Sermon 7/22/07
Distractions - Luke 10:38-42
(view lectionary notes for this text)
I’ve been having lots of conflicted thoughts about time and how to use my time this summer. I hate rushing away time. I hate wishing things would go faster. Patience is not always my greatest virtue, but I try hard to live in the moment, because time goes by so quickly on its own, and we all know we can’t go backwards. We can’t ever get a single moment back. We can’t relive one single event or experience. Remember, sure. But we can’t relive. And so our best strategy is to be very careful with the time we have – to treat it as very precious, and to use it wisely. Of course, we’re not perfect at this. It doesn’t mean I don’t waste some hours watching TV, or napping. But how we use our time represents daily choices on our part – what is important to us. What is a priority for us? What is worth our very limited time?
My conflict this summer, of course, is that I’m in this lovely cast. Six weeks of my summer. Six weeks of my time here at St. Paul’s, and I’ve been in this cast. Just three more days now. The end is in sight. Somewhere along the way last weekend I reached my limit. After walking around on my crutches more than I’d planned, and being so exhausted from that that I didn’t attend some other events that I had been really looking forward to, I reached my limit. I felt like I’d been doing pretty well up until that point. Trying not to concentrate on the cast, trying not to let it get me down, trying to stay busy and do what I’d normally do and make the best of it. But last weekend was it. From there ‘til now I’ve been pretty impatiently counting the days.
And yet, I’m conflicted. I don’t want to count the days and rush the time by. When the cast went on, I had eleven or so weeks left here, and now I have just over five. Time is going fast enough without me rushing it by. My time is important and valuable and precious, and I want to pay attention to how I’m using it in these next weeks. I’m also conflicted about how to use my time – do I spend my time working harder than usual? Do I try to squeeze in vacation before a time of transition? Do I spend more time with people, or more time trying to organize my files for the pastor that will follow? What’s the best way to spend my time?
Time – how we use, how much of it we have, what we spend our time doing – I think these are questions we all think about. Time is precious – it is limited, and no amount of money can get you more of it! There aren’t many things you can say that about. And then there is the issue of spending your time doing one thing while your mind is wishing you were somewhere else, doing something else, or where you are simply distracted, unable to pay attention to what your are doing or are meant to be doing.
Distracted. Have you ever had a conversation with someone who clearly wants to be somewhere else? You can tell when you’re speaking to them that they aren’t really paying attention, and that they aren’t really interested in what you’re saying. It is clear that they are wishing they were somewhere else with someone else, talking about something else. Or perhaps you’ve been on the other side of this situation. You just can’t focus on what someone is saying. You’re having a hard time listening. Your mind is a hundred other places, and you can’t stop thinking about your to-do list.
Distracted. I’ve mentioned before that I feel this way as a worship leader sometimes when it comes to where we actually are in the year and where I am in my planning of worship. In the summer I’m thinking about fall, in the fall in planning Christmas, by New Year’s I’m thinking about Easter, and at Easter I’m thinking about June and July. I find it hard to be fully in the moment of the church year. I have to be very intentional if I want to fully experience the seasons, otherwise, I become too focused on what’s coming next.
Distractions. In seminary, my friend Linda broke several of her ribs. She had to give her senior sermon not long after this, and she was reflecting on how frustrating it was – there’s not much you can do to heal broken ribs – you can’t put them in a sling, you can’t put a stylish orange cast on them. You just have to ‘be’, Linda said. You just have to be still, and let the healing happen. You have to be less busy, run around less, do a little less, and ‘be’ a little more.
All these various thoughts have been jumbling around in my head as I approached the gospel lesson this week. This is a very brief text – just five verses, and it is a well known text. Mary and Martha entertaining Jesus in their home. We read that Martha has welcomed Jesus into her home. Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening to what he’s saying. But Martha, we read, is distracted because of all the things she has to do. She comes to Jesus to complain – “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 Jesus does not give her the help she’s looking for or expecting. Instead he chides 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.”
It is easy to feel sympathetic for poor Martha in this text. Jesus is hard on her, isn’t he? What is this “one thing” that is required? What is Martha doing after all but trying to make the place a welcoming place for her special guest Jesus? But when I look at the text again, I see that I’ve been reading a lot into the passage. I always assume with this text that Martha was cleaning the house or preparing the dinner, or doing something that is clearly tied to Jesus being there, as if for a meal. But the text doesn’t really say any of those things. It says that Martha welcomed Jesus into her home when she came into their village. And Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to him, the posture of a disciple. But Martha was “distracted by her many tasks.” She wants to know why she has to “do all the work by herself.” Martha welcomes Jesus into her home, but then she doesn’t pay any attention to him. He’s her guest, but she’s too busy to sit and talk with him. What is she so busy doing exactly?
