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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. (Amen.)
As if building to today as a climax, in a more-or-less continuous reading of the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, the Gospel Readings the past few Sundays have told: of Jesus’s setting His face to journey to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51), of a Samaritan village’s not receiving Him because His face was set toward Jerusalem (Luke 9:53), of Jesus’s not having somewhere to lay His head (Luke 9:58), of Jesus’s sending 72 disciples into towns where He was about to go with directions for what to do when either received or not received into a house (Luke 10:8, 10), and of Jesus’s being a neighbor Who has compassion on those in need, Who comes to us, and Who binds up wounds (Luke 10:29-37). Today, as the Old Testament Reading told of Abraham’s welcoming the Lord (Genesis 18:1-14), the Gospel Reading similarly told of a woman named Martha’s welcoming the Lord, ostensibly into her home. So, this morning we consider our “Welcoming the Lord into our homes”.
When we welcome guests into our homes, we might try to be on our best behavior, maybe trying to keep family fighting and sibling squabbling to a minimum and out of the sight and earshot of our company. Not so in the Gospel Reading! Distracted with much serving, Martha stood before the Lord, with Mary sitting at His feet listening to Him, and Martha asked the Lord both if He did not care that her sister Mary had left her to serve alone and, assuming that He did care, to tell Mary to help her. The Lord lovingly told Martha that she was anxious and troubled about many things but only one thing was necessary, and He essentially said that Mary had chosen that best thing, which would not be taken away from her. In short, there is a time for listening to the Lord, and there is a time for serving Him, and both listening to Him and serving Him can take place in our homes.
Bible commentators often speculate, but we do not know for sure, at the time of the today’s Gospel Reading, how familiar Jesus was with Martha and Mary and how familiar they were with Him (nor do we know how many people, if any, came with Jesus into their home). The Holy Spirit has given us these five verses of insight into their welcoming the Lord into their home, and we surely are better equipped to assess how we welcome the Lord into our homes, if we welcome Him into our homes at all. Is our listening to the Lord’s Word only an “at-Church” thing, or do we do also listen to the Lord’s Word at home? Do we set aside time from “the tasks of our everyday lives” for God and His Word (confer Lutheran Service Book 643:2)? Do you as a family read the Bible, pray together, and sing psalms or hymns, thanking God and making melody in your hearts (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16)? Do we not only contemplate the Christian faith but also actively live it out in our various callings of life, serving the Lord in the person of our neighbors, whether those neighbors closest to us in our families or others in need whom the Lord places in front of us? The extremes in either direction are a problem: all or too much contemplation is not right, nor is all or too much activity right, especially if we think that by either the contemplation or the activity we somehow earn God’s favor or are righteous before Him.
In fact, by nature we are un-righteous: “sinful and unclean” we said before the Service (LSB 151). On our own we cannot believe in Jesus Christ our Lord or come to Him (Small Catechism II:6), not in order to contemplate His Word, much less to do God-pleasing good works. On account of our sinful nature and all of our actual sins, we deserve both death here and now and torment in hell for eternity. But, the Lord comes to us and lovingly calls and so enables us to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust God to forgive our sin, and to want to do better than to keep sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives our sinful nature and all our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives us for Jesus’s sake.
Jesus and those with Him were journeying to Jerusalem when He entered Martha and Mary’s village, and later Jesus completed that journey to Jerusalem and to the cross—He completed that journey for us and for our salvation. God in human flesh, Jesus had resisted the temptations to, among other things, put food such as bread ahead of the Word that comes from the mouth of the Lord (Luke 4:4, with reference to Deuteronomy 8:3; confer Roehrs-Franzmann, ad loc Luke 10:38-42, p.69). And, Jesus took all our failures to do that and others things to the cross, and there He died in our place, the death that we deserved. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Colossians 1:21-29), we, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, Jesus has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death, in order to present us holy and blameless and above reproach before Him, if we continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the Gospel. We did not choose Him, but He chose us (John 15:16), and, as a free gift, He has given us the best portion, which will not be taken away from us.
The Lord comes to us and gives us the best portion through His Word in all of its forms. His Word is read and preached to groups such as this one, and His Word is applied individually with water in Holy Baptism, with the pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with the bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Altar that are the Body of Christ given for us and the Blood of Christ shed for us. In these ways we are incorporated into His family, forgiven of the sins we know and feel in our heart, and given life and salvation. Jesus is not ignorant of nor does He ignore the needs of our bodies, but, as He did during His ministry on earth (John 6:1-13), so now through His ministers He teaches and provides real food and real drink (John 6:55) that strengthen and preserve our bodies and souls to life everlasting. The Lord Himself has prepared this Feast and serves us, so that we, in turn, are transformed and can serve Him, both with our thanks and praise and with our acts of love to our neighbors—neighbors in our homes and wherever else we are.
I know a number of women for whom there is an earnest struggle rightly prioritizing the dual roles of Mary sitting at the Lord’s feet listening to His Word and of Martha serving the Lord. (No doubt men also earnestly struggle rightly to listen and to serve.) Providentially, today after the Divine Service, Pilgrim’s Mary/Martha Society is meeting, appropriately for Bible Study, lunch, and discussion of their service to this congregation and our community. Women of all ages and of any marital and parental status are invited and welcome. Sisters in Christ can befriend, encourage, and even mentor one another—things all the more important when others around us in our lives believe differently, if they believe at all. And, perhaps as the women gather together, so also can gather their husbands and other men, brothers in Christ who similarly can befriend, encourage, and even mentor one another, as they try faithfully to fulfill their various callings in life. Certainly our growing and serving in our vocational roles as women and men further our “Welcoming the Lord into our homes” and so also our experiencing His peace and His joy.
One commentator imagines that, after Jesus responded to Martha in the Gospel Reading, both women sat together at Jesus’s feet until He finished serving them, and that then they both together served Him (Lenski, ad loc Luke 10:42, p.619). To be sure, today’s Gospel Reading does not say what ultimately happened after they welcomed the Lord into their home, and more important for us is what happens after our “Welcoming the Lord into our homes”. Most importantly, we believe in Him and live in His forgiveness of sins. And, as in today’s Collect, we pray that the Lord would grant us His Spirit to hear His Word and know the one thing needful, that by His Word and Spirit we might live according to His will.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +