BUSY - Luke 10:38-42

Can I be honest? I love being busy. I come from a long line of workaholics - my grandfather was a pastor for 25 years before he retired to do mission work. He travelled all over the world before settling on Haiti as his place to do the Lord’s work, and he built up a little seminary on the north end of the island. He kept working down there, coming back to the states - well into his 70’s. In his early 70’s the doctor told him, “You need to slow down, scale back, knock it off a little bit.” And my gramps said exactly what I’m sure I’ll say to my doctor when I’m that age, “yeah, sure - whatever.” And then he kept going down there for another 10 years. In his 80’s he finally said, “alright, fine - I’ll slow down a bit.” But even then, he couldn’t travel internationally - but he was writing books and bible studies, teaching men’s groups and running Sunday school right up until his death in his 90’s. That dude never slowed down. And I’ll say - the whole “workaholic” thing is especially toxic for church leaders, because it’s real easy for us to get it mixed up in our heads that the things we do, we are doing them FOR God - so how could we ever justify slowing down? I love being busy. Now, there’s a line - I don’t like being overwhelmed, rushed or anxious - but even being anxious is better than the alternative. I think a lot of us actually prefer stress to boredom. Why else would any of us, ever, doomscroll. It’s no fun being stressed, but boredom… that’s, that’s terrifying. Now you might be thinking “no, no, no, no, no - pastor, you’re way off. I would much rather be bored than stressed.” But ask yourself, how long can you sit in silence without a screen. How long can you wait in a line at the bank, or sit quietly in a room without reaching for your phone? There hasn’t been a bored person in America since the smart phone was invented. We’re not bored, we’re distracted. Some of us hate it, some of us love it - but we all fill our lives with so many things. 

Maybe you’re the busy bee - the co-worker who is always doing, always striving, always reaching for the next level. Or maybe you’re the distracted parent - trying to wake up early, pack lunches, rush the kids out the door, then work all day, drive to practice, cook dinner, clean up, get the kids into bed, and then collapse in exhaustion. Maybe you’re the overwhelmed student - trying to balance social life, a half decent sleep schedule, sports, extra-curriculars, and that pile of term papers with due dates coming up quick. Or maybe you’re recently retired - and you’ve taken away the thing you thought was eating up all your time, and yet somehow - the days continue to fly by. It’s a baffling thing the way time disappears on us all. 

Eric Hoffer once said, “The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is, on the contrary, born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we OUGHT to do, we have no time for anything else - we are the busiest people in the world.” I love being busy, and I think that’s because - if I can be honest, the alternative is really scary for me. Where does my value come from on the other side of my striving? Today we are finishing up our series called “The Forces That Control Me” and I’ve said it before - this has been such a growth series for me personally. I hope you have grown closer to God as well through these weeks, but can I just say - most weeks these words have been for ME too. God’s word has been laying my heart bare and showing me all the ways we are pushed and pulled by the forces of this world. We’ve talked about anxiety and shame, sex and money - all the invisible strings that yank us around like a marionette puppet, and to close it all off - today we’re going to talk about the tyranny of the to do list, the disciplines of distraction - we’re going to talk about the idols of our time. 

Now, to get into this topic this morning, we’re going to dive into a very familiar story in Luke, chapter 10. And if you want to look that up we’re going to be in verse 38, and that’s in the second half of the bible. If you brought your bible - good for you, gold star for today. But of course, we’ve got a whole shelf of bibles in the back, or a simple google search will get you the same result. Luke, chapter 10 verse 38, where he says, [read v.38] Now, maybe even from that one sentence you already know the story - it’s the story of Mary and Martha. But before we get into that, I have to point out something that is just so key for us to understand Jesus and his ministry. Do you notice how it says that Jesus and his disciples “were on their way” - like, they were moving in one direction, and then they had to stop and do a little off ramp to stay at Martha’s. And what I want you to see in that is that Jesus made a habit out of taking a detour on his way to important things. There are literally stories of Jesus, on his way to heal someone who is dying - like they are actively dying and if you don’t hurry you might be too late - and Jesus will stop in the middle of it, to care for someone in need. I remember there was a story about a pastor named Rudy Rasmus, he built a church from 9 people all the way up to 9000 people, and 30% of his congregation was formerly homeless people. He has an incredible gift for loving the people in front of him. But he tells this story in one of his books about one day when he was working in his office, and he always had an open door policy. But his computer faced away from the door, and someone came in to talk to him and he was trying to talk to the person, while facing his computer screen. And he writes about how he had to turn away from the screen in order to be fully present with the person in front of him. To actually fully listen and be engaged with the human being in your world. You’ve probably experienced this in your life - It’s like trying to talk to your teenager when they’re scrolling on their phone. It’s like you engage with half a person, you get half their attention. My kids don’t even have phone’s yet, but with my oldest, he’s always got his nose buried in a book. And I’ll say Liam. Liam. Liam. And he’ll say, “What?” But I know if his eyes are still on the page, none of my words are going into his ears. “Okay bud, let’s put the book away for a second. I want your eyeballs, because if I have those, then I know I also have your ears.” But Jesus is here right at the outset, making a habit of turning aside, even if the thing he was headed towards was incredibly important - and we know, as Easter people, we know Jesus was on the road to Jerusalem, towards the most important moment of his earthly life that we are going to celebrate next week! And even on that mission, Jesus makes a habit of turning aside, to be fully present with the people in his world at that time and place. Turning aside to pay attention to the human being in front of him. 

