Reference

Luke 10:38-42

Sermon Discussion Questions:

1. Read Luke 10:38-42. What is this passage trying to teach us?
2. If possible, have everyone go around and answer: do you tend to identify more with Martha or Mary?
3. What tends to prevent you from "sitting at Jesus' feet" today? Remember: distractions can be (and often are) good things.
4. What are some ways that the world tries to "conform" you (Rom 12:2) in what gets your attention? Are there any changes to your screen-time habits you'd like to make?
5. What is your goal for meditating on God's Word (Ps 1) this year?

When Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician and philosopher, died at the age of 39, a servant stumbled across a small piece of paper that Pascal had stitched into the breast of his jacket. Here’s a piece of what it read:

The year of grace 1654, Monday, 23 November …

From about half past ten at night until about half past midnight,

FIRE.

GOD of Abraham, GOD of Isaac, GOD of Jacob not of the philosophers and of the learned. Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace. … Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy. … This is eternal life, that they know you, the one true God, and the one that you sent, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. I left him; I fled him, renounced, crucified. Let me never be separated from him.

…

What happened? Pascal was 31 years old, had lived most of his life as an agnostic, was either a very young Christian or not yet a Christian, when this night happened.

Now, apparently that night was an extraordinary experience; so unique, that Pascal’s scribbled staccato notes became precious enough to him that he stitched it into his jacket.

No Christian lives their entire life in that kind of “fire” that Pascal experienced. But we do all long for it. Should long for it.

So, what provoked it?

He was reading the gospel of John. He sat down and read the seventeenth chapter of John, to be exact when he suddenly felt the flaming presence of Jesus Christ and His love fill the room and come crushing down upon him. Pascal, by the end of his memorial note, relishes in being conquered by this love:

Renunciation, total and sweet. Complete submission to Jesus Christ and to my director. Eternally in joy for a day's exercise on the earth. Not to forget your words. Amen.

Normally on a Sunday we pick a book of the Bible and move through it sequentially, verse by verse—we actually are going through the gospel of John right now. But we are taking a few weeks here at the beginning of the year to think about a big problem. On the one hand, you could look at the problem simply as: why are the spiritual disciplines of reading, praying, and fellowship so hard? Aren’t these things supposed to be what strengthens us? Yet, for many of us today, they feel more often like a source of guilt. Why is that? In this short sermon series, I want to move down into our heart and try to turn some stones over and see what scurries out—why is it so hard to read? To pray? To prioritize community?

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38 Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. 39 And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. 40 But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, 42 but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” - Luke 10:38-42

Anxious by Distraction

This short story is well-known and for good reason. Especially in our psychologized-therapeutic culture, we approach this story like a personality test: are you more of a Mary or a Martha? Are you driven and task-oriented, or are you contemplative and relationally-driven? Are you a beaver or an otter? Are you INTJ or an ENFP? That’s a fine thing to stew on because you are applying the Word to your life, but the story is doing more than that.

Regardless of what your personality/temperament is, the story is finding something inside all of us to unearth and criticize.

If someone important comes to your house, what do you want? You want a clean house, you want to be well prepared, you want good food to serve. But now, imagine you don’t have a dish washer, a roomba, a refrigerator full of pre-prepared food, you don’t have a grocery store to stop by and your way home.

  • Think of Genesis 18:6-8; Abraham pops his head into the tent and tells Sarah: “Quick! Three seahs of fine flour! Knead it, and make cakes.” A “quick” prep involved making bread from scratch, butchering an animal, and then cooking it.

Notice:

  • Martha is the one who welcomes Jesus to her house. She bears the burden of hospitality. Serving is good—Christ-like even.
  • Mary, her sister, of course would have been expected to share in the responsibility of hospitality.
    • But instead she “sat at the Lord’s feet”—a euphemism for learning from a rabbi.
    • She was listening, absorbing, his teaching. In Jesus’ day, women were not permitted to sit at a rabbi’s feet. Mary would have known this.
    • But there is something about Jesus that, against all customs, draws Mary in.
  • Thus, Martha’s frustration is understandable. Mary is, quite literally, out of place; forgotten herself. She is not only leaving all of the work now to Martha, she is likely embarrassing her sister.
    • But notice Luke’s phrasing: “Martha is distracted with much serving” Nothing good comes out of the human heart when we are animated primarily by distractions.
    • “Distraction” is a relative term. If you are working on a crossword, you are focusing. Thus, anything that breaks that focus could be considered a “distraction.” But if your child runs up to you, bleeding, is that a distraction? In a sense. But only if the crossword is more important than your child. If your child is more important, than the crossword is actually the distraction. Our attention is given to what is most important to us.
      • Thus, in the Martha and Mary story, Martha—though doing a good thing!—has failed to see what Mary sees. There is something more important that is worth everyone’s undivided attention.
    • Later, Jesus will tell Martha: “you are anxious and troubled about many things.”
      • Anxious: to be split into pieces. Merimnas.
  • And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” - Luke 10:40
  • Lord, do you not care?
    • The disciples in the storm: “Lord do you not care that we are perishing?” Mark 4:38
    • The elder brother addressing the Father about the prodigal. You don’t care about me.
    • Distracted, anxious hearts assume: God doesn’t care about me.
    • Jesus teaching on anxiety in Matt 6: “Do not be anxious…your Father cares for you.”
  • Anxious, distracted hearts are what they are because they nurse deep suspicions about whether or not God cares. We must divide our attention to monitor affairs because if we don’t take care of things, who will? If we don’t maintain control, who will? Martha’s one request of Jesus is a command of control: Tell Mary to stop and come help me!
  • But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, 42 but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41-42
    • Notice: One thing is necessary and Mary has chosen it.
    • Martha is doing a good thing through serving, but remember: our attention is given to what is most important to us. In contrast to being a good host, that good deed is actually a distraction when sitting at Jesus’ feet is an option. That is the one thing that is necessary.
    • How do we “sit at Jesus’ feet” today? How do we “listen to His teaching”? We read God’s Word.

