A Different Way of Being

Luke 10:38-42

Most of the time, we read the bible wrong. 

By that I mean, we read the bible like its purpose is to tell us how to act, and what we should be doing.  Really the bible is here to show us glimpses of how God acts, and what God is doing.  But we forget that most of the time. And almost nowhere as much as the story of Mary and Martha. Weird we even call it that, though. Because this isn’t a story about two sisters, pitted against each other, Mary the thinker and Martha the doer, Mary the serene vs. Martha the preoccupied.  This isn’t designed to help us divide the world into Marys and Marthas and decide which one is better (Mary), because Jesus says so.  And it’s certainly not meant to send us home striving to be Marys, while secretly thinking, dear God, everything would fall apart without the Marthas.

 

This is not a story to tell us how to be and what to do. This is a story about an encounter Jesus had with a woman named Martha. It begins, A woman named Martha welcomed Jesus into her home. Let’s start there. She wasn’t wife of so and so, or daughter of who’s its.  A powerful, capable, head of the household woman named Martha welcomed Jesus into her home.  

 

Martha and her sister Mary and brother Lazarus were Jesus’s friends. Martha’s house is where Jesus went when he needed a break from the road, needed to feel like he was going home to his people. It’s where he rested. Where he found solace.  Where he felt known. So let’s get that clear: Martha was arguably the savior’s favorite host. She regularly ministered hospitality to God incarnate. 

And they were all close. They told it like it was to each other, these siblings and Jesus. Martha is the one who reminds Jesus of his power to heal when Lazarus dies, and demands to know, Where were you, Lord?

Martha is a strong, competent person.  And good grief, who knows, she might have been a terrific storyteller or a fantastic card player. I’m just saying, she was possibly really fun to be around, or at least had all sorts of great character qualities that made her an excellent friend to Jesus.  But how would we know that?

We’ve boiled her down to not her best moment.  We’ve made being overwhelmed and stressed out her entire personality.  

 

Sometimes, in my not best moments, I wonder if being overwhelmed and stressed is my entire personality.  It sure feels right now like being overwhelmed and stressed has become our national personality.

 

I could begin to name why it’s our not best moment, and why we are collectively overwhelmed and stressed out, worried and distracted, but I don’t even have to list all the things– because it’s all the things.  It feels like most of us are carrying an internal list all the time.  We’re tense and clenched. Panic-level anxiety is at the ready. All we have to do is reach for it.  And not even that, really, it’s being dropped right into our laps at every turn. For most people right now, it would be hard to name an area of life that doesn’t feel a tad precarious. 

 

So our prayers start to sound a little like Martha when she’s had it, and like the disciples in the boat, being tossed about in the flashing darkness by the loud and terrible storm while Jesus sleeps soundly in the stern, because they say the same exact thing. Lord, don’t you even care? Don’t you even care that we are drowning? 

 

And when I am in a state, what I want is for the person I am dumping my anxiety onto, to join me in the deep end of despair. I want them to say, Oh my goodness, yes! This is terrible! This is, in fact, worse than you even thought!  No wonder you are overwhelmed!  Your panic is totally justified! This ship is going down, no doubt about it! 

At least, that’s what I think I want. That’s what I believe would feel good to hear in the moment. 

 

But here’s the thing about our God, who came into this whole storm of a life with and for us all  – God doesn’t necessarily see things the same way we do.  And even better, God can’t get pulled into our flawed interpretation of reality.

 

Jesus sees Martha for real. He listens past her desperation, and what she thinks should happen to make her feel better, how she thinks things could be put right (Make Mary help me!). He doesn’t sign on to her strategy because he doesn’t buy her interpretation of reality.  Instead he hears her need. He listens to the heart of her. He sees and upholds her humanity.  

 

Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things.  There is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the good, and it will not be taken away from her.

 

At first this might have sounded super annoying to her. Maybe she didn’t want to give up her strategy. Make her help me.  Maybe her righteous anger felt too hot to let go just yet. But I suspect it had a different effect. There is something so powerful about being seen. Martha. I see you, Martha. You are worried. You have so much weighing on you.  I see your distress, and I see that you are pulled in many directions.  

And then he says, There is need of only one thing.

 

And oh, I wish he had expounded on this! But he goes on to say, Mary has chosen the good part. And it will not be taken away from her.

