Sam Bush “Don't Just Do Something; Sit There: Grace for a Weary World”
Luke 10:38-42
Ten years ago, back in 2012, the writer Tim Kreider published a widely shared op-ed in the New York Times called “The Busy Trap” which, with humor and candor, called everybody out on our need for non-stop action as a way of justifying ourselves. This was when the only acceptable answer to the question, “How are you doing?” was “Busy!” or, better yet, “Crazy busy!” which he said was “a boast disguised as a complaint” which served “as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness.” The article took off like wildfire, deeply resonating with the American public. But now, ten years later - two years into a pandemic - the Times asked him to reflect on what’s changed and this is what he said: “A decade later, people aren’t trying to sell busyness as a virtue anymore, not even to themselves…. Of course, everyone is still busy — worse than busy, exhausted, too wiped at the end of the day to do more than stress-eat, binge-watch, and doomscroll — but no one’s calling it anything other than what it is anymore: an endless, frantic hamster wheel for survival.” Wow, what a great message to start off your Sunday morning, right? Welcome to Christ Church. We’re so glad you’re here.
Enter this passage from Luke, this famous encounter Jesus has with two sisters, Martha and Mary. Let’s just revisit it, shall we? Let’s set the scene. Jesus goes into a village where he meets Martha first. Martha is clearly someone who has her ducks in a row. It states that it was Martha who was the one to welcome Jesus into her home. She may have been the town’s presiding social chair or at least the hostess with the mostess. She is there at the train station on time to pick Jesus up. She takes his bags and hands him an iced latte and asks him how his trip was. They walk inside; she says, “You must be exhausted. I’m prepping some gazpacho and some mint tea in the kitchen. Put your feet up and I’ll be with you just as soon as I’m able.” Everything is going swimmingly. Martha is hosting this distinguished guest. He’s probably very impressed with the feng shui and decor in her living room and just wait until he tries the mint tea!
As Jesus begins to unwind, in walks Mary who, after hearing his voice, left her breakfast dishes in the sink “to soak” (which we all know is code for “getting someone else to clean them”) and it says she sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. Now, to sit at someone’s feet back then was to establish yourself as that person’s disciple. Who knows what they were talking about but chances are it wasn’t small talk. Mary is soaking up every word Jesus is saying. Martha calls from the kitchen, “A little help in here, please!” while Mary replies, “I’ll be right there,” without ever breaking her gaze.
Eventually, Martha has had enough of her sister fawning over her guest. And she loses it right in front of everybody. "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me." Notice that this family is just like your family, there’s plenty of passive-aggressive triangulation. Martha is talking to Jesus about her deadbeat, self-centered sister while Mary is in the same room. You don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to pick up the hints of competition and jealousy in this relationship.
And how does Jesus respond? Well, he’s not the most polite houseguest. He seems altogether unimpressed with Martha’s hospitality. But I imagine it’s with a tender smile that he looks at her and says, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing." Theologian Robert Capon adds a little color when paraphrasing Jesus: “Martha, you get worried and worked up about so many things. It’s a wonder you don’t kill yourself with all the effort it’s taking you to hold your life together. Let it go. As long as the most important thing in your life is to keep finding your way, you’re going to live in mortal terror of losing it. Once you’re willing to be lost, though, you’ll be home free.”
See, Jesus is making a direct attack on life as we know it, as something we think belongs to us, something that we orchestrate as the captains of our fate and the masters of our destiny; something we need to protect and to balance and to hold together. But, as we heard in the reading from Colossians, “He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” This is the purpose of the sabbath, the law instituted by God that was designed to help us rest. Oftentimes, when you stop moving you realize that the world, in fact, keeps turning. And then you realize that you are not turning the world. And then you realize that you are not God. And then you realize that’s a good thing. While Martha says, “Don’t just sit there, do something!” Jesus responds, “Martha, don’t just do something. Sit there. Those dishes might not clean themselves but don’t worry, they’re not going anywhere.”
The great writer and pastor Eugene Peterson once spoke on how everyone falls prey to the busy trap, even ministers. He talks about his father who was a butcher. He says, “When [my father] delivered meat to restaurants, he would sit at the counter, have a cup of coffee and piece of pie, and waste time. But that time was critical for building relationships. … Sometimes I’m with pastors who don’t wander around. They don’t waste time. Their time is too valuable. … To be unbusy, you have to be disengaged from egos — both yours and others — and start dealing with souls. Souls cannot be hurried.” You don’t need to be a minister for this to connect with you (but please feel free to remind me of this passage if I ever seem a bit preoccupied).
Jesus understood this better than anyone. The British writer Francis Spufford once described Jesus in this way: “Anyone can claim his time, and when someone does, whatever their reason is, he speaks to them as if nothing else were going on in the wide world but he and they talking. All his conversations seem to be personal. He appears to be fully focused on the particular individual in front of him. They matter. They matter in themselves. They are not a means to an end. Each person in front of him is, for that moment, the one missing sheep.” At this particular moment, it’s Mary. At any other particular moment, it’s you.
So what does that mean for you? How does this relate to your actual life? As Tim Kreider said, most people feel like they have no choice in the matter of being busy or not. Life is full of things you’d rather not have to do: run errands, fold clothes, put IKEA furniture together, you fill in the blank. The conventional - and, I think, deeply misguided - moral of the story of Mary and Martha is plain and simple: stop being so busy; quit being so distracted; get off your phone. I could tell you to do these things, but your phone is already reminding you that you need to cut back on your screen time.
You see, the purpose of this passage is not simply to tell you to stop being busy or to be more present or to be more mindful. Meditation is a booming industry right now for a good reason - we are burned out; we are longing for an escape from the noise. Silence and stillness are often the gateways to self-awareness, humility and healing. But this passage goes a step further. The solution is not just some abstract form of inner peace but the peace of Christ. The rest we’re talking about - the peace that passes understanding - is connected directly to a relationship. Mary might come off as the hero of the story, but not because she is more pious or more spiritual. She is not sitting in a field by herself. Rather, she is sitting at the feet of one who has something to say to her.
This is what Martin Luther was getting at when he said that to be human is to be one to whom God speaks. That’s what it means to be a person. To be one to whom God speaks a direct word. And now that we’ve finally taken a brief moment to listen, what do we hear Him say? “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:11-12).
Jesus, you see, does not point you to the door to enlightenment. He is the light! He is the door! Jesus is not a means to an end. He is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega. Jesus is not a life-hack - he’s not going to show you the way to better fold a shirt properly or really clean your microwave. He is the Way, the truth and the life. He is not here to save you time and money; he is here to save YOU. And he already has.
Now, the beauty and simplicity of the gospel in a world that is moving at warp speed is both the one thing needful and the hardest to believe. Everything we can put on our resumes is in the hope of some finish line to this race of achievement or significance. All of us have been running that race our whole lives. But it's not a race; it's a hamster wheel. And people are killing themselves on it. Into that vicious cycle comes a word that is so different that we're afraid to believe it's true, because then it would destroy the race that we've been running. All the while, there's a figure on a cross that says, "It is finished. What I have done, am doing and will do for you is enough. It is enough. You can let go. You can come sit. I’m in no rush and I’m happy to tell you over and over again that the race is over. The race is won. “
So, to your own inner Martha - the one who insists that she “lives to serve” - Jesus has this to say: the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve. And what does he serve? What’s on the menu? He himself is the main course. His word is food that never spoils. His body is the bread of life. His blood is the cup of salvation. In a world that is passing away at warp speed it is the only thing that will never be taken from you. Amen.
