Thursday, October 8, 2020 (Tuesday’s lectionary)
One thing only
Paul confessed to his friends in Galatia.
I persecuted the Church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it.
I was a zealot for my traditions
Until God was pleased to reveal his Son to me.
I did not immediately consult flesh and blood.
If I’m pastor of the Galatian church and reading Paul’s letter just arrived, am I happy for his honesty? I must decide how and when to read this letter to the rest of the congregation, and then we should pass it on to our sister congregations. I wonder how others will see him in his words, as a weak man or as a strong, honest man. I wonder, actually, how I feel myself.
Before God, I am not lying.
I was unknown personally but only as “the one who once was persecuting us but now is preaching the faith.”
And they glorified God because of me.
Well, I sure know that’s true. We did glorify God and thank him that instead of being persecuted, arrested or killed, we could welcome a man who spoke so well of Jesus.
I’m a sinner too. I’m weak and confused as much as anyone. Paul kind of inspires me, I guess, with his honesty.
O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.
You understand my thoughts from afar and are familiar with all my ways.
Sometimes I meet a woman or a man who can look right through me. Their eyes look straight through my pretenses and faces, asking me for something a little more true. I want to ask them to look even further, into what God sees, into what God loves in me.
You knit me together, Lord, in my mother’s womb
And I give thanks that I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
I imagine Jesus looked into people like that. I hope he was gentle with that power. With others, there are times when all I feel is fear and a strong desire to run. Surely that was not the way it was with Jesus.
When Jesus became friends with Lazarus, he met his sisters and was soon adopted by their whole family. Such unique people, and so different from each other, especially the sisters. Mary found her way almost immediately to Jesus’ feet. She listened intently to everything he said. Martha admired Jesus, maybe even loved him, but she never really listened much. She made bread for Jesus and his disciples. She swept the floors so they could sit and eat. She soaked the dried fish and roasted them over the fire. When they spent the night, she prepared the beds, the blankets and the pillows. Martha smoothed the way for all of them.
Of course, wouldn’t she get tired of doing most everything herself? She did complain to Jesus, and asked him to intervene with Mary. But Jesus, seer and prophet, understanding himself and Martha too, turned her complaint around. He asked Martha, as he asked Paul a few years later, to find her call from God as well as from the earth, and focus only on that.
Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.
There is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the One Thing,
And it must not be taken from her.
Jesus loved her in those words. He searched Martha, and he knew her. I wonder if she felt exposed or comforted? I hope in that moment her heart was opened, so then she too could settle into her One Thing. That move is there for each of us. Neither God’s patience nor his love will be exhausted. He waits for us all to find the place inside ourselves where God resides, and spend our time there with him, day by day.
In that way, the sweeping and cooking and making of beds become holy, they become as Brother Lawrence, most famous dishwasher of all time called it, the “practice of the presence of God.”
(Galatians 1, Psalm 139, Luke 11, Luke 10)
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