 

Jesus will not participate in the lie that we are drowning, that things are urgent, that we are alone, no matter how real or overwhelming it all feels to us. Instead, the one with the power to quiet the storm reminds us again, I care about you.  And I care about your sister. And I am right here.  You are not alone. You have a choice. And so does everyone else.  I won’t take that choice away. 

 

We don’t have to live as though we are alone, as though it is all up to us, as though we are against one another instead of in it together.  Whatever the storms around us, between us or inside us, they are never more powerful or more real than God.  We are not drowning.  The one who made and loves us all is right here in our midst, we cannot be destroyed. We can feel overwhelmed, terrified, worried, anxious and afraid. We will even die.  But however bad it feels, or even gets, we are held in the love that does not waver or falter or fail.  Love does and will prevail.

 

When Martha is feeling at the end of her rope, she actually comes to Jesus with her panic and her stress, her demand that he change someone else’s behavior, and her accusation, Lord, don’t you even care? That is courageous and faithful and honest.  And Jesus meets her right there - in her misunderstanding of reality and her misguided strategy, and her bold trust, and he invites her to freedom. He invites her into a different way of being, a deeper way of trusting.

 

And I am not going to praise Mary for ditching out on her part of the work. But I am going to listen when Jesus says Mary has chosen the good.  Maybe choosing the good has nothing to do with ignoring what can or should be done. Maybe choosing the good is about turning our hearts toward the presence of God in the midst of whatever we are in.  Maybe it’s about receiving Christ more than doing things for him. Maybe the good has something to do with letting ourselves long for the one needful thing.

 

There is need of only one thing. I want it explained. I want, if I am honest, to be told what to do and think and how to act. I keep repeating that tantalizing, exasperating phrase to myself, turning it over in my mind, There is need of only one thing. It’s mysterious, and feels deeply true, and I don’t know how to grab hold of it, and I want to grab hold of it to make myself feel better. I want to wield it like a strategy.

Instead, I suspect, that very sensation of not knowing what to do with it, of instead letting it grab hold of us like an irritating invitation, that is what we’re nudged toward today. There is need of only one thing. Only one thing is necessary.

 

Sometimes our not best moments become a gateway into a different way of being, an invitation to find a new freedom.  Sometimes dumping our anxiety and our misguided strategies onto God can result in a whole new possibility opening up before us. This is what God does.  God is with us. God is right here. We are worried and distracted by many things.  But there is need of only one thing. 

 

Amen.

 

____________________

Prayer Practice: 

Take an index card or post-it note. Write on it your name, and these words from Jesus.

Put it somewhere you will see it often this week. When you see it, let it stop you. Breathe. Imagine Jesus asking speaking the words to you. 

 

___________, ___________ you are worried and distracted by many things.  There is need of only one thing.  

How to live a good life

James 3:13 - 4:3, 7-8a

What is a good life?  We have ideas of what a good life is or should be. Right now especially it seems to have something to do with being on the correct side of the issue, whatever the issue may be. And just as important as being correct is being seen as being correct.  It can be about vaccines, or policing in our cities, or climate change, or racism, or it can be about how your lawn looks, and what you’re putting into your body, and how well-behaved your kids are, and what kind of effort you put into maintaining friendships.  What it looks like to others is at least as important as what it actually is.  
Modern life is primarily a performative exercise.
 
But, James asks, what’s going on in your heart?  Is this so-called good life being lived with envy, resentment, self-centeredness, bragging, or bending the truth?  If so, then there will be disorder and wickedness of every kind.  If so, it’s not a very good life.
 
What is a good life, then, and how do we know how to live it?
 
For example: Is it ok to shop at the super convenient and cheap store that pays minimum wage and doesn’t provide their employees with health insurance?
 
 What about that place that pays great, delivers health insurance, treats employees well and donates to great causes, but the owner of the company invests his personal money in a fund that, among a number of other good things, also supports a cause that dehumanizes some people?  
 
Is it actually better for the environment to buy the toilet paper that is made from sugar cane and bamboo, if it comes encased in several layers of cardboard stuffed with (recycled) paper and is delivered to your door by a large gas guzzling vehicle? 
 
Is it ok to want to have nice things or go on nice vacations when there is so much poverty and inequity?  Do you volunteer enough? Speak out enough?  Keep your house tidy enough?  Spend enough time with your kids, or grandkids, or parents? Do you stay informed enough?  Exercise enough?  Pray enough?
 
