Did you know that you were a “searcher”? That’s also the way the Bible describes the human condition - our condition - yours and mine. We are searchers, on the move, wandering and looking.
The Old Testament is filled with marvelous stories of searchers. Abraham and Sarah left their home to wander the earth based on a promise that there was a land waiting for them. Their grandson Jacob, with whom I identify when I wake up at 2 a.m. and can’t get back to sleep, wakes in his sleep, restless, struggles with an angel. Adam and Eve are cast out of the Garden and forever and are forced to wander the earth never to enter the Garden of Eden again.
It is the Garden that’s the symbol of the life for which we are created -the stationary settled life. The Garden represents life as we believe it should be, the life that we, in fact, search for, where the living is easy, where we can always get a good night’s sleep, where we don’t toss and turn worrying about what we did yesterday and we aren’t anxious about what’s going to happen tomorrow.
Have you heard the story about the old retired Bishop of the church. The bishop was 89 years old and never missed a Council of Bishops meeting. The other bishops always asked about his health. One day he said, "I’m not feeling too well, actually. I’m having some problems with my bladder."
He came to the next council meeting and the bishops asked him if the doctor had taken care of his problem. "He put me on tranquilizers," said the bishop.
"Does that take care of your bladder problem?" asked the other bishops.” No," said the retired bishop, "I still wet my pants, but now I don’t worry about it."
For most of us…. the anxieties and struggles, the demons with which we wrestle, are not so easily dismissed. We are searchers and from time to time we think that we’ve found the life that we’ve been looking for. We get married and we "settle down." We move to a new place and we start over. This is going to be it! We get a new job and we think we’ve found it. We lose weight and we think that will do it. We reconcile with our parents or our family. We leave a marriage or end a relationship that’s been dragging us down. There is pain,….. but this is it. I’m on my way now! Everything’s smooth sailing from here on out. Sometimes we even say, "This is Eden!"
But it doesn’t take very long to discover that we are still east of Eden. Despite changes in our lives we still have not found that Garden. We are still not satisfied. We are still wanderers…. still pilgrims…. still searchers. Nobody lives in the Garden anymore, but everybody’s trying to find it. That’s what the search is all about. That’s what it means to
be human according to the Bible, to be on a journey searching for life. Life filled full of the peace that passes all understanding. We can’t easily describe it, but we are sure that we’ll know it when we find it.
I don’t think that any of us are here this morning because we just had an hour to kill and nowhere better go it than to church. I think that most of us are here because we are searching for that Garden in our lives.
Martha’s story is the story of one woman’s search. But it is also our story. Luke’s Gospel says that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. His healing and teaching have made him the talk of the countryside and the cities, but the talk isn’t all good. It is reported that he has been thrown out of the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. They say that in Capernaum he violated the Torah - the Holy Law - by desecrating the Sabbath. Some say that he went to a party thrown by tax collectors who were ritually impure. Others say that he went to a dinner party given in his honor by a respected Pharisee, but then allowed an immoral woman -a woman of disreputable character - to wash his feet.
Now this controversial prophet who is stirring everyone up is said to be walking from Jericho, down by the Jordan River, up the steep mountain road to Jerusalem. He and his friends are hot and dusty and tired as the sun begins to fall. They have walked uphill all day in the sweltering heat and now climb the Mount of Olives - the last hill before Jerusalem. But before they can reach the top of the hill the sun begins to fall.
They will not sleep in Jerusalem this night. They will rest in the little town of Bethany - the last stop before the holy city. In the morning they will rise and with a few minutes of walking they will reach the crest of the Mount of Olives from where they will look across the Kidron Valley to Jerusalem where Jesus will face his destiny. Tonight he will sleep
surrounded by vineyards and olive orchards.
Martha has heard that Jesus will travel through town that evening on his way to Jerusalem and she stands in her doorway watching and waiting for him to walk down Bethany’s main street. Something tells her to ask this strange and controversial prophet to spend the night at her home. Something deep inside leads her to defy all social custom to approach this stranger and invite him to rest for the night as her guest.
Why? Why does Martha do this? Why does she risk her reputation, her good name, her standing in her community for a chance to meet Jesus and perhaps even talk with him?
The name "Marth-a" is an Aramaic word. That is the language which Jesus spoke, and it means "mistress." Jesus enters Mistress Martha’s home and she begins to prepare a meal for him. Fixing dinner keeps her in the kitchen and the same inner voice that insisted she invite Jesus to stay the night now insists that she join her younger sister Mary, who is sitting at Jesus’ feet lapping up every word he shares. Martha has invited him. It is Martha who wants to talk with him. It is Martha who is looking for something missing in her life. It is Martha’s search, not Mary’s. So, Martha shouts at Jesus, "Tell Mary to help me in the kitchen!"
