Genesis 18:1-14

Luke 10:38-42 word count: 1,860

For the last three years, I was a part of a group of twenty-nine preachers who came together in Chicago looking for ways to be better in their ministry. As we went around the room introducing ourselves on the first night, there were remarkable similarities in our stories. All of us expressed a love for our congregations and our calling. All of us said in different ways that we needed a jump-start, a new energy, a new focus, and a sense of clarity about what we were doing. We had come to Chicago to rediscover that keystone that had been so central and so clear at our ordinations. What was the important thing, the guiding metaphor, the all-important focus?

I know I was in good company when I reflected back on the experience. Not once at any time did any pastor ever say one unkind word or any funny story at the expense of a church member. It simply would not have been in their mindset to do so. In fact, one night while we were having dinner, one pastor received a call on her cell phone, telling her that a member of her church had died. She burst into tears after she hung up. We sat together and let her tell us all about him, and his surviving wife. We prayed together for them and for her church, we talked about what she might do when she got back, and we shared stories about the people whose health we have the greatest concerns for right now.

Apart from that, the stories we told were on ourselves. After our closing chapel service, we went to one of the university rathskellers, where I challenged everyone to tell their most embarrassing moment in ministry. The challenge was accepted, but only if I started and set the bar.

A few years ago I was asked to perform the wedding of an old friend from High School. We were in a small and dowdy Kiwanis hall near the beach. The tables had been set up for the reception along either side of the wedding aisle, which led up to a fireplace over which hung some bad taxidermy—it might have been the head of a wart hog. (I had my back to it during the service.) There was a Hawaiian theme, so everyone, myself and the wart hog included, wore Hawaiian lei’s. All of this lent the impression that the wedding ceremony might be some kind of interactive dinner-theatre.

I had a body-mike, much like the one I am wearing now, except that it wasn’t wireless. It had a long wire that went down my robe and out the back. I needed to remember that I had limited mobility. I really needed to remember that.

At the end of the ceremony, I stood there looking at this old friend of mine and her new husband, and I thought that I should do something unrehearsed and walk out behind them in the recessional as a sign of friendship and solidarity. After only a few steps, the wire lost its slack and pulled up my robe in the back as it twitched back and forth like a tail in its journey over the head table. I looked less like a preacher and more like one of the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz.

Once my “tail” had taken out a few wine glasses, an event that I was reverently unaware of, it grabbed the floral centerpiece and pulled it into the lap of someone at the table. The last words you hear on the video are, “Somebody stop him,” which I know to be true because the camera operator was the one who had to stop what he was doing to get me to cease my trail of terror down the wedding aisle.

After hearing similar stories from the preachers around me, we went back to what it was we took home with us each year—a renewed energy, a recognition that we are painfully human, a desire to bring our work to another level, and a sense of focus.

What is central, what is at the core that motivates us, how do we keep from getting derailed? It’s about having a sense of our purpose or mission, motivated by love and coupled with faith in our purpose that keeps us moving.

It is so easy to be where we are supposed to be, and yet to be so distracted by the other stuff around us that we lose that focus. Listen to how it happens to Martha in our gospel story today:

“Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’

But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’”

He nails two of the ways in which we lose sight of what is truly important. Who among us has not been worried, or even has spent a good amount of time concentrating on worries? Someone once said that worry has been defined as “a small trickle of fear that meanders through the mind until it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.” Worry is debilitating.

The other way is through distraction—at no other time in history have we been given so many means of distraction—through pressures of career and home, through the complexities of living in this culture, through the availability of so many different forms of media that are capable of bringing any kind of information (biased or not) to us at any time—all of these add up to ways in which any kind of central focus can be constantly eroded.

I was thinking about my own central focus—is my personal mission statement still the same as it was a year ago? The answer is “yes”—but I always have to cut through a lot of the distractions that surround me to see it.

What about you?

The leadership of our church met yesterday as part of a two-day retreat, and it was a good way to get to know each other better and take some time to focus on our mission and our vision. It was also a time to see where we are now, and where it is that we agree we can move to together as a church. Taking time to get anchored in what our mission is as an organization is time well spent.

Laurie Beth Jones wrote a book called, “The Path”, which is about the importance of having an individual mission statement. Could you state your own in a sentence or two? Jones says that in a world in which we are daily forced to make decisions that lead us either closer to or further from our goals, a brief, succinct, and focused statement of purpose that we can use to evaluate, and refine our life’s activities is a useful tool.

I was once taught a little exercise that stays with me to this day, and I would like to share it with you right now in its simplest form—if you have a pen and paper, it would be helpful.

Here it is: Think of the three most important aspects of your life right now. Get them in your head as three separate and distinct things. What are the three most important aspects of your life?

Got them down? Good. Now take one away—you can’t keep it anymore. The rules have changed—you can only have two top priorities. What is left?

Now—here is the hardest part. Another aspect of your life has to be sacrificed—just for the purpose of this exercise—you can collect it at the door. But for now, what would go?

And now finally, what is left? What is the most important aspect of your life that above all else, would stay with you when the others have to go?

I don’t know what each of you chose, and I won’t ask you to tell me unless you want to. But I will hazard a guess, and you can tell me if I’m wrong. Your choice is anchored in a deep sense of caring, a concentration of love, and a measure of faith—all wrapped up in your sense of purpose. This is the better part of you, and the better part of me.

It’s hard to see it through all of the cares and concerns that surround us, but it is there.

“Jesus answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’”

William Barclay once said, “There are two great days in a person’s life—the day we are born and the day we discover why.”

For some, it takes longer than others—just look at Abraham and Sarah; ripe in age and settling in towards the end of their lives, and the purpose for which they had been born is revealed to them in their nineties—they would be known as the parents of a great nation. In fact, Jews, and Christians will call Abraham and Sarah the parents of their faith through the line of Isaac, and Muslims will look to Abraham and Hagar through the line of Ishmael, from whom Mohammed is believed to have been descended.

Sarah laughed when she heard that she would have a child—she was ninety at the time. But in the scripture we hear, “Why did Sarah laugh? Is anything too wonderful to be accomplished with God?” (paraphrase)

Anything can happen. At any time—“God is still speaking” and we constantly listen, hear and discern what it is we were born to take up. The scripture today seems to point to narrowing the focus to what the better part of our lives is all about, and trusting that anything is possible.

Like my colleagues in Chicago, we come to places like this to go gain more understanding of how we relate to our higher purpose and connection to God, and go home with renewed energy, the recognition that we are painfully human and that is something we share with every other person, the desire to bring our work and our lives to another level, and a sense of focus. If there are two great days in a person’s life—the day we are born and the day we discover why, let this be the place where we know, search for and find that great second day. This is the better part of you, and the better part of me. AMEN.

Scripture for Sunday, July 18, 2004

Proper 11 C

Genesis 18:1-14

The LORD appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mam’re, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. He said, “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest

yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh your-selves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.”

So they said, “Do as you have said.” And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, “Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.” Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

They said to him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?”

The LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too wonderful for the LORD? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.”