So, what distracts you? What prevents you from being able to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to His teaching as you read God’s Word? What would that even look like?

Addicted to Distraction

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. - Rom 12:2

What does this passages tell us? That we should expect opposition, that there are forces—in our own base appetites, in the culture around us, in the invisible spiritual realm—that we must resist and war against.

  • We tend to assume that these primarily wage war in tempting us to discreet acts—perform this sinister deed, tell this lie, don’t talk about God, etc.
  • But what if one front was not only in our ethics, but in the very way we think.
  • “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” - Matt 6:22-23
    • We become what we give our attention to

What has the most power over our attention today? Our technology.

Technology amplifies human nature. If we want to do good, a machine will help us do more; if we have darker motives, we can do even more horrific things with iron and electricity and silicon. Through advanced technology we can, for instance, help a child survive if born prematurely, or we can prematurely end a child’s life. One aspect of “worldliness” we must consider is how the world uses machines and technology and what it looks like for us to not be “conformed” to what the world says is normal.

But one aspect of the conforming patterns that technology imposes upon us is how it affects how we think. Not only how we form opinions, beliefs, etc., but more simply how it affects the very faculty of thought itself, attention.

The wealthiest and most powerful companies in the world are using the most sophisticated technology in the world to condition us to invest our attention into something that fractures our attention.

  • Deep thought requires effort. It is easier to yield to diversion. but now we have infinite scroll.
  • We are motivated to be distracted.
    • Pascal and our inability to sit in quiet and solitude. We fear boredom because we fear undisturbed reflection.
    • Pascal and the gambling man’s love of diversion—he doesn’t want to win, he doesn’t want the capture, he wants the hunt.

Technology as magic.

In Goethe’s poem, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the old sorcerer departs his workshop, leaving his apprentice with a series of tedious chores to perform. Tired of fetching water, the apprentice bewitches a broom to do his chores for him. But, when the basin has been filled with water, the apprentice cannot stop the broom because he does not know how to make the enchantment end. He tries to cut the broom in half with an axe, only to find that the two pieces turn into two new brooms, who now move twice as fast. Soon, the entire workshop is flooded with water and the apprentice is only saved by the old Master returning and ending the spell.

If you are like me, and aren’t up to date on your 18th century German poetry, you probably recognize this as a story involving Mickey Mouse. In Disney’s 1940 Fantasia, this short poem is enacted with Mickey serving as the young and inexperienced apprentice. The moral of the story? Be wary of summoning a power you lack wisdom to control. What seems to give you control over the world around you, may have unintended consequences, may even wind up controlling you.

We are addicted to distraction.

This is the tragic tale of the Tower of Babel. The technology of the brick, empowered humans, until it ruined humans. They became slaves of their technology.

Free of Distraction

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. 4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. 5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 6 for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

  • The Blessed man lives a different life than the world—what marks him off?
  • His delight is in the law of the Lord—His orientation to God’s Word.
  • On the law He meditates day and night.
    • Meditation (to mutter)—reflect on, memorize, cherish God’s word.
    • Psalm 1 is what prepares us to pray the rest of the psalms.
  • The man who meditates is…
    • Stable
      • Planted
      • Streams of water
      • Contrast with chaff
    • Fruitful
      • Like roots take water and translate them into fruit, so too does the blessed man take God’s Word and synthesize and apply it into their own life to bear fruit.

“Persons who meditate become people of substance who have thought things out and have deep convictions, who can explain difficult concepts in simple language, and who have good reasons behind everything they do.

Many people do not meditate. They skim everything, picking and choosing on impulse, having no thought-out reasons for their behavior. Following whims, they live shallow lives.

The people who meditate can resist pressure—but those who do not go along with the throng, chafflike, wherever it is going.” - Keller, Prayer, 147

  • Meditate on the blessed man who fulfills the Law