Willing One Thing

A Sermon About Simplicity

Preached at Hanover Street Presbyterian Church

On July 18, 2004

By the Rev. Thomas C. Davis, III, Ph.D.

Bible Texts

Matthew 6: 32-33

So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Luke 10: 38-42

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.  She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said.  But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.  Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.

Sermon Text

Jazz always relaxes me.  I'm glad to have Michael's gift of jazz in worship this morning.  Puts me in a peaceful, meditative mood.  Poor Martha could have used some jazz that day that Jesus came visiting.  Imagine the scene, which I'll put in the present tense:

Martha is all wrought up.   Can't you picture her:  arms crossed, brow furrowed and sweaty, lips  pursed,  foot tapping, eyes burning through the back of her sister's head. Who does Mary think she is, lounging at the master's feet that way, when there are so many things still to be done to make him feel at home?  The floor needs sweeping.  The bread needs kneading.  There's water still to fetch.  Jealousy and exasperation work on Martha until she can't stand it any longer.  "Jesus, will you tell my sister to lend a hand here!  Doesn't she care that I'm the only one minding the kitchen?" 

I must have read this passage a hundred times, and I've always thought that Martha got a  scolding from Jesus because she was bordering on workaholism.   "Ease up Martha.  Your sister's O.K.  You're the one who needs adjusting.  Relax! " That's the way I've heard Jesus' reply to her.  All along I've thought her problem was overwork.  But I've been wrong about Martha.  Her real problem wasn't overwork.  Let's listen again to what the text tells us.  The text says that Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.  Very interesting detail--  Martha was distracted.  That means something else besides housework was very important to her; only, for the moment she wasn't paying attention to it. 

Now, that's a very different take on Martha, isn't it?  I've been doing her an injustice all this time.  She a complicated person, with a side to her that we don't see, because she won't even allow herself to see it.  Perhaps Martha shouldn't be scolded.  Perhaps we ought to commiserate with her because she has lost her way, allowed herself to get side tracked by something which is of much less importance to her than that something else which the story doesn't tell us about, but only alludes to by saying that she is distracted. 

Jesus says to her:  "Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed."  What is that one thing, pray tell?  The story doesn't say.  It leaves us hanging. What is that one ultimately important thing? 

That's a crucial question for so many of us, because there are lots of Marthas in this world--many more Marthas than Marys.  And I don't mean workoholics, either.  I mean run-of-the-mill folk who have let themselves be distracted from what is truly important to them, or should be.  Ever feel like your life is being leached away by a thousand petty details?  Have you ever stopped to take a breath and thought: What is all this for, anyway?  What is the point?  Have you ever gone back through an old appointment book and asked yourself:  Why did I bother doing that?  What was I thinking?  We lose sight of what living is for--don't we?--in the daily grind.  We have a choice, of course. We don't have to let life slip away like this.  But we do.   We comply with the robbery. Like Martha we allow ourselves to be distracted, because if we paid attention to the truly important thing in life, it would demand too much of us; at least, that's our inchoate fear.  And by allowing ourselves to be distracted we participate in our own impoverishment.  As Wordsworth wrote, "Getting and spending we lay waste our powers." Of course, it isn't just lust for  stuff that wastes our powers and our lives;  it's a lack of devotion to something else which is truly important.  What is this truly important thing?

For the answer, let's turn to our first reading of this morning.  Jesus said:  "So do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first--[listen, church, here is the one truly important thing]--seek first God's kingdom. . .and all these things will be given to you as well."

God's kingdom, that's the truly important thing in life.  That's what Jesus lived and died for, God's kingdom, God's effective rule upon this earth. He preached about the kingdom of God in so many ways.  He taught us how precious, how singularly important, it is.  It's like the penny that a poor woman sweeps her whole house to find.  It's like a treasure buried in a field, a treasure so precious that a man would spend all his savings to buy that field. It's like a pearl-better not throw that pearl beneath pigs' feet!  Better not get distracted from this one thing in life that is so important.  Keep your  eye on this prize, this one thing, and all the other things that you fret about from day to day, like poor distracted Martha, will work themselves out.   You will have what you need to live in the kingdom of God.  God will provide. Don't you worry.  Worry is distraction.  Don't allow yourself to be distracted.  Will this one thing:  God's kingdom.

