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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is an informal fallacy, an invalid or otherwise faulty kind of reasoning or argument, known as a “false dilemma” or “false dichotomy”, in which two things are wrongly presented as mutually exclusive, “either/or” options, when in fact there is at least one additional option, such as maybe having neither option or both options together. For example, someone might say you must be a Democrat or a Republican, when you could be an Independent, Socialist, or none of the above. The interpretation and application of today’s Gospel Reading are often “victims” of a “false dilemma” or “false dichotomy”, as if the choices are either Mary’s having been seated at the Lord’s feet listening to His teaching or Martha’s being distracted with much serving, either Mary’s being served by the Lord or Martha’s serving the Lord. To be sure, the Lord says Mary chose the “better” portion, and so, as we this morning reflect on today’s Gospel Reading, we do so under the theme, “The Better Portion”.
What we heard about Mary and Martha in today’s Gospel Reading is certainly consistent with what we hear about them elsewhere, such as in John chapter 11 (confer John 12:2-3), which we considered in our Midweek Bible Study this past week. And a couple of details from today’s Reading are certainly worthy of our noting. First, Mary apparently had been helping Martha with preparations for Jesus’s visit earlier but left her to serve alone when she was seated at the Lord’s feet to listen to His teaching. And, second, Martha may well have wanted to be seated at the Lord’s feet to listen to His teaching, too, but at that moment she for herself prioritized serving, which prioritization itself did not earn a rebuke from the Lord.
What earned a loving and gentle rebuke from the Lord was Martha’s attempt to manipulate Jesus to take away from Mary the better portion that she had chosen. Martha to some extent assumed Jesus felt the way that she did, but He did not. Jesus said that Martha was anxious and troubled about many things, no doubt such as the much serving that the Divinely‑inspired St. Luke earlier had said distracted Martha, distracted her presumably from listening to the Lord’s teaching, being served by Him. Providing hospitality, such as that we heard in the Old Testament Reading (Genesis 18:1-14) that Abraham and those with him provided the Lord—providing such hospitality and other things are important, but hearing the Lord and receiving Him in faith is more important, the “better portion”.
How do we do in these regards? Even if we are not serving the Lord in the same way that Martha was, does much serving in other ways distract us from hearing the Lord and receiving Him in faith? Does our being anxious and troubled about many things effectively take the better portion away from others such as in our family or from us ourselves? Do we weekly if not daily make quiet time to attend to the Lord’s Word and let Him serve us? No doubt that we all could do better in, as it were, being seated at the Lord’s feet listening to His teaching, just as we could do better in the good works of service to Him in the person of our neighbors, such good works that should necessarily follow from our having heard the Lord and having received Him in faith.
Even we who believe remain sinners by nature, and so we sin both by what we think, say, and do and by what we fail to think, say, and do. For our sinful nature and all our sin we deserve both death here in time and torment in hell for eternity, unless we, enabled by God, are sorry for our sin and trust God to forgive our sin. For, when we so repent and believe, then God forgives our being distracted from His Word, our trying to take away the better portion from others or from ourselves, and whatever else our sin might be. God forgives our sinful nature and all our sin for His Son our Lord Jesus’s sake.
In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus does not explicitly identify the one thing that is necessary, but the context certainly suggests that that one necessary thing is at least related to the better portion that Mary chose, that is, listening to the Lord’s teaching, being served by Him, receiving Him in faith as the One Who came not to be served but to serve, namely by giving His life as a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45). And, on the cross Jesus did just that: Jesus died for us and for everyone in the whole world, in our place, the death that we otherwise would have deserved on account of our sinful nature and all our sin. Mary later essentially anointed Jesus for His burial that followed that death (Matthew 26:12; Mark 14:8; compare John 12:7 and Luke 7:36-50), and yet Jesus did not stay dead. Mary and Martha’s brother Lazarus’s being at least temporarily raised from the dead pointed forward to Jesus’s own resurrection from the dead that soon followed. Jesus is not manipulated into taking away from Mary or anyone else the better portion, but, from those who repent and believe, the crucified and resurrected Jesus does take away their sins (Romans 11:27; confer Hebrews 10:4).
Jesus’s itinerant missionary work depended on the hospitality of those like Martha who welcomed Jesus into her house (confer Luke 9:1-6, 52-53; 10:1-12), but His Word comes first, forgiving sins, and then the supportive hospitality and other good works, as it were, necessarily follow. The same is true for us. Jesus is present here in this place as His Word is read and preached to groups such as this. And, Jesus, Immanuel, God with us (Matthew 1:23), is most‑concretely present wherever His Word is applied to individuals with water in Holy Baptism, with the pastor’s touch in individual Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine that are the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar (Matthew 18:20; 28:20). Such is the ministry of God’s Word and Sacraments that create faith, forgive our sin, and sustain us to life everlasting, even as the ministers, such as Paul in today’s Epistle Reading (Colossians 1:21-29), rejoice amid their suffering and toil, struggling with all Christ’s energy that He works within them.
So forgiven by God through His ministry of Word and Sacrament, we make sanctified choices about when and where we will, as it were, be seated at the Lord’s feet listening to His teaching, being served by Him, and when and where we will focus on much serving of the Lord in the persons of our neighbors. Despite the events of today’s Gospel Reading, Martha clearly made time for her own relationship with the Lord, for, as we noted in Midweek Bible Study this past week, in the wake of their brother Lazarus’s death, Martha made a better confession of faith in Jesus than Mary did (compare John 11:20-27 and 32-33). Such God produced good works necessarily follow from our faith, and then we have not only the one thing that is necessary, the better portion that is not taken away from us, but we also have the other portion, too.
As we this morning have reflected on today’s Gospel Reading, we have realized truly that either being served by the Lord or serving the Lord is a “false dilemma” or “false dichotomy”, that the case with them is not “either/or” but “both/and”. First there are times and places for us to be served by the Lord—the one thing necessary, “The Better Portion”—and then there are also times and places for us to serve the Lord in the persons of our neighbors. Though in this lifetime we always will be distracted, anxious, and troubled, with repentance and faith we live each day in God’s forgiveness of sins, until the Lord grants us the “one thing” that we asked of Him in today’s Psalm (Psalm 27:1-14; antiphon: v.4), to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our eternal lives.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +