Our current
worship theme at Christ United Methodist Church focuses on “Finding God in Everyday Life.” Although the Divine is always present in our
lives—even in the everyday routines which we have—we sometimes find it hard to experience
God in our everyday lives.
I believe
that we sometimes have difficulty experiencing the Divine because we are not
expecting to encounter God in everyday life.
In other words, we are not actively opening ourselves to God’s presence
in the ordinary. Over the next few
weeks, we will examine and reflect on ways in which we can become more open and
sensitive to God’s presence in everyday life.
Our focus this Sunday, January 14th, will be exploring ways the Divine is
present in our work of volunteering.
According
to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 62.5 million Americans
volunteer some time to various organizations each year, with 33% of persons
volunteering to help religious organizations.[1] These approximately 62 million people comprise
25% of the overall population. Another
organization, the “Corporation for National Community Service,” estimates that
the typical volunteer averages “32.1 volunteer hours
per person, per year, which comes to 7.9 billion hours of service, the
equivalent of $184 billion.”[2] In addition to supporting our church or
religious organization, we also volunteer for educational and youth service, community
and civic organizations, environmental groups, and hobbies, in addition to a
whole host of other causes and endeavors.
From a Christian perspective, volunteering to help
support our church or other groups, which are dedicated to the betterment of
humanity and the environment, are important means of serving Christ and
establishing God’s Reign here on Earth. Volunteerism
is important, especially in the church which depends upon volunteers to support
and strengthen all of its ministries. However, the question I want to examine
this week is how we experience the Divine when we engage in volunteer activity—either
in the church or the broader community?
To ground
and guide our examination of this question, I will be drawing from the story of
Christ’s friends, Mary and Martha. Since
the story is short, I have included all of it below:
Now as they went on their
way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into
her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and
listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many
tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has
left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the
Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many
things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part,
which will not be taken away from her.”
In the story from Luke,
Jesus arrives unexpectedly, seeking a place to rest on his journey to
Jerusalem. Martha immediately welcomes
Jesus and his entire entourage of disciples and friends into their home and
assumes the role of host. While Martha
scurries about caring for the various needs of her guests, Jesus sits down and
begins teaching his disciples. Mary also
“sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying.” In sitting at the feet of Jesus, Mary takes
the usual place for one of the disciples and, in so doing, violates a clear
social boundary of the time. As the
scholar R. Alan Culpepper observes, “By sitting at Jesus’ feet, Mary is acting
like a male. She neglects her duty to
assist her sister in the preparation of the meal, and…is bringing shame upon
her house.”[3] Yet, Mary is so captivated with the teachings
of Jesus that she doesn’t care. She just
wants to absorb as much as possible.
As she continues to
scurry about, caring for the needs of her many guests, Martha’s frustration with
her sister begins to grow and grow.
Eventually, Martha can take it no longer and so she appeals to Jesus,
asking that he tell Mary to do her fair share of the work. Instead of taking Martha’s side, Jesus
reprimands her, saying: “Martha, Martha,
you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one
thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Perhaps it’s because I
was the oldest child in my family, but there is a part of me that really identifies
with Martha. I feel as though Martha
comes off badly in this passage and that not even Jesus properly appreciates
her work of hospitality for him and his entourage. Can you just imagine the scene, if Martha had
sat down beside Mary at the feet of Christ and listened intently to his
teachings? There would have been no
water for Jesus and his entourage to wash their feet after a long, dusty
journey on the unpaved road. There would
have been no food or other refreshments for the entourage to enjoy after their
long walk. Heck, the visitors may not
even have known where to go to relieve themselves after their long
journey. So, Martha in her scurrying
about provides important resources for Jesus and her entourage.
While Martha does not
come across well in this story from Luke. She fares much better in the Gospel
of John. In John, Martha is depicted not
just as a good friend of Jesus, but also as a woman of great faith. In John, chapter 11, Lazarus, who was the
brother of Martha and Mary, becomes sick and dies before Jesus can reach their
home. When Jesus draws near to Bethany,
their village, Martha goes out to meet him.
Revealing her deep faith, Martha says to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been
here, my brother would not have died.
But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” (Verses
21-22) Then, Martha adds this
conviction, “…Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one
coming into the world.” (Verse 27)
As noted above, Martha
appears as something of an enigma in the two gospels. On the one hand, Martha appears to have a
very superficial faith in the story from Luke, where she obsesses on her
domestic chores of hospitality, while losing sight of the opportunity to sit at
the feet of Jesus and learn from his teachings. Yet, on the other hand, in the
Gospel of John, Martha has a deep and mature faith in Jesus as the Messiah. Who is the real Martha? I believe that we should view Martha as the woman
depicted in the story from John, with a deep, mature, discerning faith. If this is so, then we can ask what happened
to Martha in the story from Luke?
Let me suggest a
theory. I believe that in the Lukan
story Martha saw her hospitality as a duty or obligation to be fulfilled,
rather than as an opportunity to experience God’s presence. Rather than being open to experiencing God
through her work of hospitality, Martha “was distracted by her many tasks.” As she became obsessed with the work of hospitality,
Martha also became resentful of her sister, who was sitting at the feet of
Jesus, enjoying being in his presence and listening to his teachings.
I believe that the same
thing can happen to each of us when we perform volunteer work. Regardless of how good and important our
volunteer work is intrinsically, our attitude remains critical. If we see our volunteer work as a means of fulfilling
duties or obligations, then we close off the possibility of experiencing the
Divine in the volunteering, just as Martha when she hosted Jesus and his
entourage. However, if we approach
volunteer work as an opportunity to serve the Divine by establishing and
furthering the Reign of God on Earth, then we simultaneously open up ourselves
to experiencing the Divine through our volunteer work. The Divine become present through our
volunteer work.
If
you live in the Lincoln, Nebraska area and do not have a place of worship, then
I invite you to come and join us at Christ United Methodist Church this Sunday,
January 14th. Christ UMC is located at
4530 “A” Street in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Our two traditional Worship Services are at 8:30 and 11:00 on Sunday
morning.
Come, join us. Everyone is
welcome and accepted because God loves us all.
[1] Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of
Labor, “Volunteering in the United States,” accessed online at https://www.bls.gov/news.release/volun.toc.htm,
on 11 January 2018.
[2] The “Corporation for National Community Service” is
cited by Marc Johnson, “America Does Not Have Enough Volunteers” in “The
Huffington Post,” 31 January 2016, updated 31 January 2017, accessed online at https://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-joseph/america-does-not-have-eno_b_9032152.html,
on 12 January 2018.
[3] R. Alan Culpepper, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke
in the New Interpreter’s Bible, vol
9, (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 2002), CD-ROM Edition.
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