Living toward a standard of a good life that isn’t even fixed or clear is exhausting.  Measuring that against how well other people seem to be doing it in order to figure out whether I am doing it right is downrightt mind-scrambling.  
 
In fact, disorder and wickedness of every kind result from this kind of selfish ambition and envy motivation.
 
I feel disordered frequently. I feel the desire to be seen as good that, if I am honest, is sometimes greater than the desire to actually be good.  
 
I feel jealousy or resentment rise in me on a regular basis.  I feel misunderstood and I lob misunderstanding right back at the opposing party.   I am often quick to judge and quick to anger.
 
If a good life has to include with what’s in my heart along with mastering some performative actions then I can’t even delude myself that it’s possible to live a good life.  There is no way I can live a good life.  I can try all I want, but it is never enough, and I do it for all the wrong reasons, and from all the wrong motivations.  And the striving and comparing and accusing voice of judgment against myself and others will never stop howling inside my head and often out my mouth.
 
What is a good life and how do we live it?  
If this scripture is prescriptive it hasn’t yet told us what to do.  Because trying not to be selfish or jealous, or striving to have perfect motives when we perform all of our lofty and moving-target good life actions, is not only stupid and impractical, it actually is impossible.
 
This is good news actually. We can’t actually live a good life. We can’t even figure out what a good life is half the time.  
But that’s not our job. 
 
Here’s where it this passage tells us what is our job, three things:
Submit yourself to God.
Resist the devil. 
And draw near to God.
Submit. Resist. Draw near.
 
Submit yourself to God, James says because all the conflicts and disputes come from the cravings at war within ourselves.  They come from the way we try to save ourselves, advance ourselves, preserve ourselves, present ourselves. 
 
But life is not actually not about belonging to ourselves, it’s about belonging to God, and through God to each other.  And in fact, God does a much better job of unconditional love and boundless acceptance than we could ever do for ourselves. So much so that when our lives are rooted in our belonging to God, we can be brave and open and connected to others.  So we are called to submit ourselves to God, to confess our selfish desires and admit our messy motives, and lay down our flimsy defenses and repent. We ask for the connection and hope that we desire, that we are made for.  
 
Then, instead of us trying to live a good life by whatever current standards and definitions we have embraced at the moment, the wisdom from above that is God’s wisdom, not ours, will live through us.  And our lives, the words we say and the actions we take, how we treat others, how we treat ourselves, what we do with our money and our time -  these things will become a good life. They will be done with gentleness, born of God’s wisdom.  
When God moves through us God draws us into lives that are peaceable and pure James says, and “willing to yield, full of mercy, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.”  But we don’t make that happen. We can’t.  We submit ourselves to God and the Holy Spirit does that work in us.  And the Holy Spirit draws us into God’s goodness already at work in the whole world, and we join in out of joy and calling, not out of urgency, pressure or guilt.
 
Second, we resist the devil – the Greek word is the accuser, the voice of condemnation and blame directed at our selves or others, the voice that that tears down our own humanity, or someone else’s.  That voice that says if we try harder and learn all the things, and avoid all the things, and do all the things, we can live a good life like those people obviously do. Or, look how awful they are, if we aren’t like them then we must be good.  That voice that tells us we are in it on our own, and we are supposed to be stronger than we are and not ask for help or admit weakness.  The voice that says we have nothing to offer someone else, nothing to give.  The voice that says that other people’s suffering or the problems in the world are not my business. The voice that says we have to carry it all and if we don’t it proves we don’t care.  We speak back to the voice of the accuser and stand up to it. We refuse to relinquish our minds and hearts to the delicious but poisonous, divisive anger of it.  When we confront the accusing voice, it will flee from us. 
 
And finally, third, we draw near to God.  We steep ourselves in what helps us seek God – meditation, walks in nature, stillness, stopping and stepping out of it all through gratitude, practicing noticing, and wonder, and cultivating silence.  We choose to spend time with those in need, and to care for each other, and we let ourselves be cared for and seen in our own need by others because right there is where we see God most.  We are human and present in our lives, because the God who became human in Christ is present to us here.  
Stop performing your life and live it, right here where God is.  Draw near to God and God will draw near to you.
 
This is a good life. 
Submit, resist, draw near.
 
I am more and more convinced that the way through this pandemic is to go deeper and simpler. Do less.  Listen more.  Turn things off and turn things down.  The noise and the conflict is a liar that tricks us into feeling alive but drains us of life. 
No matter what is happening around us or to us, we can live a good life.  God’s goodness is here for us, at any and every moment.
So submit to God and let God bring you into peace.  
Resist the accuser and it will flee. 
And draw near to God and God will draw near to you.
Amen.