It keeps going, [read v.39-40]. Okay, so that’s just two verses - but there’s SO MUCh packed in there. First, we’ve got Martha’s sister Mary, and she sits at the feet of Jesus. And we’re not going to focus on this, but I don’t want you to miss it. The fact that Mary sits at the feet of Jesus to learn from him, as a disciple is a really big deal. This world, this time period, was not necessarily fair between men and women - but the fact that Jesus accepted women as his disciples speaks volumes. They have a place in full participation in following Jesus, learning from Jesus, being with Jesus. But then it says that Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. Martha opened up her home to Jesus. She’s preparing a meal, and Jesus tended to travel with a posse, he’s got a whole pile of followers with him - so this is probably quite a spread she’s putting together. And hospitality was a big deal in Jewish culture. Martha was doing something good - welcoming Jesus into her home. And so it says she was “distracted by many things.” Is that not like the most relatable sentence in the entire bible? Have you been Martha? Distracted by many things? Some of you are like, “only all the time, every single day.” And that greek word for distracted is “periespato” and it means to be pulled in many directions. And it’s so frustrating because she’s doing good work, but it has become a source of frustration and distraction in her life rather than a source of joy. And again - this is so relatable. I think for a lot of us, we’re not always busy with things we hate. Sometimes it’s all good things, but there’s just too many of them. I think about Christmas time. Nobody’s out there saying, “I just hate Christmas dinner - delicious food with people I love, yuck!” and nobody’s saying, “Ugh, presents?” But when it’s christmas dinner on top of the kid’s christmas play, on top of driving to visit family, on top of driving to visit the other side of family, on top of decorating - it’s a giant pile of all good things that leaves us feeling miserable and stressed out! Martha is making dinner for Jesus - and that’s an awesome thing to do. But it’s pulling her in all kinds of directions and so that’s stressing her out. 

And this goes DEEP in our lives. Distraction is one of our biggest problems as people in modern america, and most of our distraction seems to be tied to this little rectangle in my pocket. Did you know that cell phone use while driving leads to 1.6 million car crashes annually? They say that texting while driving is 6 times more likely to cause an accident than driving under the influence of alcohol. 1 out of 4 traffic crashes that occur in the US are caused by cell phones. We are literally distracting ourselves to death. Here’s another angle - on Netflix, the average season of a tv show is watched in four days. Wait two years for the release of a new season - done in four days. That’s how quickly we binge watch entire seasons of shows. We WANT to distract ourselves. Distraction pulls us in many directions, it was true for Martha, and it’s true for us today.

