¿Cómo fue el sermón?

Many of you have been asking how my sermon went so I figured I´d do an entry on it. The church has been following the lectionary which means the last four weeks have been the last part of Luke 9 and then entire chapter of Luke 10. For Sunday night, I preached on the story of Martha and Mary. I began with a quick run through of what each was doing and what were the implications. Martha,like many women in her time, felt it was her responsibility to feed her guest and make him feel like home. She was not doing anything out of the ordinary and actually seemed to be doing what Jesus described as a necesary measure when guests visit when he sent out the 72. Mary, in contrast, chose to rebel against the norm and not only did she not get to work, she even went as far as sitting at Christ´s feet which was a place reserved for the disciples alone. She was also listining to Christ´s teaching which was thought to only be for men. I then asked the retorical question of who was right. If you notice Jesus never says Martha was wrong, just that Mary chose the better. We are actually called to be Mary and Martha in one. We are called to do works all while realizing that there is only one thing that is actually necesary and that is to be with and to listen to Christ. In Luke, we have Christ telling us to go out and share his word and also to be hospitable when he sent out the 72, then he tells us to love our neighbor as our self and explains who are neighbor is in the story of the good Semaritan, but then Jesus tells us not to worry about all the work that the only thing important is to be with him. This is why it´s important to look at it in full context, Jesus is not saying "don´t do works" but rather do works all while knowing that he always comes first.

I then hesitated for a while to do this but felt an obligation to do so... I then told the church that I hope that they can learn to become Mary and Martha because unfortunately during my time I had seen neither, but rather I had heard many exuses such as " I don´t have enough money", "I have to work", or even "I need to do my laundry". In combat to these excuses I read Luke 9: 57-62 which reads:

As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family."Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."

This was the lesson 3 weeks ago so they were already familiar with it. I said how Jesus wouldn´t even accept a logical excuse for waiting such as let me bury my father or say goodbye to my family. If Jesus didn´t accept these excuses then he certaintly wouldn´t have accepted "let me do my laundry". We´re not called to wait, we´re called to action, to be Martha who did many things, but with the mindset of Mary who first sat at Jesus´ feet in order to learn from him.

That´s my sermon in a nutshell. The ideas were there but I didn´t feel like I got them across al eliquently as I could have. It was in part because I had little time for preperation and also the fact that it was in Spanish, but I´m not going to use those as excuses, I hope and pray that my sermon still was able to reach atleast one person in the small congregation of 12 people.

Paz,

Brandon