A whole day

Daily Devotion - May 15

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays)
while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

I love that the Jewish understanding of a day is that it begins at night. ("There was evening, there was morning, the first day...")  When the sun hits the horizon, a day has ended, and the next begins. That means all our doing, all our work, comes first from rest. 

Rest is where we start-  resting with our Creator, remembering God is God and we are not. Sleeping - reviving our cells, renewing our minds, rebuilding our muscle tissue, restoring our souls. 

Then, when we wake, our productivity and creativity begin.

This is such a strange time, where the lines between work and rest are extra blurred - as if they weren't already mixed up enough.  

What if you set aside a whole day to rest?  To play, to lose yourself in the garden, or a book, or a nap, or a phone call?  To lose track of time?  Not listen to the clamoring voices of the world but to listen to the soft sounds of your own soul?  Not to worry about what needs to be done, but to give yourself a break? To receive the gifts right here in front of you?  

What if you started tonight? 

Then you let yourself sleep and awaken to a whole day of freedom?  

Or tomorrow night - and let worship in the morning, and the rest of the day Sunday, be a sabbath time for you?

Here is a Sabbath prayer shared by Barbara Brown Taylor in her book, An Altar in the World: 

Sabbath Prayer
Our noisy day has now descended
with the sun beyond our sight.
In the silence of our praying place
we close the door upon the hectic joys and fears,
the accomplishments and anguish
of the wek we have left behind.
What was but moments ago the substance of our life
has become memory;
what we did must now be woven into what we are.
On this day
we shall not do but be.
We are to walk the path of our humanity,
no longer ride unseeing
through a world we do not touch
and only vaguely sense.
No longer can we tear the world apart to make our fire. 
On this day
heat and warmth and light
must come from deep within ourselves.

(For more, see this article for Sabbath Lessons in a Quarantined Time)

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps tonight at bedtime, whenever that is in each of our homes, we might pray in this way and so join our hearts.

God rest me. Deep within.
Teach me to breathe again.
In.
Out.
I am alive.
In.
Out. 
I am grateful.
In.
Out.
I am tired.
In.
Out.
I am free.
God rest me. Deep within.
Return me to your rest.
Amen.

No Perfect, Just Real

Daily Devotion - March 18

I will try to send a brief message each day while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

I've been struck today with how we are in utterly new territory, completely uncharted waters.  Most of us who are living now can't remember an experience like this, and there is no real end to the weirdness in sight. We are all sharing the unknown, and making it through the best way we can.

Suddenly parents are homeschooling, suddenly people are working from home, suddenly people are laid off, or afraid to go to the store.  We're learning new technology, we're paying attention to the news vigilantly. We're figuring out how to cook dried beans because they told us we should stock up on dried beans. It's exhausting and confusing.  

There is no perfect way to do any of these things.
We just do them.
The best we can, and sometimes not even that, sometimes just however we can.

Even if apparently everyone else in the neighborhood is teaching fantastic, educational lessons to perfectly behaved children with energy and love, and you are policing fights and cleaning up messes and trying not to lay on the floor and cry, you are winning. You are making it through.

Each day, we figure out how to get that prescription, how to cancel that appointment, how to communicate with someone we love, how to let go of another thing we were looking forward to, how to fill our hours in ways that keep us sane.

There is no template for this, and nobody is doing it best.  

Maybe it would be good for us to all have a few reminders from the Way of God:

• Life begins begins in gift and abundance.
• Everyone is valued, all participate.
• You are loved just as you are.
• You are not meant to be perfect, (there’s no such thing); you are meant to be you.
• You are made by God for connection and communion. On this journey of life that begins in gift and ends in connection and communion, the people journeying alongside you are neighbor, friend, brother and sister, not threats, rivals or competitors.
• You need each other to be whole, and what we have is for sharing. 
• Life doesn’t make sense alone and isolated and against; you are created for relationship with God and with each other, and there is no such thing as one without the other.
• The goal is wholeness, connection and joy, and the world and those of us in it, are wired for this.
• We have everything we need, and would remember that, and live in that if we regularly stopped everything long enough to let God remind us.
• The world is filled with beauty, infused with the light of God who holds us all.
• Living a good life is shaped around “everyone having what they need” justice, “standing with you” kindness, and “attentive and open” walking humbly with God. (Micah 6:8)

So - go google the penguins touring the aquarium, the Venice canals full of fish and birds and clear water, the guy who is visiting his dad in assisted living by sitting on a lawn chair and talking on his cell phone through a window, the many many many neighbors offering to help each other in my neighborhood and yours and every other neighborhood in this nation. (The energy it will take me to link those things directly in here feels like more than I have left for technology today - google them, they're great).