But Jesus sees through the surface of her words and knows her real need.” You are anxious and troubled about many things, Martha."
How well Jesus knows her (and us). Martha is a first century Palestinian woman with what we might call a "Type A" personality, characterized by intense drive, aggressiveness, ambition, competitiveness, pressure for getting things done, and the habit of pitting herself against the clock. It isn’t just the way her table looks that bothers her.
Martha is searching now. Martha, who has been born into a world where she is of little value, is searching for something. Martha searches for fulfillment in a society where Jewish men recited three doxologies every nigh which said: 1)"Praise God that he did not make me a heathen. 2)Praise God that he did not make me an illiterate man. 3)Praise God that he did not make me a woman."
Martha is searching. Martha, who has been sunk in the everydayness of her life, is searching. Martha, who has been in despair for so long, is searching. Martha is now aware of the possibility of the search, the possibility of change. Martha is now aware of the possibility of a new life. She is onto something.
But Jesus hears her frustrated shout from the kitchen door and understands. Martha standing tiptoe at the starting line of what could be a wonderful search is held back by social custom and convention.
"Tell Mary to help me in the kitchen.” Only one thing is needed, Martha," says Jesus.
"Only one thing is needed." He isn’t talking about the table. He isn’t talking about food. He isn’t talking about the menu. He isn’t talking about the latest recipe from Emeril or Rachel Ray. He knows what Martha needs. It is what we all need. It’s what we are all looking for. Deep inside, we all know what we are searching for in the end, don’t we?
We are looking for love. We are looking for acceptance. We are looking for someone to receive us as we are and love us as we are without demands or conditions. That’s what we are looking for isn’t it, without our having to worry about earning it, deserving it, losing it? That is the Garden for which we search; a life where we are loved unconditionally.
Of course, Martha, like every one of us here today, has a whole bag full of other needs. Like Martha we too, are bound by custom, tied to tradition, welded into roles that we did not create or even freely choose, unhappy with life. We worry about the future for ourselves, for our family, and for our children.
We worry about the children of the world, our environment, our nation, and our world. But still Jesus says to her and to us, "One thing is needed."
There is, in the end, really only one thing. More than anything, we hunger to be loved. That is the "one thing needed," and we won’t find it by drinking the right Cola, wearing the right clothes, making the right investments! Martha’s story is our story, isn’t it? Her search is our search.
Sometimes we give up that search. We despair of ever fully knowing the unconditional love that we seek. We are left empty. One of the ways we cope with that emptiness is staying busy. So often we are like termites in yo-yo. I don’t believe that we are made to be Type A people. We become Type A people, driving ourselves and others, so that we won’t have to slowdown long enough to face the emptiness. One day is like the next and
the everydayness of our lives protects us from that emptiness.
To be sunk in everydayness is to hide from the human condition. It’s a kind of despair - sunk into television or work -sometimes even sunk into our children - our wife, our husband, our boyfriend or girlfriend - so that we won’t despair of ever finding what we seek. After all, isn’t it an impossible search, to find unconditional love? If I had to wander through life looking for unconditional love I would feel like someone had handed me a teaspoon, pointed me to the Pacific Ocean and said” start bailing."
But the Good News is that God is a searcher, too. God is seeking us. That’s the Good News - that’s the Gospel. If we had to do it all alone, if we had to embark on this lifelong search all alone, trusting in our own navigation, relying on our own maps it could be like looking for a contact lens in Olympic-sized swimming pool.
The Good News is that God has been searching for us all along. God wants to find us. Martha set off on her search and discovered that the love she had been searching for was right there in her home that night seeking her. (Pause)
When I was young we used to play hide and seek. It was cheap and you can play it in the country. You know how it goes. Somebody’s it and they hide their eyes and count to a hundred and when you get to a hundred you say,” Ready or not, here I come!" and you run and search and the first one you find, you run back and pat the base three times and say, "You’re it, you’re it."
When my brother Jim was "it" he cheated. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, ninety-three, ninety-four, ninety-five."
I didn’t care because I had a place under the porch and under the steps of the porch. Being small, I could get under the porch and under the steps of the porch. It was a good place.
"Ninety-nine, hundred, ready or not, here I come.” My brother passed me by, into the woods, into the tall grass, around the house, out to the chicken coop, into the house and out, around the porch. He passed me by. He came close to me several times. I almost gave myself away snickering.
"He’ll never find me! He’ll never find me!" And then it occurred to me.” He’ll never find me."
So after a while, I would stick out a toe and my brother would see me and say, "See you, see you." Run back, pat the base, "You’re it. You’re it.” And I would come out and brush off the dust saying, "Shoot, you found me."
What did I want? Did I want to hide from him? Well ... what did I really want? What did I really want? The same thing as every person in this room this morning, right?
