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I was sixteen years old when I heard the second most influential sermon of my life. Truthfully, I’m not even sure it was a sermon. For whatever reason, my pastor had failed to prepare anything that Sunday. Instead, he waltzed into the pulpit and said, “Tonight I’m just going to tell you what I do from week to week. About what I do as a minister.”
That thoroughly unplanned message was very much planned, I think, for me. I had heard a call to ministry before, but this time, with a new clarity, it was all I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I wanted his week to be my week. I wanted his life to be my life. I wanted to be a minister too.
Do you have a story like mine? Of the day you knew you wanted to become a minister?
Serve Jesus
Did you know Martha wanted to be a minister? Not an ordained, seminary-trained kind of minister, but she did want to minister to Jesus.
Did you know that the word “minister” also means, “to attend to the needs of someone”? It comes from an old Latin word that means “servant.” And this is what Martha did—she wanted to attend to the needs of Jesus. She wanted to serve Jesus.
That’s something we don’t say enough about Martha. Too many sermons paint her in a wholly negative light: Martha the failure, Martha the bad one, Martha who wouldn’t sit down. Martha who did everything wrong. “Martha, Martha, Martha.” But there was one thing Martha did get right. Martha wanted to serve Jesus.
She wanted to minister to Jesus, just like us.
When Martha first heard that Jesus was coming to her house, imagine what must have happened next. She had to get ready. She would’ve picked up her basket, and picked up her pouch of copper coins, and run down to the market to buy fixings for a feast. That’s Martha, wanting to minister to Jesus.
While she’s at the market, I can picture her, dreaming up the dishes she might make. Maybe her special herb bread with fennel and cumin? Maybe that baked fish with field peas and roasted onions? Perhaps those red lentil sesame seed pancakes her brother has always liked, the ones you dipped in date honey? Oh yes, nothing less than the best for Jesus. That’s Martha, wanting to minister to Jesus.
And when Jesus arrives at her house, she throws open the front door, and in verse 38, Luke tells us she “welcomes him into her home.” For Luke to legitimately say that Martha “welcomed him,” she must have kissed Jesus, and brought water to Jesus, and crouched down on the ground before Jesus, and washed away the dust and dirt from his feet. This was Martha, ministering to Jesus.
Just like a lot of people I know in the local church. Like Peg. She was the first to our church every Sunday, turning the heat up, setting up tables, making the coffee. Martha is like Hannah; she was always ready to help me with my kids. Martha is like Gail, who came and scrubbed my shower when I was moving out. Gail hardly even knew me. Martha is a minister just like all of them.
Martha is also a minister like those of you reading this sermon who are employed as ministers. Planning youth group games on Wednesday. Up late with a committee on Thursday. Talking with a couple in crisis on Friday. Writing a sermon on Saturday that will get you no glory or fame, that you will preach to around forty people on Sunday for a little money and a few appreciative smiles. Martha’s ministry is just like your ministry in the best ways: enthusiastic, excited, dreaming, planning, giving, working hard, welcoming Jesus. Martha really did serve Jesus, just like you serve Jesus. Martha is a minister just like you.
Distracted, Anxious, Worried
But if Martha’s story is about ministry, there’s a warning in this story for ministers, isn’t there? Martha’s mixed-up visit with Jesus shows us how ministry can be very hard at times—very hard indeed. Luke says in verse 40 that Martha’s service is causing her to be “distracted.” And Jesus tells Martha in verse 41 that her ministry is causing her to be “anxious and worried about many things.”
Distracted. Anxious. Worried. Do any of these words resonate with you?
This word “distracted” is particularly interesting to me. The Greek word here (perispaomai) means “to be pulled away from a reference point.”
Can you see Martha? Surely her reference point should have been Jesus. But where is she now? She’s finally brought all the food home, and lit the fire, and set out the bowls. Yet now, after washing Jesus’s feet, she’s out in the courtyard running from steaming baskets on the stove to bread dough that must be kneaded, back to a pot that’s boiling over, grabbing the kettle that’s bubbled almost dry, back to the oven to check on the fish. This is Martha distracted by much ministry—she’s pulled away from Jesus. Pulled about every which way.
I’m not much of a domestic goddess, but I do know a little of what it is to be in the kitchen of the church. To have steaming baskets full of pastoral care to attend to, and the pastry of a program that must be kneaded into action, and a pot of that one committee that’s about to boil over, and that parishioner who’s whistling like a kettle with endless complaints, and a sermon you’re hoping will somehow magically bake in the oven of the week. From pastoral care, to programs, to personnel, to preaching—our ministry really can pull us away from our reference point, away from Jesus. It can pull us in every direction.
It makes me think of when I take my kids to the county fair. One wants to go this way and one wants to go that. One pulls on this arm, and one pulls on that. Eventually I feel like I’m about to be split right down the middle. Like they’re about to tear me apart.
You know the statistics: 75% of pastors report being highly or extremely stressed. 90% of pastors report feeling fatigued every week. Pastors are depressed at two times the national rate. 80% of pastors don’t make it to ten years. We want to be ministers. But sometimes ministry pulls in so many directions, it can threaten to tear us apart.
Necessary
There are plenty of books, and studies, and guides on health and longevity in ministry. There are consultants, and coaches, and spiritual directors that will tell you how to get through. But Jesus at Martha’s house seems to have his own ideas.
