370 The Meaning of Excess

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “The Meaning of Excess”, originally shared on July 30, 2025. It was the 370^th  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.) 

   “Nothing succeeds like excess”, might be the primary life lesson now being shown by social media, reality TV, politics, professional sports, academics, and more. That is, the world. Today, we’ll see what Jesus has to show us about that.

    The reading from the gospels that will be shared in the vast majority of churches this coming Sunday is a familiar story, but nothing in it is what it appears to be.

   It starts out like a soap opera. Family drama. Greed.

   It ends up as a rebuke. A restatement of human purpose. And with an unexpected twist.

   Here’s what happens in between.

   Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem to die and a crowd of thousands had gathered around him as he was teaching his disciples. Then this happened in Luke 12:13-14,

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”

   Jesus apparently had a reputation for wisdom and some popular authority. Some random person in the crowd asked Jesus to settle a family dispute over money. My family might be in America because of this same dispute, a falling-out with a big brother.

   My paternal great-grandfather came to the United States and never had any contact with his family in Norway again. We don’t know why.

   We had always known that we must have relatives in Norway, but we didn’t know who they were because our common ancestor cut off all ties. They didn’t know that they had any family in the United States until the Internet age and we made contact.

   When Sally and James and I visited Norway in 2004, we were the first people with the family name to see our family in about 120 years. They showed me the family history book and next to our relative’s name it said, “we think he died.”

   Our common relative came to the United States during a time that Norwegians refer to as the 100-year hunger. It was also a time of primogeniture. That is, the oldest son inherited everything from his parents in order to keep the estate intact. He was made responsible for taking care of the rest of the family.

   Maybe our Norwegian relative and the man in this Bible story had the same problem. Maybe they didn’t like how their older brother was managing things. Maybe they thought they should have more.

   Jesus wasn’t going to allow himself to be drawn into family court, but he uses this request as a teachable moment about a bigger question, continuing with Luke 12:15.

15 And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

   You might have seen the 1987 movie “Wall Street” with Michael Douglas. In it, his character, Gordon Gekko, gives a speech in which he praises greed as a driving factor in the economy, a positive force in economic evolution. He says, “Greed, for want of a better word, is good.”

   Jesus says just the opposite: “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

   And then he tells them why, in the form of a parable, starting with Luke 12:16-19,

 16 Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’

   I still remember my confirmation pastor’s definition of a parable as earthly story with a single heavenly meaning. Jesus tells a parable about a guy who had storage problems, problems that are familiar to us. Most of us would not consider ourselves to be rich, but most of the world would. People are literally risking their lives to get here every day.

   “I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich. Rich is better,” is something that I first heard from comedian and philanthropist Jerry Lewis, but it’s been attributed to many. Jesus shows us a better way to be rich.

   J. Paul Getty, the founder of the Getty Oil Company, once said, “My formula for success is rise early, work late and strike oil.” 😊  His art collection formed the basis of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. What would you do with oil company money? A lot of people have lived surprisingly terrible lives after suddenly coming into that kind of money.

   But most of us would at least like to have a chance to try. 😊

   We don’t like to talk about our money, though. Especially in church.

   I don’t know why talking about our money makes us squirm a little, other than maybe we don’t want people to judge us, or we’re afraid someone will try to take it from us, or we’re embarrassed by how much or by how little we give.

   But Jesus did. Jesus talked about money, and the use of money, and the purpose of money, and the spiritual meaning of money. In fact, he spoke about money more than any other topic except the Kingdom of God.

   He knew that money is an expression of value, and how we use it is an expression of what we value.

      We can get a pretty good idea of what we value by looking at how much we need to live a decent life, and how much we freely give of the excess to serve the people who God died for.

   It’s been said that the amount of stuff we have merely expands to equal the amount of space we have to store it in.  Whole industries are built around storing our excess stuff.

   Homes for the average person have gotten bigger over the years and storage space is a huge selling point. You can buy homes with a space for one car, or you can park your car in your driveway and use the space for storage. You can buy homes with spaces for two cars. Or three. Four. Five!

   How much space do you need?

   Jesus continues, in Luke 12:20,

 20 But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’

   Leo Tolstoy, the Russian author of War and Peace and other classics, wrote a short story with a similar message called, “How Much Land Does a Man Need?”