About the time of our Civil War a Danish writer by the name of Soren Kierkegaard lamented the spiritual distraction of his compatriots.  In a book called Sickness Unto Death he described how they had lost sight of what is truly important in life.  They had become aesthetes, he said.  In pursuit of the beautiful life, they had lost their hearts and souls.  True satisfaction is not to be found in possessing bigger houses or fancier cars.  It cannot be found by hob knobbing with high rollers at cocktail parties.  It cannot be found in prestigious appointments, or degrees piled up after one's name.  The despair of the soul which he described is known to people all over the world, not just in Denmark.   It can be cured only by resisting the endless distractions, and paying attention to what is ultimately important. 

There is a word for this devotion to one thing:  simplicity.  Simplicity isn't just the renouncement of distractions.  Much more fundamentally, simplicity is the pursuit of what is truly important instead of all the distractions.  As Quaker writer, Richard Foster, explains: 

Nothing must come before the kingdom of God, including the desire for a simple life-style.  Simplicity becomes idolatry when it takes precedence over seeking the kingdom. . .Focus upon the kingdom produces the inward reality, and without the inward reality we will degenerate into legalistic trivia.  Nothing else can be central.  The desire to get out of the rat race cannot be central, the redistribution of the world's wealth cannot be central, the concern for ecology cannot be central.  The only thing that can be central . . .is to seek first God's kingdom.  Worthy as all other concerns may be, the moment they become the focus of our efforts they become idolatry [and I might add, a distraction].

You may be perplexed at this point, wanting more guidance.  Bring this sermon home, preacher.  Tell me what I must do to put God's kingdom first!  Well, here's what Kierkegaard had to say about that:

"What have I to do, or what sort of effort is it that can be said to seek the kingdom of God?  Shall I try to get a job suitable to my talents and powers in order thereby to exert an influence?  No, thou shalt first seek God's kingdom.  Shall I then give all my fortune to the poor?  No, thou shalt first seek God's kingdom.  Shall I then go out to proclaim this teaching to the world?  No, thou shalt first seek God's kingdom.  But then in a certain sense it is nothing I shall do.  Yes, certainly, in a certain sense it is nothing, become nothing before God, learn to keep silent; in this silence is the beginning, which is first to seek God's kingdom."

Last night Alice and I and Susan Moseley saw a beautiful film, "Monsieur Ibrahim," about an old, Sufi Muslim who had befriended an abandoned Jewish teen ager.  At the end of the film, the petty merchant Ibrahim spends his life's savings on a shiny red sports car, which, like a magic carpet, will whisk him and his adopted son, Momo, to far away places and spiritual adventures.  Little by little, Ibrahim gently teaches Momo what is truly important in life, and what is not.  He blind folds the boy,  and takes him into various houses of worship so that he will not be distracted by visual trappings of the holy, but will have to smell the presence of God in each place.  This is the Orthodox, says Ibrahim; this is the Catholic.  In a Muslim mosque the old man prays, for this is his custom. Then, finally, they visit a Sufi community, and the dancers spin and spin, and spin, dancing in ecstatic trance, as Sufis will.  The old man explains:  "We do not understand only with our heads.  The dancer holds God in his mind.  Then he spins and spins and spins around God, until all else disappears."

In a moment we will sing a Shaker hymn, "T's the Gift to Be Simple."  The Shakers weren't Sufis, but they too used to dance and sing about turning, turning, turning, 'till we come 'round right.'  How do we come 'round right?  How do we follow first the kingdom of God?  How do we will this one, truly important thing?  There are many ways.  I suppose you can even do it while sweeping, cooking, and fetching water, if you don't do those things as distractions, but rather as your way of living in God's kingdom.  I said earlier that a lot of us lose ourselves in distractions on purpose, because we're afraid of giving ourselves heart and soul to this one enormously important devotion, the kingdom of God. Jesus said:  Do not worry.  My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.  Come, all you who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for you shall be filled.