**Please note this service is based on the
format of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada. Unless otherwise
indicated, all prayers come from Evangelical Lutheran Worship (ELW). Hymns and
other prayers have been sourced to give appropriate credit.
**NRSV translation used for the readings, unless
otherwise stated.
Introduction to the day
Perhaps
the church, at its best, is “all ears.” God urges the faithful, again and
again, to “listen up!”—to heed the word that gives life. So it was with Abraham
and Sarah, Mary and Martha, and the early church at Colossae. So it is today as
we join the assembly to hear the word of God, the word of life.
Gathering
Song – Gather
Us In (ELW #532)
Listen Here
Greeting
The
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God,
and
the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
And
also with you.
Prayer
of the Day
Let
us pray.
Eternal
God, you draw near to us in Christ, and you make yourself our guest. Amid the
cares of our lives, make us attentive to your presence, that we may treasure
your word above all else, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
Amen.
Readings
A
reading from Amos. (8:1-12)
This is what the Lord GOD showed me—a basket of summer
fruit. He said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer
fruit.” Then the LORD said to me,
“The end has come upon my people Israel;
I will never again pass them by.
The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,”
says the Lord GOD;
“the dead bodies shall be many,
cast out in every place. Be silent!”
Hear this, you that trample on the needy,
and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
saying, “When will the new moon be over
so that we may sell grain;
and the sabbath,
so that we may offer wheat for sale?
We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,
and practice deceit with false balances,
buying the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”
The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
Shall not the land tremble on this account,
and everyone mourn who lives in it,
and all of it rise like the Nile,
and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of
Egypt?
On that day, says the Lord GOD,
I will make the sun go down at noon,
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
I will turn your feasts into mourning,
and all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth on all loins,
and baldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning for an only son,
and the end of it like a bitter day.
The time is surely coming, says the Lord GOD,
when I will send a famine on the land;
not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the LORD.
They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD,
but they shall not find it.
The
word of the Lord.
Thanks
be to God.
Psalm
52
Listen Here
Why
do you boast, O mighty one,
of mischief done against the godly?
All day long you are plotting destruction.
Your
tongue is like a sharp razor,
you worker of treachery.
You
love evil more than good,
and lying more than speaking the
truth.
You
love all words that devour,
O deceitful tongue.
But
God will break you down for ever;
he will snatch and tear you from your tent;
he will uproot you from the land of the
living.
The
righteous will see, and fear,
and will laugh at the evildoer, saying,
‘See
the one who would not take
refuge in God,
but
trusted in abundant riches,
and sought refuge in wealth!’
But
I am like a green olive tree
in the house of God.
I
trust in the steadfast love of God
for ever and ever.
I
will thank you for ever,
because of what you have done.
In
the presence of the faithful
I will proclaim your name, for it is good.
A
reading from the Letter of Paul to the Colossians. (1:15-28)
[Christ Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the
firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were
created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers
or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is
before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the
body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he
might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of
God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to
himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the
blood of his cross.
And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing
evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to
present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him—provided that you
continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from
the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to
every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a servant of this gospel.
I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in
my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake
of his body, that is, the church. I became its servant according to God’s
commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the
mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now
been revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among
the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in
you, the hope of glory. It is he whom we proclaim, warning everyone and
teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in
Christ.
The
word of the Lord.
Thanks
be to God.
The
Lord be with you.
And
also with you.
The Holy
Gospel according to Luke. (10:38-42)
Glory
to you, O Lord.
Now as [Jesus and his disciples] 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.”
The Gospel
of the Lord.
Praise
to you, O Christ.
Sermon
May our eyes see, our
ears hear, and your words be written on our hearts. Amen
The
gospel passage this week is the very familiar story of Mary and Martha, two
sisters seemingly pitted against each other about who is serving Jesus better.
This
competition between Mary and Martha has always been the typical understanding
of this story.
Mary,
the ever-loving disciple who sits obediently at Jesus’ feet and is often
described as the ultimate goal for all Christians.
Martha,
the always-busy never-just-sitting-and-listening host who cries to Jesus about
how she has to do all the work while Mary just sits there at Jesus’ feet.
The
common lesson being a plea for us to be less like Martha and more like Mary.
