Unconventional day4

 Anyone who has ever delivered a sermon or a Sunday school lesson has heard this, “That message was so good. I know just the person who needed to hear it.”

As a regular listener of podcasts and sermons whilst I walked around doing my work, who would for about two years leave a phone at the back of the hall recording services, I’ve certainly heard my share of that phrase being said. So many would want to get a recording of it so they can give to someone else, someone else more in need of correction than themselves. Or they want to know what next week’s message will be so that they can bring a certain friend who really needs to hear what they’re talking about. No one wants to apply the message to him- or herself. Many sit and wonder if that person across the aisle is listening, or they practice “the ministry of the elbow” to make sure that their spouse is paying attention.

Martha seems to have suffered from this affliction — this preoccupation with what others were doing. She was certain that Mary was doing the wrong thing, she was so certain that she felt comfortable saying, “Excuse me, Jesus? Isn’t there something You’d like to tell my sister?” She just assumed that Jesus would agree with her. Who wouldn’t agree with her? She was right, of course, and it never occurred to her otherwise.

But Jesus refused to endorse her perspective.

This certainly caught Martha off guard. Perhaps that was His intention. Sometimes you have to jar someone to get her attention. It wasn’t the first time Jesus used this tactic, nor would it be the last.

It’s easy to spend too much time evaluating the actions of others and too little time looking in the mirror, practicing the all-important task of self-evaluation. Jesus asked, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in someone else’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” (Mt 7.3). The apostle Paul echoed Him: “Each of you should test your own actions. Then you can take pride in yourself, without comparing yourself to somebody else, for each of you should carry your own load” (Gal 6.4-5). How much more effective might Christians be if we spent as much time looking at ourselves as we spend pointing the finger at others? After all, pointing out what’s wrong with our world is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel. And who really changes their ways because Christians look upon them with disapproval?

Rather than grading the performance of others (especially with the assumption that God will surely agree with us) an effective church empowers its members to take individual responsibility for their own walks, allowing the faith community to be an encouraging force.

That doesn’t mean we have to ignore sin in the camp, but it does mean being slow to pass judgment, especially in areas that don’t have anything to do with sin. Martha crossed that line and Jesus refused to hear her complaint. Let’s not make the same mistake she did.

 

Prayer

 

God of grace, Your Word often convicts me about things that need to be changed; yet I often resist it, supposing that others need this message more than I do. I am often tempted to focus my attention on the errors and shortcomings of others because these are so easy to spot, and it costs me nothing to observe. But You have made it clear that I must first examine my thoughts and actions before criticising others. Like the psalmist David, I ask You to search me and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. I thank You that when I invite the Spirit to search my heart to reveal any areas that are displeasing to You, Your conviction comes not in generalities but in specifics. You graciously reveal the things I need to deal with one at a time, and You give me the power to respond in obedience.

In Jesus’s name, Amen