Hello, everyone. Nice to be back with you. I've had a great sabbatical, studying and having fun, etc.

The story of Mary and Martha is strange. Or rather it elicits strange responses. We read or hear this story, get a little anxious, and start scurrying toward interpretation. We try to negotiate a way between extremes, charting a path between Scylla of activism and the Charybdis of quietism. Should we be like Mary or Martha? Usually, we pit one character against the other. Often we analyze the active life verses the contemplative life, throwing in our dibs on one side or the other. Or a more subtle approach champions balance. I wonder how many sermons I've heard that work really hard to recover Martha's importance, saying that we can't have Marys without the Marthas of the world. I've heard an equal number of sermons encouraging us to go deeper, become more thoughtful, more like Mary, and less busy. Often these are great sermons and helpful to boot. Still, I fear that most of the sermons we hear preached on this text end up being moralizing and a little scolding. You should be one way or the other. You really should. I don't want to presume to know what you think, but I for one am a little tired of hearing so many shoulds from the pulpit.

It seems that we're very uncomfortable with what Jesus actually said, and we try to minimize it, arguing it away. Jesus can be so, well, unpredictable, so offensive. So we get busy, translating him into our context, reformulating what he must have meant. Yet, underneath our hard work, I sense anxiety. Seems like we're pretty nervous about what Jesus might say to us. Are we, too, worried and distracted by many things? Have we also forgotten to choose the better part?

So earlier this week when Jan and I found a sermon on Mary and Martha that transcended the old and tired pattern, we glommed onto it in gratitude. It's by a woman named Joy Jordan-Lake, and was published in the Christian Century back in 1994. For my sermon this morning, I'm simply going to read it to you in total. Here's what Pastor Jordan-Lake has to say about Mary and Martha.

Frankly, I've never been wild about the story of Jesus at the home of Mary and Martha. Not because I live in fear that Jesus would say to me what he said to Martha. I would not be accused of spending too much time in the kitchen when I could have been listening to Jesus. Since my husband and I believe in egalitarian marriage and he insists on eating foods beyond the realm of my own specialties (Poptarts, Cheez-its, granola bars), he performs the culinary feats in our house. What worries me is that I'm not at all sure that Jesus would commend me as he did Mary either, were I in Mary's situation.

Here's the thing: Jesus makes me nervous. God Almighty is one thing, but Jesus makes me uncomfortable. Jesus would make everyone uncomfortable, as far as I can tell. Imagine asking the guy home for lunch. Not only does he not lend a hand in setting the table or pouring the drinks, he's got your other would-be helpers spellbound at his feet, imbibing the profundity of the ages while the pot roast withers and the salad wilts.

How does one prepare for Jesus' visit? Would you clean the house more thoroughly than usual, or — let's be honest — would you clean the house for a change? Would excessive cleanliness suggest that you'd been neglecting some spiritual-advancement opportunities? Would you borrow fine china to show your deep and abiding respect for the Messiah — or use paper plates to symbolize an equally deep and abiding lack of interest in material goods?

Would you impress him more with a menu featuring Maine lobster - an edible version of pouring perfume on his feet? (Apparently he always knew a good wine when he saw one.) Or would you fare better slapping peanut butter and jelly on Stop n' Shop's cheapest bread, carefully calculating the money you save and buying groceries for a homeless family you'd befriended?

Jesus might praise either choice. Or condemn either. He might say "good and faithful servant" or "you whitened sepulcher," depending on nasty little intangibles like motivation and intent.

It's the lack of ordinary predictability that makes me nervous. Other people have the grace to smile and politely mumble something vague when you make a social faux pas that send you stumbling into the mop closets of their private lives. Jesus, on the other hand, strides in quite intentionally, and before he has so much as set his backpack down asks another guest how her fifth husband — or was he just a live-in? — is proceeding with the delinquent child support payments to his former wife. He'd welcome the uninvited entrance of neighborhood rabble who would insist on groveling at his feet and staining the carpet with dubious-smelling foreign substances. The kind of guest you'd like to leash to the barbecue grill and leave there for a while.

Jesus called them as he saw them. Public opinion swayed him no more than the storm-stirred winds and waves. A desirable trait for a Little League umpire but a regrettable lack of tact for a dinner guest.

I think I'd serve peanut butter on fine china and French wine in paper cups. If I could screw up the courage, I'd tell him the truth: that he makes me nervous and I'm not sure what he expects from me. Then it might occur to me to apologize for not inviting everyone to dinner who might have wanted to come. Then the few of us would sit down on the floor, I think. The dog would deposit her 87 pounds beside him, no doubt, and anoint his feet with her fond drool. Maybe he'd smile. And while he scratched her behind the ears and pulled off a tick or two, he'd teach us once more what God's love is like.

I'd listen and wish I knew whether to wipe his now-slimy feet with my hair or to say something theologically astute and intellectually dazzling. He could then point to the nearest child and suggest I learn about God from her. Maybe, then, I'd sit and just listen. Eat peanut butter off fine china and drink French wine from a paper cup, and take what comfort I could in the fact that somewhere tangled deep within my discomfort was a heart willing to be made nervous by Jesus.

Isn't that beautiful? Thanks to Pastor Joy Jordan-Lake for her astute insights into this text, especially her honesty... I'll make only one further comment.

Some of us have been influenced over the years by the question "What would Jesus do?" We ask the question and then assume that we can figure out the answer. But the more I've gotten to know Jesus by reading the Gospels, the more I have to agree with Joy Jordan-Lake: Jesus makes me nervous. Frankly, he is massively unpredictable. We never know what he'll say or do? Would he praise me? Or condemn me? Those little intangibles like motivation and intent really do get in the way don't they? I don't really know what Jesus will do or say, and that makes me a little anxious.

Jesus makes me nervous. And that's great. Because as Pastor Jordan-Lake put it so beautifully, it reveals something about our heart - that our God-wounded heart is willing to be made nervous by Jesus. May your hearts be nervous too.  —  Amen.