But
this is an awful lesson, one that pits two sisters against each other, that
pits women against each other, and pits each of us against the other.
And
it’s high time we changed the tune on this sisterly story.
Two things can be seen in
the intro verses: Martha received Jesus alone, and BOTH she and Mary were his
disciples. Lots, if not most, translations skip the word “ALSO” which is
clearly present in the Greek, indicating that Mary AND Martha were “sitters at
the Lord’s feet.”
This notion of “sitting
at the Lord’s feet” was common vernacular at the time indicating discipleship.
These two sisters were disciples of Jesus — Martha in the village of Bethany;
Mary out with other disciples in the countryside as a traveling disciple.
Two sisters, two
followers of Jesus, and two diverging possibilities for discipleship.
Martha is described as the
“active” one, rushing around, busying herself with the demanding practicalities
of life.
Mary, on the other
hand, is the “contemplative” one, resting attentively at Jesus’ feet, engaged
in a more conventionally prayerful, intellectual encounter with her Lord.
So here’s the trick
question: Are you a Mary or a Martha? Busy or mindful? Striving or tranquil?
Because the scripture says,
“Mary has chosen the better part”, Mary’s prayerful receptivity is the one to
which we are taught to aspire.
But is Mary’s discipleship
better than Martha’s, or just different? Asking yourself if you are Mary or
Martha is a trick question.
It is a trick question
because it is not the choice that Jesus, by way of this text, asks us to make.
Jesus is not pitting the sisters against one another, nor is he creating a
hierarchy of modes of discipleship.
The dichotomies that we
read into the text are our own fabrications, borne of our own desire to render
the world intelligible through categories and labels.
We do this all the
time, in ways both benign (like the roles we take on in a group of friends) and
destructive (like the reductive stereotypes that continue to harm people at the
margins).
This is not Jesus’
agenda. When he tells Martha that Mary has “chosen the better part” he is not
challenging Martha’s “personality,” nor is he even rejecting Martha’s present
busyness, but is instead gently calling her back to the fullness of herself,
reminding her of both the ground of her being and the purpose of all of this
good, hard, and necessary work: namely, himself.
Martha lives and
serves, as we all do, in the name of Jesus. The word used throughout the New
Testament is diakonian, which means ministry – the work of ministers, deacons, apostles,
disciples, pastors, prophets.
In this passage,
however, translators have used “tasks” or “things”. In reality, Martha, a
disciple of Jesus, is overwhelmed not by menial tasks but by ministry.
The cooking and the
cleaning and the mending and the tending of small, daily things – all of this
holds the possibility of divine inbreaking, but only when those things are done
in mindfulness of God’s ever-present love.
But It’s not just
cooking and cleaning; it’s all the work related to ministry. Meaning Martha is
making meals for the community, getting groceries for the poor, praying with
people, visiting prisoners, taking care of kids, and doing all the other daily
labor of a minister.
And Martha is tired.
Have you ever wondered
why Mary does not speak in this passage? Mary does not speak, because Mary is
not there! In the passage, Martha and Jesus discuss Mary, but the subject of
their conversation never chimes in.
Martha approaches Jesus
with a question, “Do you not care that my sister regularly leaves me to
minister alone? Tell her therefore that she may give me a hand.” We can surmise
that Martha wants Jesus to relay to Mary that she needs help with her many
unnamed diakonia obligations.
Jesus answers Martha,
“Mary has chosen agatha.” This word does not have to be translated as
“better or best.” It can simply mean “good.” Jesus is saying that Mary has
chosen “good”, and he is not going to call Mary away from her activity to go
back to the village to help Martha. In this moment, Jesus confirms the validity
of Mary’s choice.
Martha has confronted
Jesus and told him to command Mary back home, and instead he calls her into
herself and names all the real anxiety and fatigue that she’s tried to bury
with the busyness of ministry.
This passage from Luke is an endorsement of women in mission or ministry away
from home. But, at the same time, Jesus does not denigrate the in-village
discipleship of Martha. Jesus defends Mary’s calling but does not dismiss
Martha’s call to practical service.
Two sisters, two
followers of Jesus, two different callings according to their abilities and
circumstances.
