Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus, the Christ.
Being at the feet of Jesus and listening to His teaching are The One Thing Necessary. Out of all the things God gives, Jesus, the Son of God is The Good Portion. He is The Good Portion, because He is begotten of His Father; He is not created like His mother. He is beyond creation. He is the Word of God, by Whom all creation exists. He is The Word of God Who has become flesh for you.
God did not become a butterfly or a cow or an ox or any other created creature, seen or unseen, visible or invisible. God became man. That means every single one of us (no matter how small, no matter how useful, no matter how messed up) is special, just because we are human. That means every human being has an inherent dignity, a dignity we have inherited from the Creator Who has made you a descendent of the one and only kind of creature He fashioned in His image and has now taken into Himself.
That inherent dignity, while special, does not make us capable of doing good as God counts goodness. It does not make us Righteous before God. Adam’s disobedience has made all his descendants corrupt with sin. His corruption corrupts you and me and everything we do, so that even though we still have the dignity inherited from Adam, we have also inherited his corruption. Before we do anything good compared to God’s goodness, we need God’s Word to unite us with Jesus so we can begin to do real good. Only by the Word of God (most visibly applied to you in Holy Baptism) are you united with Jesus and become able to do real good in the eyes of God. On the other hand, in the eyes of the world you can do things that men count good; you can serve them; but even those things don’t count as good in God’s eyes until you are united with Jesus. The Holy Spirit, sent by Jesus and His Father at Pentecost, works through God’s Word to call us good because Christ is good for us. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. His Word proclaims The Truth. The Truth is that we (every last one of us, from the oldest to the youngest) are sinners in need of The Savior. The Truth is that Jesus, by His life, death and resurrection, is The Savior of all mankind including all us sinners.
When Mary chose The Good Portion, rather than helping her sister with the serving of their guests, she shows the God-given awareness she has of her need for the most important thing Jesus is there to give her.
The problem with sitting at Jesus’ feet is that the rest of the world considers it a waste of time. When you’re sitting at Jesus’ feet, you’re not getting any work done. The world believes, “There’s lots of work to be done and it won’t get done unless you do it.” That’s one of the temptations those of us who think we have the option of missing church on Sunday must face every weekend. In a world based on productivity, where time is money, worship is hard to justify with a cost-benefit analysis, or Return on Investment prospectus. The problem is you don’t look terribly busy when you’re listening to God’s Word. What do you do when you come home to church? Mostly, you sit and listen. You sing songs. You pray. You kneel and eat a bit of bread and drink a sip of wine. But mostly, you sit and listen to God’s Word. While at church you contribute nothing to the gross national product; you do nothing to alleviate the national debt, or your own. You don’t even solve world hunger, shelter the homeless, clean up the environment, or improve your home. By American standards, worship is unproductive. No wonder many people mistake worship for recreation, something you do if you have the time and don’t have anything better to do.
Another temptation we face is the temptation to do less than nothing and either sleep-in or veg-out in front of a screen on a television, computer, smartphone, or something. But there’s a big difference between vegging-out in front of a screen and sitting at the Lord’s feet and listening to His teaching. A big eternal difference!
Sitting at Jesus’ feet is how you receive what you need to serve your neighbors. If you don’t receive it, you can’t share it.
“But, pastor, we’d like to make it to church more often, but we’re just so busy.”
Parents teach their children to say the same thing every time they give them something to do other than get ready to ride across town to church on Sunday morning. And make no mistake, God does hold parents responsible for what the children living under the same roof do on Sunday morning, and every other day of the week, too. Others in your life, your friends and neighbors and co-workers, also notice where you spend your time. You teach others what is important by where you spend your time. By what you say yes to, and to what you say no; your yesses and nos confess what you believe is true.
If you spend your Sunday mornings at Jesus’ feet, listening to His Word, you teach was is good, right and salutary. If you let other things take priority, then those things will seem more important than what Jesus tells Martha is The One Thing Necessary.
Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (St. Luke 12:34) Your treasure includes your money and other possessions; it also includes your time and energy. If your heart isn’t with Jesus, then, it’s with idols; it’s with the father of lies. To try and get anyone to choose something other than Jesus, to prevent your children from coming to Jesus to be Baptized by Him, to sit at His feet and listen to Him, is just not good.
Now, there are some people who have jobs that call them away from church on Sunday mornings. That’s one very good reason congregations should consider offering more than one Divine Service each week—perhaps, on Saturday or Sunday night.
A few members are too frail or sick to leave their homes. That’s why your pastor brings the Word of God along with the Holy Communion to those who are home-bound or in the hospital. But, for most of us, we have a choice to make about where we go on Sunday morning. We freely choose to work or play or worship. We have these free choices, but many of us too often choose the lesser portion rather than the good portion.