This world is gorgeous and we ridiculous humans are adorable and brave, and making our way through it all right now, just by being human.

I mean, look at this guy?  He's winning too!

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Here's a wonderful prayer from Thomas Merton.

Perhaps tonight, before we go to bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we might all say this prayer, and so join our souls:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that, if I do this,
You will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust you always
though I may seem to be lost
and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Amen.

to be human in the world

This has been a crazy summer to be human in the world.
I get that crazy stuff is happening all the time, and probably always has since the very beginning, but it feels crazier, or more urgent, or more relentless, or something, right now.  Part of it is the never ending stream of information and opinion and footage and interpretation flashing in our faces night and day.
OK, so that's probably a lot of it.
And we get so caught up in the frenzied whirlwind that we find ourselves disconnected from life.

Last Spring, a few weeks before school let out for the summer, the Spider Tree died. A beloved five trunk tree that has majestically and playfully graced the park near the elementary school in our neighborhood for decades, and made its way into local lore and art, lost one of its "legs" in a storm. Inspection revealed that the whole thing was rotten and had to come out.

It was devastating for the kids (and parents) - notes and cards were left on the stump, and on its mosaic likeness inside the school.  My daughter and son had to find a new meeting place to walk home together, since they always rendezvoused at the Spider Tree.



The other night our next door neighbors asked if we wanted to help with a project down at the park. We had nothing going on, so we picked up our shovels and gloves and marched down the street with tools over our shoulders like Snow White's dwarves.

It turns out that a group of parents had saved the trunks of the Spider Tree. They had talked with the principal and gotten a city permit, and were gathering to build a play area from boulders and the remains of the Spider Tree, circling the stump like a huge wagon wheel.  So we joined in.
Adults and kids, digging, pulling, laughing, sweating - it was what I imagine a barn raising had been like in an era gone by.

And besides the iPhones snapping photos (my own included), there was nothing technological about it, nothing that kept any of us plugged into the rest of the big world, or our own jobs, or urgent pressing matters, or anything other than that moment. We were working together as neighbors, on a project that would be enjoyed by others for decades to come.

That night we walked home sweaty and dirty and happy and connected.  And the world kept going for those few hours we weren't watching it.



Human beings were not made to bear the weight of the world, and we weren't wired to be "on" all the time, day and night, week after week, year after year.  We were designed, as the rest of nature was, to thrive in cycles of work and rest, connection and withdrawal, yield and dormancy.  But we've lost touch with that quite alarmingly - and it manifests in body illness and soul sickness, anxiety and stress, loneliness and exhaustion.


A few years ago I began to learn about Sabbath.  A few years ago, our congregation began trying to practice it together. Sabbath begins with the radical belief that God is God and we are not.
And that by stopping on purpose, we can remember that.  And by remembering that, we will be more whole people, more awake for our own lives, more present with our loved ones.  And by being more whole and awake and present, we will be better equipped to live as humans in a world that is terribly complicated to be living in at the moment.
Stopping on purpose makes us more creative, less fearful, more responsive to the needs around us and less reactive.  (There is a lot of actual research that proves all of these things). It actually makes us better, happier, more helpful citizens of this crazy world God loves.

But who has time for a "break"? "Sabbath" is a quaint idea from an era gone by, right?  How would you even know what to do or how to do it in today's day and age?  How wouldn't it just get eaten up by all the pressing tasks and blinking alerts and relentless demands that creep into our margins?

Here's how.
We are giving you a chance to take a Deep Breath and step away for a while.
For 24 hours, you can STOP.
 It's a retreat that you design.  It begins with a workshop on Sabbath, a worship service, and a delicious meal that prepares you for Sabbath and eases you in.  And it continues for 24 hours.

“Imagine for a moment that someone who cares about you has sent you a gift certificate for a day that is to be devoted entirely to the needs of your soul.  On that day you don’t have to work.  You can take a walk and have a relaxing conversation with friends or loved ones about the things that really matter.  You can meditate, pray, and read the books that speak to your soul.  You can nap and let your mind take a rest, or dance and sing and let your spirit sour. 