   A man who is greedy for more land hears about a group of simple farmers with a lot of land. He offers to buy their land and offers a low price. They counter by saying that, for 1,000 rubles, he can have as much land as he can walk around from sunrise to sunset. But, if he doesn’t get back by sunset, he loses his money and gets no land.

   The man is ecstatic with getting the bargain of a lifetime. He starts walking, but every time he thinks about circling back, he thinks that if he walks a little farther he can get more land. He keeps walking. Then when he is far, far away, he makes his loop and starts running to get back in time. He makes it back to the starting point just as the sun sets, but he is exhausted, and he dies on the spot.

   He is buried in a hole 6 feet long. All the land that a man needs.

   The author of the Bible’s book Ecclesiastes questioned the meaning of life in the face of this reality in Ecclesiastes 2:18-19,

¹⁸ I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who come after me ¹⁹ —and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish? Yet they will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.

   So what is the meaning of our excess in both this world and the next? It’s found in what we do with it.

   Billy Graham once said that he had never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul. 😊

   No, you can’t take it with you, it’s been said, but you can send it on ahead.

   Jesus teaches the lesson of this parable in its conclusion, in Luke 12:21,

 21 So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

   What? Didn’t you expect to hear something about giving to the poor, or to those experiencing sudden catastrophes, or to the Church? What does he mean, “but are not rich toward God”? Does God need out money?

   Martin Luther, the 16th century Church reformer, once said, “I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.”

   Look at what Jesus doesn’t say. He doesn’t say that we don’t need money or shouldn’t have it. He condemns those who only store treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.

   What does it mean to be rich toward God?

   Tithing, or giving 10% of your income to the Church, is often mentioned as the standard for giving, but is it?

   One could argue that giving 10% is too much.

   Tithes and offerings in Jesus’ day were the only source of funds for social service programs, in addition to supporting the physical needs of worship and the Temple.

   The Romans taxed the people of Israel and used the money to build and support the Roman Empire.

   In addition, the Temple had its own tax unrelated to tithes and offerings.

   Our taxes fund socials services today, beyond what we support through our giving.

   And, even today, everybody has a good reason not to give: “I’m saving for college”, “I’m going to school”, “I’m paying off my student loans”, “I’m saving for a house”, “I just got married”, “I just started a family”, “I’m helping my children”, “I’m saving for retirement”, “I’m living on a fixed income” are all good reasons not to give anything but a token amount.

   One could also argue that just tithing is not enough, if the standard is, as Jesus said it is, being rich toward God.

   In the New Testament, the tithe was a start. Your offering didn’t start until after your tithe.

   And, if tithing is an expression of our gratitude to God, it’s pretty small. When you go to a restaurant and you leave a tip of 10% today, what does our culture say about that? You’re cheap!

   Or think about how much you give on an average Sunday. Now multiply that by ten. Could you live on that?

   Or, what if we didn’t ask ourselves how much we’re going to give, but how much we’re going to keep? Now we’re getting closer to the meaning of this parable.

   But I think that Jesus has a more enduring reason for warning us against only thinking about ourselves financially.

   It’s that we have been made new because of what Jesus did on the cross for all who believe. We are a new creation in our Baptism and through faith. God set the reset button on us, and our behavior flows from that. We are blessed.

   Money is a means for ministry, both personal and for the work of our Christian community as a whole. When we speak of being a good steward, or of stewardship, we are speaking of how we manage the money that we have been given to manage.

   Why are we blessed? The whole sweep of the Bible says that we are blessed to be a blessing. To be witnesses to the great gifts we have first received from God.

   We don’t give because we have to. We give because we want to. And if we don’t want to, if we immediately start to think about reasons why we can’t give, or won’t give past a token amount, we are not being rich toward God. We are being the opposite.

   Jesus says that that’s a spiritual problem.

   What does the Bible say is the root of all evil? It’s not money, as we see in Paul’s first letter to Timothy, in 1 Timothy 6:10,

10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

   The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

   What’s wrong with being eager to be rich? Greed is not good. It consumes the consumer.

   Even the secular world knows this. There is a popular saying among investors that, “Bears make money. Bulls make money. Pigs get slaughtered.”

   But there is a more serious danger to greed: it makes money the object of our faith.

   Martin Luther said, “Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God.” What do we put at the center of our lives? What do we turn to and trust in?