And then Jesus responds in the next verse. Martha blows up after getting totally overwhelmed by all these distractions pulling her this way and that. She demands that Jesus make Mary help her get things ready for dinner, and then Jesus says, [read v.41-42]. Martha, Martha - actually, did you know that a double name in scripture like that often signals deep emotion. We see it when Jesus calls out to Saul and changes his life forever - he calls out, “Saul, Saul”. And so repeating her name, Martha, Martha - that’s a term of affection. In fact some translations will take out the second Martha and just say something affectionate like, “my dear Martha” to get that idea across. Jesus turns to her and says, “there is only one thing worth being concerned about” - let’s just stop right there. What? I dunno, Jesus - in my life I got a whole LOT of things to be worried about. I’ve got kids man, I’ve got a mortgage, food to put on the table and a church to care for. I’ve got people in my life who I love and they are going through some stuff - one thing, what are you talking about one thing? But that’s what he said. There is only one thing worth being concerned about. I remember years ago, I had a friend who was going through a really hard time. He’d lost his job, and he was in a custody battle with his ex-girlfriend over his daughter. He was stressed, because if he couldn’t make child support - he could lose visitation rights. And I remember at one point I could see he was totally overwhelmed, and so I asked him - “hey, how is your walk with Jesus lately? Are you reading your bible, are you praying, are you spending time with God in your day?” And it was interesting because he got really mad at me. He said, “Come on, man! I’m already overwhelmed and stressed and you’re trying to add something to my schedule. I can’t handle more right now.” And at first I was sort of taken back, but I quickly realized the miscommunication. He thought I was just trying to throw some Jesus on top of his chaos and fix the problem that way. He thought I wanted to make him feel guilty for not doing enough Jesus stuff. Just sprinkle some Jesus on top, just pray about it - that’ll fix your issues. But what I was trying to do was, I saw my brother was standing on sinking sand, and I was trying to pull him onto a firm foundation. You are worried and anxious about many things, but there is only one thing worth being concerned about - and that is time with Jesus.

Now let me bring this in a little bit - because this is not just something my friend went through, but this is something big in my life as well. I struggle with this every single day. Like I said at the beginning, I love being busy, I like being a workaholic - I get a lot of joy out of the work I do. And I’ve talked about this a couple of times, but I have been on a real journey during this season of prayer and fasting. I have been adding more and more prayer to my daily routine. I’ve heard speakers recommend it, I’ve read it in books - but I always struggled to carve out time to spend with Jesus. I am a classic striver. I am absolutely a Martha. You give me a fun idea, and I’m already coming up with ten things to put on a to do list to get it done. I rise and fall by my to do list. Whether I’m having a good day or a bad day depends on how much I accomplish. I wrap up my identity and my value in how valuable I am to other people. How much I got done that day is my metric of a good day. This is how I have been wired my whole life, and Jesus has been pushing back on that in a big way. And a few weeks ago, I felt really convicted about it - and so I gave myself a new practice. I was going to start every workday with an hour of prayer. Monday morning, 9-10am - that’s my to do list. Prayer. I grab my notebook and I grab my bible and I find a spot and I pray. It’s nothing special - I just pause all the distractions for an hour, find some silence and just sit with God. And guys, I’m so bad at it! It takes me a good 15-20 minutes just to get myself to stop thinking about my to do list, and what I should be doing at that moment. AND, when I spend all that time in prayer - I have less time in my day to get all my stuff done. My productivity tanked. I was spending more time with God, but less time FOR God. My striving time decreased, and I was afraid that I wouldn’t get things done. I think the week I started was the week that we found the food palette for Hand 2 Hand. Then the next week I had new volunteers step forward to help with the Kids program. Normally, I’m prepping my message on Monday, starting on Tuesday and finishing it up on Wednesday. But now because I was spending all this time praying and sitting with God - I got to Thursday morning, the last day of my week, not one word of the sermon had been written. And I remember, because I have my men’s life group in the morning and that wrapped up and I thought to myself, “I got a lot to do, I’ve got a budget meeting later, and I really need to write this sermon.” But I fought it, and I said, “nope, i’m carving out the time. I’m going to take my hour of prayer - get my heart right first and then we’ll see about this sermon.” I went home at 3pm that day, with my entire to do list AND the sermon fully finished.

Now you might be thinking, “Okay, Pastor JJ - are you trying to tell us that if we carve out time to spend with Jesus everyday, that our to do lists will magically get done faster and we will be happier and healthier because of it?” And my answer is yeah, that’s exactly what I’m trying to convince you of this morning. But it’s not magic. It’s a simple truth for all of our lives - there is only ONE thing worth being concerned about - and that thing is Jesus. And if you can put that thing first - you can handle anything and everything else that the world will throw at you. I quoted Eric Hoffer earlier, but let’s put that quote up on the screen. “The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is, on the contrary, born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else - we are the busiest people in the world.”  I don’t want you to add a spiritual practice on top of your busy life - I want you to build your busy life on top of a spiritual foundation. And please understand, that I don’t tell you that story to impress you. I am chief of all sinners when it comes to having a busy schedule and forgetting to spend time with God. I tell you my story because if I can do it, then I know you can do it too. And it is SO worth it. Building your life on time spent with God is hard, and sometimes we really have to shift around our schedule and our priorities to do it - but it is SO worth it. I cannot overstate that. 