For one day, you can stop trying to prove yourself to the world.  You can look at your life as a blessing and feel at peace with where you are right now.  Instead of feeling fragmented and pressured, you can spend the day in a generous, positive, and contemplative mood.

Does this sound too good to be true?  You may be surprised to discover that this gift certificate...is actually the fourth commandment.”

Leonard Felder, The Ten Challenges, 82

Please join us.  Begin your Fall with a deep breath.
Come and find your way to be human in the world again.

Find out more.

Drowning, deep breaths, and who defines reality

 Luke 10:38-42

The story of Mary and Martha almost always leads to some kind of polarizing assumptions about how we should be and what we should do, that tend to begin with, So, are you a Mary or a Martha? In other words, Are you a doer? Or a thinker? – (and before you answer, serene thinkers are clearly better than busy doers). 

EXCEPT that nothing gets done without the doers, so don’t say it too loudly.  Who’s going to get the food on the table if everyone is sitting around at the feet of Jesus? What would happen if we all stopped doing? Nothing. That’s what would happen. A whole lot of nothing would get done.  And then where would we be? 

Martha is muttering all of this to herself while she slams the pots down on the stove and glares into the living room, trying to catch Mary’s eye, while Mary is apparently casually on purpose ignoring her.  And the dinner starts to burn and the table isn’t set and the other guests are approaching, finally, driven to desperation, Martha tattles.

 And you know it has to be bad when the quintessential host of a welcoming home tattles to the guest.  Her stress is through the roof and she has blown a gasket.

Lord, don’t you even care that she’s left me to do all the work alone?  Tell her to help me!

But before we judge her too harshly, or, as has always been the case with me, sympathize with her too completely, before we try to make this some kind of lesson in how to be better at whatever, I want to notice the way she says this.  It’s urgent. It’s panicked.  This woman is overwhelmed.

And, while it couldn’t be a more different story, still, it reminds me of another time friends of Jesus said, “Lord, don’t you even care… that we are dying! It was when the disciples were caught in the middle of a terrible storm, and the boat was going under, and Jesus was asleep ASLEEP in the stern.  And they shook him awake in terrified panic and said these same words, Lord, don’t you even care… Don’t you even care that we are drowning here?

And for as much as that is NOT where Martha is, it is where she feels like she is. I am drowning here! Tell her to help me!  I am alone! Do something!  Jesus, don’t you even care?

It is said that in this day and age we live in this heightened flight or fight state of stress much of the time.  And from time to time, on an otherwise ordinary day, I find myself here – when the chaos and noise start to build, drama is escalating, little people are arguing, the house is messy, the dogs are barking, and I look around and notice that my husband is off somewhere minding his own business, blissfully relaxing or something, and I suddenly feel desperate and alone. I get more and more worked up until I yell out- Hey, don’t you even care - ?

That I am drowning! That I can’t take it anymore? Do something!

And when he hears me and wanders into the situation, one of two things happens.  Either he calmly speaks normal voice words into my chaos, Kara, this is you.  You’re pretty stressed right now.  Take a deep breath.   And I’ll be honest, at first this is annoying, but just a single deep breath later and I gradually realize that I am not really drowning after all, and it’s mostly in my interpretation of things, and we all calm down and approach things differently. 

Or more likely, the alternative happens, which is that he buys my interpretation of things and jumps into the chaos along with me, which at first feels satisfying, but quickly becomes unhelpful because now we are both drowning, yelling, overwhelmed and out of sorts, ratcheting up the stress for everyone.

Jesus doesn’t get sucked into Martha’s interpretation of things.

She is not drowning.

And just like the disciples, tossed about in the little boat in the big storm, Martha has lost sight of who is sitting in her midst.  She has allowed the elements, the demands she feels and the situation around her to tell her what reality is.   

But again and again, in every moment with every person, Jesus is inviting us to interpret reality differently.

Jesus is inviting us to live in the truth that in life or in death we are held in the love of God. To take a deep breath and set it all down once in a while to come back to that truth. 

That nothing can separate us from the love of God.

That life is a gift. 

That God made this whole thing in all it complexity so that we could enjoy it together with God, together with each other, together with all that lives and breathes and grows and dies and buzzes and chirps and flows and rumbles and sits silent and majestic and unmoving in the background and crawling and bawling and snoozing and snorting in the foreground.