   Paul writes to the church at Corinth, in 2 Corinthians 9:7,

7 Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

   God loves a cheerful giver because giving is an expression of our relationship with God.

   We know that God knows what we need. So why are we fearful?

   What’s the stock market going to do? Should I invest in precious metals? Am I ready for the Zombie Apocalypse? Will I have enough if I live a long life? Will Social Security be there for me? Have I missed the boat with regard to bitcoin, or did I do the smart thing?

   Those are all temporary concerns.

   What is more spiritually beneficial to us, to receive or to give? We all know that one, from Paul’s words in Acts 20:35,

35 In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”  

   What is the best way to be rich toward God? Let giving flow from your heart and soul, who and whose you are, your true self. Be rich toward God, as he has been extravagant to us at the cross.

   The meaning of our excess is to serve those in need, to provide the means for Christian ministry. In fact, Jesus said, it’s more blessed.

369 Kiss Cam

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for Kiss Cam”, originally shared on July 23, 2025. It was the 369^th  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.) 

   When the world says it’s OK to judge others, is it OK? When the world mocks offerings of “thoughts and prayers”, are prayers meaningless? Today, we’re going to find out.

   A short video of a couple caught on a Kiss Cam has gone viral online and in all other forms of media.

   It shows couples on the “Kiss Cam” at a Coldplay concert near Boston last week. A camera frames a couple who look like they’re together, displays their picture on the stadium’s jumbotron and lingers on them until they kiss, and then it moves on. It’s standard entertainment at professional sports games and now, apparently, at Coldplay concerts.

   Only this time one couple was both together and not together. They were both cuddling but one of them was married and had children, and the other was divorced. Both were senior executives and co-workers for the same company.

   It took a moment for them to realize that it was them on the “Kiss Cam” and when it hit they both ducked for cover, like maybe Adam and Eve when God comes down and asks them why they were ashamed. The band’s lead singer pointed out that either they were having an affair, or they were very shy. The audience continues to laugh.

   Why?

   “Schadenfreude” is a German word that has found its way into many languages. It means pleasure that one has at someone else’s pain or misfortune. Maybe that’s why.

   “Boundaries” might be the closest word to “sin” in our increasingly secular Western culture, and maybe some thought that it was funny that the couple might have been caught crossing them.

   Maybe it’s because, even today, we are happy when the guilty are made to look ridiculous in a moral slapstick comedy.

   Maybe it was the looks on the faces of those immediately around them, the looks that suggested an open secret had now been exposed, followed by the now familiar aggressive preemptory laughter, i.e. “This is so funny and entertaining. But, we’re cool. Nothing is wrong here.”

   Maybe we like it when others are judged and brought low because it makes us feel better about ourselves, our current culture’s primary personal virtue.

   Maybe.

   But none of these reactions are rooted in Christian values. They are rooted in our increasingly Post-Christian culture, and we see why in the Gospel text that will be read in the vast majority of churches this coming Sunday, Luke 11:1-13.

   It’s about prayer and the nature of it.

   Do you know how you ought to pray? I guarantee that you don’t.

   Do you know how to breathe? Maybe yes and maybe no, but today we’re going to learn how.

   Jesus tells us about prayer and how it is connected to breathing in Luke 11:1-13. He was teaching his disciples on his way to Jerusalem to die. Jesus had been praying when they make what seems to us a strange request, in verse 1.

11¹He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”

   First, we learn from this that his disciples, who had been with him for almost three years, seeing him pray, worshiping in synagogues and in the Temple, didn’t know how to pray themselves, or at least they believed that Jesus could teach them something about how to pray.

   Second, we know that John the Baptist had his own disciples, separate from Jesus’ disciples. We know that he taught them how to pray, and we know that Jesus’s disciples wanted the same curriculum.

   And Jesus answers them in what seems to us to be an odd way. He doesn’t give them a class on how to pray. He gives them a format. He might as well have said, “Just do it!” He says, “When you pray,” in verse 2,

 ²He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.

   He doesn’t offer a manual or a seminar. He offers us a model.

   I used to run for fitness and competed in 5k and 10k road races from time to time. I ran a couple of marathons in the 1970’s, though I think that I only ran the second one because I had forgotten how bad I felt after the first one.

   One of the first magazines specializing in running was Runners World, and I subscribed.

   Dr. George Sheehan, one of the first sports doctors and himself a runner, wrote a column answering runner’s questions. One of them had to do with how to breathe!

