especially not for those who worry and fret just as much inside the cloister as we worry and fret here on the outside. Does this mean it is impossible for us to have the “one thing” our Lord says we need—devotion to Holy God? Devotion to Goodness and Mercy, Truth and Justice?
Not at all. There are many different forms of devotion: teaching and learning, for example, are very important. Sitting at the feet of the Master, participating in worship and Bible study—these are essential forms of devotion. But so, too, are all other forms of Christian service—earning an honest living to support self and others, tending to the needs of children and the elderly, reaching out to the “widows, orphans, and strangers in the land,” providing help to the least of these our sisters and brothers. All forms of Christian service are equally valid so long as we never lose sight that what is ultimately important in life is the steadfast, never stopping love of God—for us, and for all creatures great and small on the earth. To be genuine, all acts of discipleship—whether contemplative, active, or anything else—need to maintain that singular focus. Martha’s problem is that her service strays from attending to its rightful object of devotion, the Lord Jesus.
So, how might this scene have played out differently? Martha is, after all, the hostess. In all likelihood she does need help. So, she should ask for it, upfront--before her frustration reaches the boiling point, and without criticizing her sister or anyone else. “Welcome everyone. Glad to have you here. Who would be willing to come help in the kitchen?”
By so doing Martha may have found herself working shoulder to
shoulder with Christ our Lord, the One who came to serve rather than
to be served. Elsewhere in Luke, Jesus says, “But I am among you as
one who serves”(Luke 22.27c). With the honor and privilege of
worshiping and serving alongside Christ, our Lord, we surely do not
want to succumb to the temptations of distraction: trying to be all
things to all people at all times for all purposes, accessible at
all hours by all means communication.
With that goal in mind Lillian Brewer serves all of us as an
effective role model. She demonstrates for us that a person may
continue to focus on what Jesus teaches is the one vital thing:
devotion to Holy God, as God is revealed to us by Jesus, the Son.
Even as eyesight fades, as hearing is diminished, as bones become
brittle, and as muscles loses strength, as friends and loved ones
slip away, St Paul reminds us “we do not grieve as others do who
have no hope”(1 Thess. 4.13b).
In his book AGING WITH GRACE, Dr. David Snowden cites a song by the rock group, “The Who.” The song, written and recorded in the mid-1960’s, is entitled, “My Generation,” and it has this line: “I hope I die before I get old.” Many of us, me included, have echoed this sentiment. Dr. Snowden says this only shows how conceited and naïve we are. From his extensive studies among the elderly, Dr. Snowden says old age is not something to fear or revile. Without all of the distractions of living life in the fast lane, “old age can be a time of promise and renewal, of watching with a knowing eye, of accepting the lessons that life has taught, and, if possible, passing them on to the generations that follows.”
Here at Edgewood Church we have had the rare privilege of watching Lillian Brewer age with dignity and grace. With Miss Lillian as our model we can reverse the lyrics we may have sung earlier. With Miss Lillian as our role model we can sing, “I hope I grow old before I die.”
To Jesus Christ, who loves us
and freed us from our sins by his blood
and made us to be a kingdom,
priests of his God and Father,
to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Rev. 1: 5,6