What Jesus offers is
not a competition between Mary and Martha as archetypes of greater and lesser
discipleship, nor a distinction between the relative virtues of being and doing.
Instead, he provides the
continuous and crucial choice that each of us must make, in all that we do,
between remembering Jesus or forgetting him.
This is a Gospel story
that calls us to remember. This is a Gospel story in which Martha is asked to
do all of this, everything, in remembrance of him. This is a Gospel story in
which we are asked to all our ministry in remembrance of him.
And how badly we need
that reminder, especially now, caught up as we are in the continuous maelstrom
of those “many things” that trouble the world around us.
How tempting it can be
to look at the state of the world, or even the state of the Church, and to feel
a low-grade panic rise in our throats, repeating to ourselves like a mantra, or
a plea: more to be done, more to be done, more to be done.
Of course, there is
more to be done. Much more, and much of it will be different from what we have
done before.
Back to the trick question:
Are you a Mary or a Martha?
All of us are both, and
neither, for love requires us sometimes to strive and other times to be still.
They are not separate paths, but merely the varied landscape of being a
follower of Jesus.
And both are needed.
To the Mary’s of the
world, whether you’re traveling doing the speaking circuit or the politics and
lobbying circuit — keep doing it because it is your good portion.
And to the Martha’s doing
the tireless, thankless, endless work of ministry and activism at home,
·
the
community organizer who doesn’t sleep because police violence doesn’t sleep,
·
the
church mother taking in and feeding the kids after finding their mom a suitable
outfit to wear to an interview and making sure she had a ride and a few copies
of her resume,
·
taking
meals to the home-bound while preaching at house church every Sunday,
·
making
sure someone is there to greet Jesus when he comes to town.
Keep doing it because
it is your good portion.
The Kingdom requires us
to roll up our sleeves. But as we do so, as we make our lists and tend to the
cracks and the spills and the dusty corners of our days, we cannot forget that
we do not act by ourselves or for ourselves. We do so in the name of Jesus.
It is a necessary
reminder whenever we sit down, as individuals or as a community, to consider
who we are and where we are going.
We must ask ourselves
not only what to do, but why, and for whom?
Why do we work so hard
to keep our faith communities healthy?
Why do we persist with
our traditions in the midst of widespread apathy and violence?
Why do we dare to dream
of a world that is guided by love and justice when too often we see a world
burdened by fear and inequality?
Over the next 12-18
months, Pastor Jennifer and I will be taking the IRSM on an intentional journey
of asking these types of questions, and of rediscovering our vision and focus.
There will be deep conversations, meaningful meetings, and a whole lot of
spiritual work.
And we will need all
the Mary’s and Martha’s to help the us through this journey.
We will work hard
because of our love for Jesus and our communities.
We will persist because
of our love for Jesus and our communities.
And it is because of
Jesus’ love for us that we dare to dream of the wonders that the IRSM can be
for us and for our communities.
Amen.
Hymn
of the Day
– Will You Let Me Be Your Servant (ELW #659)
Listen Here
Apostles’
Creed
Let us declare the faith of our baptism as we say together
the Apostles’ creed.
I
believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I
believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On
the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I
believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
Prayers of Intercession
United in Christ and guided by the Spirit, we pray for the
church, the creation, and all in need.
Silence.
Ever-present
God, in Christ you fill all things. As your church gathers to hear your word,
share your meal, and receive your blessing, teach us to welcome strangers as we
have been welcomed by you.
God
of grace,
hear
our prayer.
Through
Christ you created all things, visible and invisible. Teach humankind to honor
and protect all creation, including living things that remain hidden from our
eyes such as air, atmosphere, molecules, and microscopic creatures.
God
of grace,
hear
our prayer.
Through
Christ you reconcile all things. Motivate those in power to end enslavement,
dehumanization, or brutality of any kind and to protect and improve the lives
of Indigenous peoples.
God
of grace,
hear
our prayer.
Through
Christ you bring peace. Assure all who are worried and distracted by many
things of your constant presence. Soothe those suffering in mind, body, or
spirit. Sustain all who are afflicted and those who serve as caregivers.
God
of grace,
hear
our prayer.
In
Christ you make your word fully known. Inspire this worshiping community to
abide fully in your word as we sit at the feet of Jesus. Bless the ministry of
teachers and Bible study leaders.