   In the mid-1970’s, there was some controversy over whether it was better for a runner to breathe through their mouth or to breathe through their nose.

   Someone sent the question to Dr. Sheehan and his answer was something like, “Breathe through your nose. Breathe through your mouth. Suck it in through your ears if you can. Just get it in there!”

   Jesus offers a similar answer to the question of how to pray. His answer begins, “When you pray.”

   He continues with what we know as the Lord’s Prayer, going on with verses 3-4,

 ³Give us each day our daily bread.

 ⁴And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.”

   So, can we only pray for bread? And, on what basis can we ask God to forgive our sins, big and little, and the separation from God that they produce? Does God lead us to the time of trial, or “into temptation”?

   I’m glad you asked, and I’m not going to answer these questions myself. 😊

   I’m going to recommend that you buy a copy of Martin Luther’s Small Catechism, a pamphlet-sized book in which he provides answers to the basic questions of the Christian faith. Kind of a “What Every Christian Needs to Know” book.

   You can buy a copy online or download one for free from the Google Play store or from the Apple App Store. Concordia Publishing has one online now and Augsburg Fortress has a free web app version available through their web site. Project Guttenberg has an eBook version.

   The Christian life is not just knowing the answers, though. It’s living them.

   We are sinners and deserve to experience the just consequences of our Sin. But God is merciful. We see how, beginning with verses 5-6,

 ⁵And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; ⁶for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’

 ⁷And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ ⁸I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

   So, is prayer about wearing God down to get what we want, like a child begs to go to the beach, “Pleeease….pleeeease….pleeease….? Until their parents relent because they are so annoying? No. Jesus encourages us to pray with confidence in God’s power and goodness, starting with verses 9-10,

 ⁹“So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. ¹⁰For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 

   So is prayer a magic formula? Is it like in Harry Potter, where you just have to wave a wand and say something in Latin and it happens?

   Some people say so. At least that’s the way they act. They think that God is like their personal cosmic bell boy. Their servant. And they are grossly disappointed when God doesn’t come through. They say, “God didn’t answer my prayer!”

   The thing is, though, that “No” is an answer, too. “Wait until the time is right” is an answer. “Yes” is an answer, but, unfortunately, for some it is the only acceptable answer. “Entitlement” can be the attitude of some Christians, too.

   Ruth Graham, Billy Graham’s wife, once said, “God has not always answered my prayers. If He had, I would have married the wrong man -- several times!”

   How does God answer our prayers? Jesus answers in verse 11.

¹¹Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?

   Maybe a filet-o-fish sandwich or some fish and chips would be more appetizing, but you get the idea. He continues in verse 12,

 ¹²Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? 

   No parent would do that.

   So, what do those things tell us about prayer? He answers in verse 13.

¹³If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

   Pope Francis, the pope before the current one, was once being interviewed by Italian media and mentioned that he sometimes fell asleep while praying. The interviewer, amused, asked if that was “allowed”. Pope Francis answered that fathers love it when their child falls asleep in their arms.

   That is the love of our ‘heavenly father’, and what does Jesus say God would give us if we asked? The Holy Spirit.

   What? I was hoping for something more practical. Is that what people actually pray for? Is that what you pray for? The Holy Spirit?

   The thing is that we are all God’s saints, but we are also sinners, separated from God by our Sin. We naturally only pray for what we think that we want and need. We don’t know how to pray as we ought As Paul writes to the church at Rome in Romans 8:26-27,

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

   We don’t know how to pray, but the Spirit helps us in our weakness. And how does the Spirit pray? “According to the will of God.”

   God knows what we need before we ask. When we pray, we aren’t telling God something that God doesn’t already know. We only ask for God’s will to be done.

   As Pastor Rick Warren once said, we don’t pray that God will bless what we are doing. We pray that we will do what God is blessing.

   Praying is talking with God. With God.

   I once heard of the South Korean pastor of what was then the largest church in the world, Rev. Dr. Paul Yonggi Cho saying that he routinely got up before dawn and prayed for several hours a day. (He required his assistant pastors to pray for three hours a day.) An interviewer commented that he wouldn’t know what to say for three hours. Pastor Cho said that he wouldn’t either. At some point, he said, he needs to stop and listen.

   Martin Luther, the 16^th Century Church reformer once said something similar: “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.”

