August 20, 2006
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Tama Newtown Christian Church Sermon for 8/20 by Guest Pastor Ikushima
"Only One Thing is Important"
Our guest speaker today was Pastor Ikushima, and he spoke on a famous spat between sisters. The text is 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 only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.'"
Jesus obviously preferred the attitude of Mary, who chose to sit at his feet and talk with him, and corrected the hard working Martha. So what should Martha have been doing? Would it have been better for her to choose to take pleasure in preparing her feast as a sacrifice of love without complaining?
Pastor Ikushima pointed out two problems in Martha's thinking. First, she was making herself universal over her sister; that is, she thought that if she was working hard, that everyone else should be doing the same. Japanese have a strong tendency to do this, too. Everybody in the group should be doing the same thing in harmony, but in actuality things may not be as harmonious as they appear.
It must be realized that God calls all sorts of people to himself, and they all have different personalities, talents and likes/dislikes. He has created each one in love, and we have no right to universalize ourselves and criticize His creations. They may have even been brought into our circle to make us aware of our blind spots and weak points. If we do not approach the one different from ourselves in faith, then bitterness results.
Martha's second mistake was to misunderstand the heart of Jesus. What was it that he really wanted? Did he really want a huge feast? Perhaps not. What he had really come to do was to talk to the sisters, and if Martha was too busy whipping up culinary delights in the kitchen, the precious time with Jesus would be cut short. Perhaps a simple meal would have done just as well, and allowed Jesus to spend time talking with those that he loved. A meal passes on and is forgotten, but the words of Jesus would remain for a lifetime and into eternity.
We are never to embark on service to God before we have spent time sitting at the feet of Jesus. Even though we may be acting out of good intentions, our deeds may not be in line with what Jesus wanted. We will be working without joy, because we will be working to please ourselves and not Jesus. This almost borders on setting our fleshly achievements up as an idol.
What do we learn at the feet of Jesus? First, we learn from His words in the Bible. Second, we learn from prayer. Our vision is very limited, and often we bring our small prayers to God. When we don't get answers immediately, we throw a spiritual tantrum, like a spoiled child. We whine and stamp our feet because He doesn't give us what we think we want NOW. Perhaps God does not answer our small prayers because He really wants to give us something bigger in His entire plan for out lives.
Psalm 139 tells us how deeply and totally God knows us and what we really need. We really need to spend time asking what He thinks we need and what He thinks we should ask for. We need to spend time in silence listening and allow God to speak peace to our hearts. We can see examples of what happened to those who spent this kind of time with God. In Luke 9 we can see that Jesus experienced the Transfiguration, and in Acts 10 we read of Peter's vision. I am sure that there are many other examples.
Another thing that we learn at the feet of Jesus is fellowship. Contact with other members of the body of Christ is where we gain practice in applying the things that Jesus teaches us forgiveness and love.