People keep forgetting this, in every time and place and every way imaginable. People keep finding all sorts of new and creative ways of cutting ourselves off from each other and from God, defining reality by all sorts of false and demanding standards.  Acting as though we are alone, as though it is all up to us, as though we are against one another instead of in it together.

And so God comes right among us to remind us again, in walking alongside, talking alongside, living alongside, suffering alongside.  But even with Godwithus in the living room, we still slip into worry and distraction and forgetting.

The saddest thing ever said to me by my children, the most poignant and piercing moment I’ve had as a mom so far, which felt like a kick in the gut, was when my three year old daughter said to me one day, “Mommy, play with me!  Please play with me, Mommy. You can bring your computer.”

And I looked up from the screen into her pleading little face and I began to cry.  How could I have so lost what’s real? 

Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things.  There is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the good, and it will not be taken away from her.

What would it look like to let Jesus define reality instead of the relentless demands and overwhelming threats of the world?  Those messages that tell us who to be, and who to fear, who to hate, and who to admire, and what to do to make ourselves worthy, important, good enough, what to avoid to keep ourselves righteous, what is powerful and what is weak and how threatened we are at any given urgent moment.

The word for distracted in the Greek has a sense of being pulled in many different directions.  We are pulled in so many different directions that we miss the meaning; we lose what’s real.

We worry so much about the hypothetical and the correct, get so distracted by the urgent and the important, become so focused on the job to be done and the cause to be fought and the service to be offered and the duty to be done that we sometimes miss the human beings right in front of us, and we sometimes miss the opportunity to be a human being ourselves.

It is here that we meet Jesus, always here, with and for each other.  God is present in our lives. Participating in life.  We can be too!

Come to me all you who are weary and heavy-burdened and I will give you rest, Jesus said. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and I will give you rest for your souls.

Whether the storms are around us, between us or inside us, they are never bigger or more powerful or more real than the God who enters in and calls us to do likewise. 

We’ll forget a lot, and we will need reminding, like Martha did, that we aren’t really drowning.  That the one who made and loves us all is right here in our midst. That there might be a different, more real way to see and exist in reality than the one that we’re buckling under at the moment.

We don’t have to live as though we are alone, as though it is all up to us, as though we are against one another instead of in it together.

And the promise is that we will be reminded, when we get brave enough or desperate enough, frustrated enough, or scared enough to ask the question Martha burst out and the disciples cried out, Lord, don’t you even care?

Because Jesus can’t get sucked into our interpretation of it all, no matter how real or overwhelming it feels to us.

Instead, the one with the power to quiet the storm reminds us again, I care about you.  And I care about your sister.  And I am right here.  You are not alone.

So come, weary ones, heavy burdened ones. Come workaholics and worriers.  Come thinkers and doers and fighters and doubters, and bring your own real self and your own real versions of the question, whatever they may be.

Lord, don’t you even care?

Lord, don’t you even care– about a teenage boy being shot and his killer going free?  We’re broken, it’s bigger and deeper and sadder than we can grasp. 

Lord, don’t you even care that the church is so messed up? That people get hurt and lies get spread and judgment and hatred define us instead of love and mercy? 

Lord, don’t you even care that the cancer is back?  And it is winning?

That the gulf between us is widening? And I can’t seem to find forgiveness or even words?

That there doesn’t seem to be a way out of this situation, and I am not sure how we’re going to make it?

That I am overwhelmed and sleep-deprived? That my stress is through the roof?

 

Lord, don’t you even care that we are drowning here?

And then, may the one whose love holds us all, in life and in death, God incarnate in our midst, raise gentle eyes to your anxious face, and in compassion and understanding, speak the voice of calm into your storm, My child, you are pulled in many directions and worried about many things. But there is need of only one thing. 

And at first it’s annoying – because we’d prefer he jump in and agree with us that it’s all too much.  

But after one deep breath it becomes hope, peace, a lifeline, as we are invited to set down our many worries and sit, for a time, at the feet of Jesus, and find rest for our souls.

Jesus, draw us into the one thing, bring us into your love, that we may know we are not alone, and that as real as our troubles are, and as necessary as our work may be, chaos and fear, anger and hopelessness, worry and distraction may not define our reality.

Jesus, speak peace to our turbulent hearts and awaken our joy, that we may recognize you and join you where you are, right here in this holy life with us, right here in this ordinary life with each other.

Amen.