   What do we do when we talk with people? We don’t talk all the time.

   What we say and what we hear depends upon our relationship with them. How close we are. Do we trust them? Do we have a past together? How familiar are we with one another?

   That is how to pray. Prayer is an expression of our relationship with God.

   So people pray based on how they believe God to be. Some believe God to be a stern judge, a punisher, displeased, angry, and strict.

   Jesus portrays God as a Father. A good father. A father who knows how to give the best gift: the Holy Spirit, the key to everything good, to his children.

   That’s why I believe in the power of God not in the power of prayer itself. Faithfulness is an expression of who we are, a new creation, and not of what we do. Faithfulness in marriage is an expression of God’s faithfulness. One relationship is an expression of the other.

   That’s why sharing our faith with others gets better as we open our hearts to allow God to change who we are, to make us a new creation, more and more in God’s image, and not by depending on pastors to do it, or on programs. It flows naturally.

   You may have seen the bumper sticker or the bracelet or the slogan that says, “Prayer changes things.” I don’t believe that.

   I don’t believe that prayer changes things. I believe that God changes things. In fact, we are so changed it is like we are born again! We are made new! We are a new creation in the living relationship with the one true living God for which were made through the Holy Spirit!

   Have you ever been talking with someone and then come to silence when everything that needs to be said has been said and you are content just to be with them?

   Likewise, prayer doesn’t even require words, heard or spoken. Sometimes prayer is just being with God.

   The world scoffs at “thoughts and prayers” in answer to life’s catastrophes. We sometimes even scoff ourselves when we say things like, “Well, all we can do now is pray.”

   Likewise, the world is quick to judge Christians as being “too judgmental”, while not being willing to be held responsible for any moral code at all, outside of themselves.

   That’s another reason that the world was so fascinated by the probable adultery and public humiliation on a Kiss Cam last week. They saw themselves on full display.

   When I was teaching on the meaning of Sin, I sometimes asked my Confirmation class students if they would be willing to walk around all day with a monitor above their heads that would show everyone what they were thinking about all day long? No one volunteered. 😊 Would you?

   And yet, God became a human being in Jesus Christ for us. He was fully God and also fully human, because he loved us. We are no longer fascinated by sin, but by the love of God.

   Last week, we looked at what is probably the most memorized verse in the Bible, John 3:16,

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

   But have you ever considered John 3:17?

¹⁷ “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

   That is the answer we have to the Kiss Cams of this world, and to everything that defies God and condemns us: God desires a living, eternal relationship with us through a living faith.

   Think about all the things that the disciples had seen Jesus accomplish over the three years that they were with him in his public ministry. What is the one thing that they asked Him to teach them how to do? Pray. To grow in a living, eternal relationship with God!

   That right there is a significant lesson on the importance of prayer and the power of Jesus.

   Do you know how you ought to pray? No. But we have God’s answer for that in the Holy Spirit, and we see it for us on the cross.

   Believe it, live it, and share it today.

 

368 How to Live Again

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “How to Live Again”, originally shared on July 16, 2025. It was the 368^th  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.) 

   It’s been said that what we do is how we make a living but who we are is how we make a life. Today, we’re going to find out about which is more necessary.

   A rabbi was once approached by a student who asked him, “Rabbi, how can I live without making mistakes?” The Rabbi answered, “Gain experience”.

   The student replied, “How can I gain experience?” The Rabbi answered, “Make mistakes”.

   We can learn a lot things in a classroom, but many of the things we learn about how to live come through experiences, and sometimes it’s through bad experiences. We learn things the hard way.

   I studied in high school, but I was also heavily involved in music, drama, leadership, athletics, and many other things. I was active in most aspects of our church.

   One day, I had not finished a paper that was due for my “College Prep” English class and I went to the teacher’s office after school, where he was grading that day’s papers. I told him that I was sorry that I hadn’t turned in the paper on time, but that I was very busy and would turn it in as soon as I had time.

   I thought that he’d be appreciative and sympathetic. He wasn’t.

   He rocked back in his chair, looked over his reading glasses at me, and said, “David, we do the things we love. If we don’t have time, we make time.”

   After years of college and seminary and life-long learning, I still consider him to be one of my five best teachers, not necessarily among my five favorite teachers, 😊, but he was among the best.