When she welcomes Jesus into her house, Martha has certain expectations. She expects to treat Jesus and His disciples as special guests in her home. She expects to offer them a certain level of hospitality which she cannot do without the help of her sister, Mary. It is, after all, the social expectation.
When our expectations aren’t met, we tend to get frustrated just like Martha. If our expectations continue to be unmet, our frustration can turn into hostility. Martha’s hostility is because of Mary, but she directs it at her Lord. She expects Jesus to care more about social etiquette and hospitality than He does. She expects Him to care that her sister had left Martha to serve alone. The serving Martha does is good. In most cases it’s very good. Her much serving is good for her guests. In most cases, it shows them the love of God. In general, there’s nothing wrong with the much serving with which she is distracted. But, her distraction leads her to forget the greater importance of the love of God in Christ Jesus, Himself. Her distracted expectations mislead her to try and pull away her sister from hearing Jesus’ Word. Those distracted expectations caused her to be anxious and troubled about many things.
But “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.” (Small Catechism I:6)
Anxiety, irritation, anger, rage, bitterness, resentment—those are the fruits we pick when we become so busy we forget from Whom our good will to do good works comes. We lose our focus when Christ is not the source and center of our lives. Our hearts become frustrated and angry when they are unbuckled from Jesus and His Word. We become angry with our brothers or sisters who aren’t “pulling their weight.” We resent being part of the 20% who do 80% of the work and we’re quick to point it out to anyone who will listen. We become angry for being left to do things all alone, and we become angry with God for not doing something about it.
In her busyness, Martha completely lost sight of why she was working so hard. She was supposed to be serving Jesus. And what a joy that should have been. But all she could see was her vision of the kingdom which she thought couldn't possibly exist without the work she was doing. Her busyness robbed her of the joy of Jesus’ presence with her. And it robbed her of peace with her sister.
Martha wants Jesus to wield His Word and tell Mary to go help her. But that’s not what Jesus does. Instead, he speaks His Word to Martha. He points out her unnecessary anxiety and her troubled mind. And then reminds her of the One Thing Necessary. The Lord and His teaching are the One Thing we all need.
There's a sentence in one of the foundational Lutheran documents in the Book of Concord. In that monumental article on Justification, the Apology to the Augsburg Confession says: “Faith is that worship which receives God’s offered blessings; the righteousness of the law is that worship which offers God our own merits.” Martha worshipped Jesus in the way of the law, offering Him her works, her busyness. While Mary worshipped Jesus in the way of faith and the Gospel. She offered Him nothing but her presence and attention. Like an empty-handed beggar, Mary sat quietly at His feet and received His Word. And Jesus simply delighted to have her sit there. He won’t say or do anything to distract Mary with busyness.
To sit at the feet of Jesus is the one thing you need. It is The Good Portion that Jesus hung on a cross to win for you, and He won’t let anyone take that away from you. Work, business, recreation, hobbies, sports – everything else can wait.
First, we must sit at Jesus’ feet and hear His Word. The most important activity of a disciple of Jesus involves no activity on your part – to hear the Word of God, to receive the forgiveness of our sins, and to eat and drink your Savior’s Body and Blood. There is nothing more important, more central, for your life than that.
“Come to Me,” Jesus says, “and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) Rest. Sabbath. The Sabbath is the day you rest from your work to rest in God’s Word. The Sabbath was God’s weekly reminder that salvation is not by works but by faith, ot by being busy but by trusting in God’s promise of mercy. Your busyness does NOT impress God. No matter how much running around you do, it will never be enough.
Jesus did not come to be served by you; He came to serve you, to give His life as a sacrifice for sinners. He comes to serve you, here.He doesn’t need our service. We need His Divine Service.
Remember all the amazingly gracious things Jesus does for you in church every Sunday morning. At the beginning of the Divine Service, He forgives your sins. He turns the key that opens wide the gates of heaven to all who repent of their sin and trust His Word of forgiveness. He preaches His Word to you. He feeds you His own body and blood.
This is where the feet of Jesus are. They’re here for you to sit at. Those are the same feet that walked dusty roads to proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom. They are feet on which John the Baptizer was unfit to untie a sandal. They are feet that were pierced with a nail for your salvation. Here you get to be like Mary, sitting at Jesus' feet, resting in His Word.
Were you busy this morning? Anxious? Stressed out? It's a good thing you avoided doing anything about it.
Instead, you chose The Good Portion; you came and sat here – at the feet of Jesus; and He will not be taken away from you.
In Jesus’s Name. Amen