I’ve been thinking a lot about my ordination this week. Yesterday, Emily and I attended the funeral for one of the members from my internship congregation, Randi, who was the first person to ever call me her pastor. Many months before I was ordained, she would tell me that she saw me as her pastor, even when we weren’t supposed to use that title until after our ordination. In talking about the experience with my therapist at that time, who was also an ordained minister, she told me something that has stuck with me all these years later: our service of ordination is an outward acceptance and celebration of our call to ministry, but our actual ordination happens when people trust us to be their pastor. I think about those words a lot whenever I reflect on what this call means to me. It’s what keeps me grounded, especially when the list of all the other things to do for this job feels more urgent; sometimes, I just need to set it aside in order to show up and be present.
The other specific portion of my ordination that I’ve been thinking about is the section that we call the vows, where after each question, we respond: “I will, and I ask God to help me.” I know that’s the response to these specific questions, but as I listen to our readings this week, I can’t help but think about how this is such a good foundation for our daily life of faith too. If this is a response that we all carry in our hearts, it changes the way that we understand our faith. This “I will, and I ask God to help me,” becomes our response to the commandments. Acknowledging that sometimes we are broken people, that we make mistakes, that we do not always say and act how we wish we would have. It creates space for the messiness of humanity while also calling us back to the heart of God’s grace.
With all of that in mind, I want to look at the Mary and Martha story from today’s Gospel. Because throughout church history, we have always seemed to label Mary as the good, faithful one, while Martha is judged for her distractions from the importance of Jesus’ teachings. Maybe I always want to jump to Martha’s defense because I see so much of myself in her. One of the sermon resources I receive every week even had a subject line this week of: “Do you have a Jesus Deficit Disorder?” equating busyness with forgetting about God. I’m happy to talk more after worship on why I found this title problematic, but I’ll try to make sure my sermon doesn’t run for an hour talking about it now. Without even naming Martha, it’s clear that this is a judgement about her lack of focus on Jesus’ teachings. Throughout history then, Martha has become a derogatory name thrown out when we want to judge people for their supposed lack of faith. By simply viewing this story in a good and bad binary, we remove these two women from the context in which they are living and existing. Why does Martha get so much judgement when there are still daily needs that require attending to, especially with all of the teachings that women received about hospitality?
To jump back to the Genesis reading quickly, even Sarah is stuck away in the tent preparing food, not interacting with these visitors who tell Abraham this life-changing news that Sarah is going to have a child. Abraham is praised for his hospitality, when he didn’t even do any of the work, it was all left to Sarah and the servants, the unnamed and unseen behind Abraham’s generous hospitality! This feels like a dismissal, an unspoken moral judgement that hospitality and relational work are less important than the teachings about faith. This doesn’t even skim the surface surrounding gender roles and the reality that women in Scripture and society were more frequently the ones attending to everyone else’s needs while the men sat and listened to Jesus. However, as communal people, these two things should both be included in the heart of our faith, as a people who are given the commandment to love God and love our neighbor. So, what if instead of seeing this as a judgement against Martha, Jesus is offering her an invitation to set down the usual roles placed upon women in order to receive the same care and teaching that the men do. This would completely change our understanding of the story because it would become about what Jesus is offering to her instead of just a scolding to stop caring about the seemingly unimportant things she is so worried about. It is an expansion of who is included in the promises of God.
In our own lives, I think that we are constantly shifting between being more like Mary at times and more like Martha at other times. There are times when our faith is expressed by going to worship or reading the Scripture, and other times where it will be through feeding our loved ones or caring for our bodies. There are some weeks where our faith is intentionally at the center, and other weeks where it feels like it’s been put to the backburner because of everything else that is happening in life. This, “I will, and I ask God to help me,” is meant to help draw us back when we get distracted by the worries and tasks that draw us away from what truly matters. Sometimes, this is something that we will say to ourselves, but frequently this nudging is something that we need to hear from other people. It’s why being a part of a faith community is such a beautiful thing because we are here to support and encourage one another, not in judgment but in care.
For me this past week, I was getting a lot of those promptings, because yes, even pastors need them too! I was so preoccupied and worried about all the things on my list to get done for work, both the things that needed to be done (like writing this sermon) and the things that I already hadn’t done in three years so last week probably wasn’t going to be the week they got done anyway. But, because of my focus on this list, I was prepared to say no to some gatherings that ended up being exactly what I needed. I may not have had as much time to start editing the bulletins for August, but I was able to gather with colleagues in what felt like a holy gathering as we listened and supported one another in a time that can feel so isolating and fear filled. Sometimes we need help remembering what is most important when everything feels so overwhelming.
It matters to me that we share these stories in the midst of the usual dialogue surrounding Mary and Martha, and especially as we hear the words from Paul to the Colossians today. Paul talks about being blameless and irreproachable before God (Colossians 1:22-23) and presenting people who are “mature in Christ” (Colossians 1: 28). When we take them out of the context in which Paul is speaking to them, it just feels like a whole big list of unattainable standards that are being handed down to us, in a way that tempts us toward seeing faith as something that can be perfected instead of something that is living and embodied. If we view our relationship with God as just that, relational, then our faith creates space for us to continue learning and growing. It allows us to live into our values and seek to follow our commandments, while acknowledging that none of that is even possible without God’s grace. It shifts our perspective back to faith being communal and relational, rather than something individual that can be perfected or that ever reaches a specific endpoint.
The reality of our lives is that there will be things that distract us and sidetrack us from the things that we truly value as the most important. That’s not even to say that all of those things are bad, but it’s just reality of life, no matter what stage of life we are in. The to-do lists will always feel longer than the days and there will likely be many times when we look back and wonder why we made the choices that we did. But, in all of that, there is grace to learn and to grow, to be human and make mistakes. These stories are an invitation from God to set down our burdens, even for a little while, to be cared for too. An invitation into rest, hope, and trust; to truly hear the promises of God and have them settle in our hearts, holding to the reminder that these promises include us too.
If anything, I want today’s sermon to be a reminder that you do not have to go through it all alone. From the people in this congregation to your friends and family and to asking for God to help and guide us, we do not have to carry the weight and burden of the world solely on our shoulders. Instead, may we recognize when that help comes, and may we offer assistance in return, as we see that the connection between people is part of the holy workings of God too. To take to heart that it is okay to be cared for instead of just always doing the caring. May we know, that whether we are more like Mary or more like Martha today, that the kindom of God is big enough to include both, as we face day, each moment, echoing in our hearts, “I will, and I ask God to help me,” never knowing in what form that help may come.
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Sunday July 13th, 2025 Worship