   Martha learned a lesson like that from a pretty good teacher (😊) in the Gospel reading that will be shared in the vast majority churches this coming Sunday, Luke 10:38-42.

   Like Martha, we are all surrounded with many claims on our time and on our lives. Voices all around us tell us what we should think, what we should do, what we should look like, how we should vote, and what we should need. What is the one thing that is needed?

   In our Gospel reading, Jesus and his twelve hungry disciples show up at Martha’s family’s home in Bethany, near Jerusalem, where she lived with her two siblings, Mary and Lazarus, and she was busy.

   I was the first-born in my parents’ family. I tell my three younger siblings that they should be grateful that I was such a good baby because our parents said, “We want three more of those!” 😊

   My mother had four babies in five years. I was actually four years old when her fourth child was born; two weeks later though I would be five, and she was busy!

   The oldest sibling in birth order is usually “the responsible one,” because they grow up taking care of the younger siblings.

   We were so close together in age, though, that we somewhat grew up together. I don’t recall being consciously aware of being responsible for my siblings, just the slightly oldest.

   When you read or hear the story of Jesus and Mary and Martha, though, don’t you get a clear picture of their birth order?

   The Bible doesn’t say it, but don’t you just picture Martha as the older responsible sister, and Mary as the younger one craving attention? Parenting sometimes contributes to this.

   I read about a comedian who came from a large family saying that her mother had once told her that when her oldest sister coughed, she called the ambulance, but when her youngest brother swallowed a dime her mother said, “That’s coming out of your allowance.” 😊

   I once heard Garrison Keillor, humorist, author, and host of the public radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion”, observe that with the first child you're panicky, with the second one your nervous, with the third you're skittish, and after that it's just pure entertainment.

   I asked my dad what he thought about that, and he said that he wouldn’t say it was pure entertainment, but it did get easier.

   Here’s what happened when Jesus encounters the sisters Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38,

³⁸Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 

   Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. He and his disciples stopped at Bethany, about two miles east of Jerusalem over the Mount of Olives, at the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus, his best friends in the world, at his home away from home. It was Lazarus who Jesus later raised from the dead but who doesn’t appear in this story.

   Luke tells us that Martha welcomed Jesus and the disciples into “her” home. It was very unusual for a woman to be the head of the house. Scholars think that Martha may have been a widow. One of my favorite preachers, King Duncan, points out that name Martha means “lady” or “mistress of the house”. Maybe her name changed to fit her new self at some point.

   We also can picture a rather large house for the time, stocked with enough food to care for thirteen hungry men at a moment’s notice.

   We also know that she was brave, as the authorities were looking for a way to kill Jesus, so it was dangerous for anyone to be known to befriend and care for him.

   Then, Luke reveals something more, in verse 39,

³⁹She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 

   To say that she “sat at the Lord’s feet” was an expression meaning that she was receiving formal training from Jesus. In Acts 22:3 St. Paul declares that,

3 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, educated strictly according to our ancestral law, being zealous for God, just as all of you are today.

   St. Paul sat at the feet of Rabbi Gamaliel one of the most respected rabbis in the history of Judaism. Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus.

   Some of us remember a time when there were very clear expectations for what was considered “men’s work” and “women’s work”.

   Mary was doing what would have been considered “man’s work.” A woman being taught by a respected teacher like Jesus would have been actively discouraged and almost nonexistent. A husband would not even teach his wife in Mary’s time. Men’s and women’s worlds didn’t mix.

   Martha took on the more traditional role, and was not happy that Mary didn’t, as we see in verse 40,

⁴⁰But 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.”

   We see how much things have changed when we hear this story and wonder, “Well what about the disciples? Why didn’t they offer to get up and help?”  

   Theirs was a different culture It wouldn’t even have occurred to them.

   Martha speaks directly to Jesus as one used to having authority in her home, also a surprising attitude for a woman in Jesus’ day.

   Jesus knows something that the others don’t, however. Jesus speaks as one who knows that his time on this earth is short.

   Jesus sees that Martha is distracted by what she sees in front of her.

   We’ve been concerned lately about the seemingly indiscriminate raids on places that may or may not contain people who are not in our country legally. We could not be blamed for looking over our shoulders when we go out to carry out our responsibilities.

   Martha was no doubt worried about carrying out her responsibilities, knowing that Jesus had attracted negative talk among the religious, political and military authorities.

