Where’s Your Ice Cream Cone?
You’ve probably all heard that commercial that has a line in it that goes something like, “It’s
10:00 o’clock, do you know where your kids are?” Well, I’m here today to ask you, “Do you
know where your ice cream cone is?”
If you are involved in ministry, especially in a leadership position, it is very easy to get so busy
that you forget to sit at the Lord’s feet and listen— listen to His Word and seek His face. One of
the topics of discussion this past week at school was how we can get so wrapped up in “doing”
ministry, such as visitation, Christian Ed., teaching classes, etc., that the only time we read the
Bible is in doing sermon preparation. We don’t take important time to just read the Bible and
drink in God’s word. We get distracted.
How many of you are like me? Don’t raise your hands. How many of you are like me that when
push comes to shove and life just gets busy, your devotion time with the Lord is often pushed
aside? We don’t consciously say, “You know, time with the Lord just doesn’t matter. God will
understand. It’s not like He needs me to spend time with Him.”
If you really think about it, you are setting the Lord aside in order to take care of business, in
order to do what you think is really important. Yet, what we would consider an important
obligation, God considers a distraction.
Myth #1: Busy equals important.
We think when you’re really busy it means you’re really living.- actually, being overly busy cuts us
off from the time we need to spend cultivating the important relationships in our life: with our
spouse, our kids, our friends, our God.
Myth #2: Someone wins the rat race.
This is a lie because the rat race is all about "what you do" and God is more interested in "who we
are." A bumper sticker said, “The one who dies with the most toys wins.” Well, I seen the answer
for that one, “The who dies with the most toys, still dies.”
God will not ask on judgment day, "How busy were you?" Rather, He will ask, "Are you like
Jesus?"
Myth #3: Hurrying will buy us more time.
All this technology we now have was supposed to create tons of free time but, instead enjoying it,
we fill up that “free time” with more work. “Got more time, so I can do more work.” Here’s a
couple of sayings for you: “Death is natures way of telling you to slow down” because “no ever
went to their grave wishing they’d spent more time at the office.”
Maybe if we deliberately slowed down, took a step back from our frenzied activity, that would
give us the perspective to be able to see which things in our lives are really worth doing.
Myth #4: "Down time" is wasted.
We are made to feel guilty if we aren’t constantly "doing something."
But God instituted the Sabbath into this system called life, and Scripture is filled with the mention
of "God’s rest."
Concluding thought: The ultimate tragedy of the busy life is the same as the tragedy that Martha
faced - offered the opportunity to sit at Jesus’ feet, but she (and we) can’t spare Jesus any time.
Our culture promotes busyness. People expect us to be busy, maybe even overworked. It’s
become a status symbol in our society - if we’re busy, we’re important; if we’re not busy, we’re
considered lazy or shiftless. Busyness is our security blanket. It’s validation. It’s also a good
excuse for not dealing with the first things in our lives."
Many of you have probably heard this story a thousand times. The story of Mary & Martha
highlights the importance of our love for God. It’s no accident Luke puts the story of Mary &
Martha back-to-back with the story of the Good Samaritan which some of you heard about last
week. There are parallels between the two stories.
The Good Samaritan & Martha are unlikely heroes. You see, the boundaries & social codes of
Jesus’ time were clear & inflexible. A Samaritan would not be considered a model of
neighborliness and a woman would not sit with men at the feet of a teacher. Both stories voice
Jesus’ protests against the rules & boundaries set by culture.
Martha “welcomed him into her home.” and she sets about preparing this lavish feast. Now there
is a connection back to vs. 8 which reads, “Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome
you, eat what is set before you;....” Custom has it, Jesus was invited, therefore he must eat, and
Martha is fulfilling the role assigned to her by society. In doing so, she allows the secondary
matters of life to distract her from hearing the Word of God.
Twice in 2 verses, it says Martha was “distracted”. The original language says that she was
"pulled around in many different directions." Let’s look at the signs:
A preoccupation with service
What was supposed to be happening? This was a banquet in honor of Jesus. Was she doing that?
No. She was totally absorbed in food preparation. So much so that she not only ignored Jesus, but
she actually began to boss him around. In vs. 40, she says to Jesus, “Tell her then to help me.”