When I started this practice, I was concerned that if I spent more time WITH God, then I would have less time to do things FOR God. But what I want you to take home from this passage about Mary and Martha is that our “doing for” God must come from our “being with” God. Our “doing” of ANYTHING in life, must come from our “being with” God. Think about it like this, a friend of mine who’s a mom explained it like this. “It can be really easy to get caught up in the drive to perform and provide for your family. We often define ourselves by what we accomplish inside the home or what we do outside of the home - our work, our achievements, how well we provide. But after all of that - our kids don’t want to be with us because of any of those things. They just want to be WITH us. To talk, to play, to connect. And how often in parenting do we focus on the work, or just the things that need to get done, and we miss out on the most important part - just being present with your kids. Jesus invites us to step away from the endless tasks and to be simply present with him - just like a child longs for a parent’s full attention. In the same way, our hearts are longing to be fully present with Jesus. Our “doing for” God, has to come from our “being with” God.

And so I want to send you out with a challenge this morning. I have one thing I want you to do - Stop Doing Stuff. In your life, somewhere, somehow - sit at the feet of Jesus. Make that an investment in your own growth. Spend time with Jesus, choose presence with him over performance. And I want to be really practical, so I’m going to recommend a few things that have worked for me. First, try praying with a notebook. For me - my mind gets distracted really easily. I am pulled in many directions, like Martha - right? But when I write out my prayers. I write really slowly, and it focuses my attention and it really does help. Or some people do better with a mindless task to do. Pray while you go for a run or a walk through your neighbor, or a drive (although please keep your eyes open). Maybe it’s just sitting in silence. Throw the phone across the room, and just call out to God. Read through the psalms, or maybe you don’t want to write - but you can doodle. Get a blank sheet of paper and draw while you talk to God. If you’ve got kids, it’s hard to find the time. You’ll need to work together with your spouse or the grandparents or something to carve out that time in your week for Jesus.  It’ll look different in everyone’s life, but find a way to be still and present with Jesus in your life. 

And I want to encourage you - if you’re bored, you’re halfway there. When we remove distraction, we get bored - and the temptation is to go back to the distraction. But if you push through the awkward bored phase, you enter the presence of Jesus. Your spiritual imagination wakes up, and you move closer to the divine. It’s like when my kids come to me saying, “We’re so bored” and what they want from me is distraction. And in those moments I am the least helpful father on the planet. “I’m so bored!” Huh, bummer - that sounds like a you problem, bud. Because they want me to give them a distraction, and if I only ever distract them, they’ll never learn how to turn their imaginations on. But after a while - they give up on trying to get a distraction out of me, and then the imagination turns on - and they go do something fun. It’s like that when we adults are bored. If we remove distractions, we get bored - and in that boredom we have a choice. We can go back to our distractions OR we can wake up the voice of the Holy Spirit that we have been ignoring, and be ushered into God’s presence. 

Now in just a moment, we’re going to enter into a time of prayer. This will be our last prayer prompt for a while, but before we get into that I want to highlight one last thing. With Mary and Martha, and this whole tension between our daily to do lists and the power of sitting still at the feet of Jesus - what I want you to realize is that it’s not one or the other. Our lives are not “be with Jesus” OR “get things done.” It’s sitting at the feet of Jesus in order to best do everything else. If you get your heart right, sit at the feet of Jesus first - that gives you the foundation you need to build the rest of your life. If you are sitting on the sinking sands of distraction, no matter how big the life you build gets, it will fall. But if you start at the feet of Jesus, with the one person whose presence will truly satisfy your soul - everything else will follow. And so right now, I want to invite you to respond, not by doing more, but by being with jesus. As we move into this next song, take this time to just sit at His feet. Come and see. Do whatever you need to do to posture yourself in full reverence before God. If you need to kneel, kneel. If you feel led to come up front and pray, come. If you just need to sit in the stillness, let yourself be still. If you need to walk around and pray, do that. This is your moment to let go of distraction and step into devotion. Let’s be like Mary. Let’s choose the one thing that truly matters. Church, let’s pray. 

Prayer Prompt: What are your chief distractions? What do you keep falling back on to avoid boredom? Where are you striving when you should be sitting? Ask the Holy Spirit to come into your life, and help you prioritize sitting at the feet of Jesus. Take this moment of silence and let being with God become the foundation of a new life you will build from this day forward.