   She was the responsible one, though, and we couldn’t function, in the Church and anywhere else, without people like Martha. I mean, as a Bible study I once read on this passage asked, “Who would you rather work for, Mary or Martha?” And, “Who would you rather have working for you, Mary or Martha?”

   For Martha, though, her worries had become a distraction. We see it in verse 41,

⁴¹But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 

   I read a little book on time management once called “The Tyranny of the Urgent”. Its point is to learn to separate the urgent daily demands from what is enduringly important.

   Like the guy I read about who said, “I live every day as if it were my last. That’s why I never do laundry. Because who wants to do laundry on the last day of their life?” 😊 Urgent or important?

   Martin Luther, the 16^th century Church reformer, was reportedly digging a hole to plant an apple tree when a member of his church stopped by to talk about the member’s belief that they were living in the end times. He asked, “Dr. Luther, what would you do if you knew that the world was going to end tomorrow?” Luther replied, “I’d plant my apple tree.” Urgent or important?

   Martha wanted to know who was going to feed all those hungry men? Who was going to fulfill the cultural demands of hospitality? Who was going to set out the dishes and set-up the chairs. All urgent, but Jesus encouraged her to consider what was of enduring importance in that moment.

   Providing hospitality in your home is encouraged throughout the Bible. Some people consider it a spiritual gift.

   I took a continuing education class at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena by Dr. Peter Wagner, who had written books on the subject.

   He said that, as a former missionary family, they were often asked to house and feed visiting missionaries in their home. When such an event was about to take place, everyone in his family knew their jobs. They planned every minute, cleaned the house, stocked the refrigerator, treated their guests like royalty and when the visit was over, they collapsed in a heap, exhausted.

   They did not, he said, have the gift of hospitality.

   People with the gift of hospitality open their homes in such a way that you feel like you belong there, without any need to impress. They give themselves to their guests.

   What was needed? What was more important than what was urgent? Jesus says it in verse 42,

⁴²there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

   Food and drink are urgent needs but satisfying them is temporary.

   There’s a diner near our home, Mr. D’s Diner, that is known for its large portions. A page in its old menu referenced this with the observation, “The trouble with our portions is that four or five days after eating here, you’re hungry again.” 😊

   What endures? What is the better part, what some translations call “the better portion”?

   In the 1991 movie “City Slickers” with Billy Crystal and Jack Palance, a group of friends from the city sign-up to go to a dude ranch for an adventure in the midst of their mid-life crises. They are charged with moving the ranch’s herd of cattle to a lower valley, which becomes more and more difficult as they go.

   Everyone admires the foreman, Curly (played by Jack Palance), because he seems to have his life together while theirs are falling apart. At one point the character played by Billy Crystal asks Curly about the secret of life.

   Curly holds up one index finger and rides away. One thing. It’s keeping your focus on one thing.

   What is the one thing that is needed? What endures?

   A living relationship with the one true living God, the one thing for which we were created.

   It’s been said that human beings have a God shaped hole, and that we cannot experience the wholeness for which we were created until it is filled.

   That is the one thing for which the Church exists, and for which we exist. To bring people to that wholeness of body, mind and spirit through a living relationship with the one true living God that has been God’s desire for us from the beginning of our creation. The one thing that God finally gave his life for on the cross.

   What defines our lives? What shapes everything about us?

   Only one thing is needed, everything else is merely urgent.

   We’ve been thinking a lot about those who have lost their lives in the floods throughout our country in the past weeks, particularly in the hill country of Texas, particularly the children swept away from a Christian camp. A Christians camp. How can that happen?

   Some might look at that news and say that no God would allow that to happen. There must not be a God.

   Others will go through that experience of losing a child, an unimaginable horror, and say that they don’t know how they would get through it without their faith in God.

   The fact is that the world is not the way it’s supposed to be. It was broken by people who believed the lie that they could be like God, and that that, frankly, they would do a much better job. That’s how evil enters the world every time, and it breaks us. And we are cut off from God, dead in our sin.

   God does not reject us, though. Instead, in the most important verse in the Bible, in what Martin Luther called the Gospel in miniature, in what, if you had only memorized one verse from the Bible, that would be it, we see God’s disposition toward us, in John 3:16,

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

   Our saving relationship with God is restored at the cross for all who believe and are baptized.

   There it is that we learn to live again. It is the one thing that is needful.