God
of grace,
hear
our prayer.
We
pray for the National Lutheran Bishop Susan Johnson, the Anglican Primate Linda
Nicholls, the Interim Indigenous Archbishop Sidney Black, the MNO Synod Bishop
Jason Zinko, the Diocese of Rupert’s Land Bishop Geoff Woodcroft, and all
clergy and lay leaders within our parishes. Foster our relationships with
partner synods and local ministry partners, that our visions and actions are
Spirit-led.
God
of grace,
hear
our prayer.
God
of every time and place, in Jesus’ name and filled with your Holy Spirit, we
entrust these spoken prayers and those in our hearts into your holy keeping.
Amen.
Peace
The
peace of Christ be with you always.
And
also with you.
Offering
Hymn – Jesus
Loves Me! (ELW #595)
Listen Here
Offering
Prayer
Let
us pray.
God
of abundance, you have set before us a plentiful harvest. As we feast on your
goodness, strengthen us to labor in your field, and equip us to bear fruit for
the good of all, in the name of Jesus.
Amen.
Dialogue
The
Lord be with you.
And
also with you.
Lift
up your hearts.
We
lift them to the Lord.
Let
us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It
is right to give our thanks and praise.
Preface
It
is indeed right, our duty and our joy,
that
we should at all times and in all places
give
thanks and praise to you, almighty and merciful God,
through
our Savior Jesus Christ;
who
on this day overcame death and the grave,
and
by his glorious resurrection opened to us the way of everlasting life.
And
so, with all the choirs of angels,
with
the church on earth and the hosts of heaven,
we
praise your name and join their unending hymn:
Holy, Holy, Holy
Listen Here
Thanksgiving at
the Table
Holy
God,
our Maker, Redeemer, and Healer,
in the harmonious world of your creation,
the plants and animals,
the seas and stars
were whole and well in your praise.
When
sin had scarred the world,
you sent your Son to heal our ills
and to form us again into one.
In
the night in which he was betrayed,
our Lord Jesus took bread, and gave thanks;
broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying:
Take and eat; this is my body, given for you.
Do
this for the remembrance of me.
Again,
after supper, he took the cup, gave thanks,
and gave it for all to drink, saying:
This cup is the new covenant in my blood,
shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of sin.
Do
this for the remembrance of me.
Remembering,
therefore,
his acts of healing,
his body given up,
and his victory over death,
we await that day when all the peoples of the earth
will come to the river to enjoy the tree of life.
Send
your Spirit upon us and this meal:
as grains scattered on the hillside become one bread,
so let your Church be gathered from the ends of the earth,
that all may be fed with the Bread of life, your Son.
Through
him all glory and honor is yours,
Almighty Father, with the Holy Spirit,
in your holy Church,
both now and forever.
Amen
Lord’s Prayer
Gathered into one by the Holy Spirit, let us pray as Jesus taught us.
Our Father
in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us
today our daily bread.
Forgive us
our sins
as we forgive those
who sin against us.
Save us from
the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
For the
kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours,
now and forever. Amen.
Invitation to Communion
This
is the table of Christ. It is made ready for those who love him, and for those
who want to love him more. Come, whether you have much faith or little, have
tried to follow, or are afraid that you have failed. Come. Because it is
Christ's will that those who want to meet him, might meet him here. These are
the gifts of God for the people of God.
Thanks
be to God.
Sharing
of the Eucharist
Table
Blessing
The
body and blood of our Lord
Jesus
Christ strengthen you
and
keep you in his grace.
Amen.
Prayer
After Communion
As
we have feasted around the table, let us pray.
Life-giving
God, through this meal you have bandaged our wounds and fed us with your mercy.
Now send us forth to live for others, both friend and stranger, that all may
come to know your love. This we pray in the name of Jesus.
Amen.
Blessing
The
God of peace,
Father,
☩ Son, and Holy Spirit,
bless
you, comfort you,
and
show you the path of life
this
day and always.
Amen.
Sending
Song – God
Be with You Till We Meet Again (ELW #536)
Listen Here
Dismissal
Go
in peace to love and serve your neighbor.
Thanks
be to God.