He’s sitting in the living room with Martha’s family—probably with his disciples too. He looks through the doorway to the courtyard and sees Martha hurrying from table to stove. He sees the pinched look on her face, her flushed cheeks, her anxious, trembling hands, the sweat gathering on the collar of her dress.
Have you ever been to a party, when you came just for that one person, but the whole night they’re too busy fixing drinks to talk? Then you know the crest-fallen look on Jesus’s face, when he considers the fact that he didn’t come to Peter’s house or James’s house or Judas’s house—he came to Martha’s house. But now she’s pulled in every direction, in every direction away from him, by her ministry work.
So, Jesus calls out to her—of course he does. “Martha, Martha you are anxious and worried about many things, but there’s just one thing necessary for you.” He points down at Martha’s sister, Mary, who is sitting at his feet.
Isn’t it a wonderful thing, to sit at someone’s feet? Do you remember kindergarten? My kindergarten teacher, Miss Shaw, had breath that smelled like caramel candies and skin that smelled like lavender soap. I remember at the start of every day, Miss Shaw sat on the big chair, and we sat on the classroom rug at her feet. Her sitting on the big chair, and us at her feet, was a sign that she was our teacher, and we were her students. It was the same for Mary sitting at Jesus’s feet: this was a sign that Jesus was the teacher, and Mary was his disciple.
This is why, when Jesus points at Mary sitting at his feet, and he says to Martha, “You’re anxious and worried about many things, but you’ve forgotten one necessary thing,” he’s telling her, “Martha, if you want to serve me, you must also be my student.” He’s telling her, “Martha, if you want to be my minister, you must also be my disciple.”
I know it’s not popular to use the word “must” in a twenty-first-century sermon, but I’m not sure how to put it any other way. Because in this text, Jesus doesn’t tell Martha this is a good idea or a suggestion or an option she might want to consider. No, Jesus says, “This is the necessary thing.” If you want to be a minister, he tells Martha, you must also be a disciple.
Let me ask you the question, then. Are you a disciple? Because if you want to be any kind of minister, you must also be a disciple.
If you want to be an effective minister, you must also be a disciple.
If you want to be a purpose-driven minister, you must also be a disciple.
If you want to be a joyful minister, you must also be a disciple.
If you want to be a life-long minister, you must also be a disciple.
If you want to be a breathing minister, you must also be a disciple.
If you want to know what to even do as a minister. We all know that person who tries to put together furniture without the instructions. Please don’t be that person in the church.
If you want to be an honest minister, you must also be a disciple. I know a pastor in Australia who thought he didn’t have to be one. He secretly decided Jesus was not part of the Trinity, was not “Emmanuel God with us,” that Jesus was not Lord. But he kept this decision to himself and continued to pastor for ten more years. Is this the kind of minister you really want to be?
“You are the Messiah.”
Or do you want to be a minister like Martha was a minister? Because I believe that somewhere between Luke chapter 10 and John chapter 11, she figured it out. How else can you explain the events surrounding her brother’s death?
In John 11, Jesus shows up at the grave of Lazarus four days late, her sister Mary is weeping and wailing on the sofa in the living room, and Martha gets up and marches right out of that house, straight to Jesus, to tell him what a disappointment he has been. I don’t know about you, but that sounds to me like the brazen behavior of a minister who is also a disciple—and that is the kind of minister I want to be.
While most of Jesus’s male disciples tried to find reasons why Jesus shouldn’t go to Lazarus’ aid, Martha, who presumably saw her brother’s last breath, who saw him embalmed, who saw him laid and sealed in a tomb, Martha—of all people—was still able to say to Jesus, “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” Wouldn’t you love to be this kind of minister? The minister who can say, “I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask”? That is the faith of a minister who is also a disciple.
And in that encounter, Jesus takes that moment to whisper into Martha’s ear, “I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?”
That’s when Martha makes one of the greatest declarations of Jesus’s identity in the Christian gospels. She says, “I know that you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” Don’t you want to be a minister like that? Who writes sermons like that, who preaches messages like that? But here’s the thing: you can’t know those kinds of things, you can’t believe those kinds of things, you can’t shout those kinds of things, unless you are also a disciple.
Isn’t it something, to think that Jesus was telling Martha to sit down in her living room so that one gospel and one chapter later, she had heard him enough that she could preach to all of human history that he was the Messiah, the Son of God?
I wonder what Jesus is just dying to tell you, if only you’ll sit down for a moment and listen?
Jesus Wants to Love You
I already told you the story of the second most influential sermon of my life. Here’s the story of the first. When I was thirteen years old, I went to this big Christian youth rally with my best friend Liz. I didn’t really care for the youth rally so much; I only went because Liz was cool. At that youth rally, someone preached to me for the very first time, the words, “Jesus wants to love you.” There I was, this lonely, weird, thirteen-year-old kid, and was hearing someone preach, “Jesus wants to love you. Jesus wants to love you.”
“Jesus wants to love you,” he said. He gave up his life for you. “Jesus wants to love you.” He’s inviting you to come back to him. “Jesus wants to love you.” Will you let him teach you? “Jesus wants to love you.” Will you sit by him? Will you come, sit? Jesus wants to love you, yes, Jesus wants to love you.
What a sermon! I said yes to following Jesus that night, and I became his disciple. That was my first calling.
Don’t forget, that was your first calling, too.
You couldn’t be a minister without it.