Can you imagine ordering God around? But that’s exactly what she did. Martha presumes to tell
Jesus what to do; Mary lets Jesus tell her what to do. By choosing to adhere to Jesus’ teachings,
Mary exemplifies what it means in vs. 27.
ACTS 6:1-6 The disciples chose not to leave Jesus’ teaching to wait tables, instead appointing
the 7. In this parallel scene, Jesus allows Mary, a woman, the same role the disciples later claim
for themselves.
Critical of those not doing as much as you
Martha wasn’t so much consumed with what needed to be done, as with what Mary wasn’t doing.
This is what happens when we’re doing too much of a good thing. Tension and frustration beat us
down when we are performing the wrong tasks or trying to cram too many of the right activities
into a given period.
"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and distracted by many things; there is
need of only one thing.”
AHA! Here’s the real culprit. What are the many things she’s so upset and worried about? One
thing is that Martha is preparing too many dishes. She may be trying to impress her guests. She’s
not honoring Jesus, she’s showing off. She could have cut down the amount of food, had a good
meal, and still spent time with the Lord. She was doing more than needed to be done.
We must find a balance between "go and do" and "sit and listen."
As I said before, it’s no accident Luke places this story right after the Good Samaritan story. In
vs. 25-37, Jesus is questioned by a lawyer. He wants to know how to inherit eternal life. Jesus
tells him to love God and love his neighbor. This guy was no dummy. He knew the truth. Trouble
was he never acted on the truth that he knew, so Jesus tells him the story of the Good Samaritan.
Since true belief always results in concrete action, he told the guy …”Go and do likewise.”
The Good Samaritan story and the story of Martha’s busyness go together. To the lawyer, Jesus
says, “...go and do”, but he praises Mary for sitting and listening. The life of a disciple requires
both.
Years ago in the deep jungles of Africa, a traveler was making a long trek. Natives of the area
were hired to carry the loads. The first day they marched rapidly and went far. The traveler had
high hopes of a speedy journey. But the second morning these jungle tribesmen refused to move.
For some strange reason they just sat and rested. When asked about the reason for this strange
behavior, the traveler was informed that they had gone too fast the first day, and that they were
now waiting for their souls to catch up with their bodies.
There are times when our lives move so fast, that we need to slow down and let our souls catch
up with us -- not literally, but figuratively.
We will rarely find God in the hectic moments in our lives, but we will often find Him in the quiet
moments.
We talked about Elijah a few weeks ago. The Lord told this prophet, "Go out and stand on the
mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by." Then a great and
powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD
was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the
earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire
came a gentle whisper, a "still, small voice."
Ps 37:7 tells us, "Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him." Ps 46:10, "Be still, and
know that I am God." But we are too much like Martha. For we live in a Martha world.
Like Martha, we are easily distracted by the busy world. We need to be like Mary. There are
times when we need to just stop and be quiet and still, and rest in the simple presence of the Lord.
It is good for our own soul, it is good for our relationship with others, and it is good for our
relationship with God. Several years ago, newspapers told how a new Navy jet fighter shot itself
down. Flying at supersonic speed, it ran into cannon shells it had fired only a few seconds before.
The jet was traveling too fast!
Some of us are traveling through our lives too fast. We’re going to find ourselves in a mode of self
destruction. There come times when we need to slow down and let our souls catch up with us,
and even though we live in a Martha world, we need to be still and quietly rest in the presence of
God.
In 1990 a woman entered a Haagen-Dazs in the Kansas City Plaza for an ice-cream cone. While
she was ordering another customer entered the store. She placed her order, turned and found
herself staring face to face with Paul Newman. He was in town filming a movie. His blue eyes
made her knees buckle. She finished paying and quickly walked out of the store with her heart still
pounding. Gaining her composure she suddenly realized she didn’t have her cone; she turned to go
back in. At the door she met Paul Newman who was coming out. He said to her, "Are you
looking for your ice-cream cone?" Unable to utter a word she nodded yes. "You put it in your
purse with your change."
When was the last time the presence of God made you forget what was going on around you?
Made you forget the dishes? Made you forget the ball game? Made you forget the bank account?
Made you forget where...you put your ice cream cone?