My older brother is an excellent writer. I love writing, and I think I’m a good writer – but my brother has a way with words that I’ve admired since I was little and he would win the creative writing contest every year. I want to share with you part of a post he put on his blog, his website, just before his son Sam was born. It’s his explanation for wanting to stop blogging, to stop updating his website. He starts with a parable he’s read: “Nan-in, a Japanese master during [1900s] received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!" "Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup? (1)
My brother continues, reflecting on the parable: “The thing is this: there's a space between dumping out the old tea and filling up with the new. There's a space in there where there's an empty cup. And there is something quite terrifying about being an empty cup. When "everything" is wrong, and you decide to throw away "everything" and start from scratch, where are you? Who are you? What do you have? When you take away the framework, when all the "givens" are no longer given, where do you even begin?
Last May . . . I ran against a No. An Everything Is Wrong. But I've hit that No a hundred times before, and a hundred times before, swearing that from that moment on everything would be different, I've changed a few details, gone through some motions, and found myself in the same old place again. Because seeing that it's all got to change is easy. Letting go . . . is hard. Terribly so.
One of the best books I've read in the past year is Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain. In it, Merton reminds himself time and again, "the land to which God has brought you is not like the land of Egypt from which you came out. You can no longer live here as you lived there." Okay, but what is it like? We can believe it's better. But we know Egypt. Egypt, at least, is something.
So I've found myself, over this past year, up against a No. Leaving Egypt, if you will. And for the first time, I've realized that 1, none of it is or should be anything at all like "easy," and 2, there's no real destination I can describe. A feeling I can imagine, sure, an idea that I can hold in the back corners of my mind, but no finish line, no goal, no "arrived."
It's been, at turns, scary . . . numbing, and wonderful. I've found myself going forward and then falling back, stalling out and starting again. I've found myself panicked, not knowing quite what to believe, where to turn, what to even feel. I've found myself overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness, surprised by bursts of anger and bursts of sadness, but also dazed and euphoric by brief glimpses of a promised "something better."
And I've figured out that, though I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing, my best guide is greed. I feel greedier now than I've ever been before. I want as much as I can get. But I want, I'm greedy for, the things that actually satisfy. Alan Watts has said that we're all screwed up in our desires and our sense of self that it's as if we're sitting in fine restaurants demanding to eat the menu.
I'm tired of eating menus. I'm tired of having no good answer to an old, powerful question: "Why do we spend our money for that which is not bread and our labor for that which does not satisfy?" Enough is enough . . . I don't know all the details yet, but I know a little.
I know that what I'm looking for has something to do with standing in the kitchen, taking my time to chop vegetables I've pulled from my own garden or bought from someone whose name I know, preparing a meal slowly and lovingly, eating it with my family or my friends, enjoying their conversation. I know it has not much to do with throwing a frozen dinner in the microwave to "save time" and mindlessly shoveling it down while I stare at the television screen.
I know it has something to do with being in the outdoors, strumming my guitar, taking the time to really be with my wife, writing the stories that have been kicking around in my head for years, working with my hands, wrestling with my dog, listening to older, wiser people share their life stories. I know it has very little to do with accumulating piles of cheap plastic [things] at the mall, working longer hours to "get ahead," piling garbage on the edge of the street every Sunday night.
I know it has something to do with the son I'll meet any day now, with taking the time to be the father I can be, if I let myself, if I let go of the nonsense that could hold me back. Something to do with quiet, with actually listening from time to time for the voice of God . . . Less to do with staring at a computer screen. (2)
Martha has gone to the trouble of inviting Jesus into her home. She’s welcomed him. But she’s too distracted by tasks so unimportant that what they are isn’t even mentioned here. How often are we like Martha? So often we are Martha and not Mary. We invite Jesus into our hearts. We’ve invited God into our lives. Wonderful. Such a great way to begin. But now, now we have God in our home and we’re too distracted to pay God any attention. We’re distracted – having a conversation with God but still more worried about getting back to our ‘to do’ list.
Our time is very very precious. What are you doing with your time? What consumes your time and your thoughts and your energy? Is it rewarding? The meaning you’ve been looking for? The substance you’ve been seeking? We are so distracted. But God is right here. We’ve welcomed God in. Sit with me, at God’s feet, and listen to what God is saying.
Amen.
(1) Parable can be found in Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, compiled by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki
(2) Thompson, James. http://jockeystreet.blogspot.com/2007/05/utah-part-3.html