Weekly Sermon: Growing in Faith - Serenity in Your Schedule: 10-19-2025

When I was a new pastor, I used to carry around one of those,

you know, big paper calendars that you would open like this and you would see the whole month.

And it had those large squares with little lines, and it was big enough to hold

all of my meetings and appointments and visits and a sidebar for notes.

Now, to be honest, I thought that the fuller my calendar looked, the more faithful I was.

I'm sure that doesn't surprise you.

And when someone asked about scheduling an appointment or it was time to schedule

the next meeting at the end of a committee, I opened up my calendar and everyone

would see how chock-full every square was.

And when they commented on it, it made me feel really good.

I felt useful. I felt important, needed, productive.

And it wasn't just that I wanted to do my job well, which I really, really, really did.

I thought that a packed schedule meant that I was doing ministry right.

That it somehow proved not just my faithfulness, but also my worth.

Now, no doubt when Jesus saw that calendar, he went off to take another nap in the boat.

I'm much better than I used to be. Perhaps that's hard for you to believe, but I truly am.

But I still have my Martha moments. And, truthfully, Martha days.

What can I say? I am a Martha raised by a lovely Martha mom.

Of course, we live in a culture that rewards busyness.

We measure our days by what we get done, how many emails we answer,

how many meetings we attend, how many tasks we can check off.

Somewhere along the way, and perhaps I'm not alone, we start believing that

full equals faithfulness.

And this includes many retired folks I know who seem to be busier than I am.

Between volunteering, traveling, keeping up with the grandkids,

I mean my own dad, he's 90 years old, and he and his companion,

Helen, just traveled to Branson, and then they go square dancing, they go to plays,

they go to Bible study at church, and Wednesday night dinner.

Half the time I call to see how they're doing, and I get his answering machine.

I'm like, what the heck, right?

I mean, good thing for Sunday dinner. I probably never talked to him.

And yet, when we live that way long enough, we start to pay the price,

the anxiety, the exhaustion,

the creeping resentment when there's just no space to breathe.

Serenity becomes a distant dream so that maybe it's not surprising that Jesus'

friends, Mary and Martha, had a similar problem.

Now, if you've been a churchgoer long enough, or you've read the Gospel of Luke

at some point in your life, you know the story well.

Jesus comes to Mary and Martha's home with all the disciples,

and Martha immediately gets busy setting the table, preparing the food,

making sure that everybody's needs are met, the hostess with the mostest.

But Mary sits at Jesus' feet and listens.

Martha, like many of us, starts to feel that creeping resentment.

Why am I the only one doing all the work? So she goes to Jesus and says,

Lord, tell my sister to help me. This isn't fair.

Jesus, of course, knowing not to get triangled between anyone,

much less between two sisters, answers Martha directly.

Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things.

Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.

Now, for most of my life, I've heard this story, as most of us have, as a critique of Martha.

Poor Martha. She's always the bad example, meaning I am the bad example.

She's too busy, too distracted, too practical, too codependent.

And Mary, well, she's the spiritual one, sitting serenely at Jesus' feet.

Have I ever sat serenely anywhere?

Maybe only when alone, so that no one will think that I am lazy or selfish.

But this week, as I have prayed over and pondered this story,

I have finally, after all of these over three decades of ministry,

realized we have gotten this story all wrong.

That's a bold statement, but I actually think I'm right about this.

What if Jesus was not rejecting Martha's service at all?

What if he was inviting her to pause long enough to be nourished as well?

It's not that Martha's work is bad. Hospitality matters deeply to Jesus.

Feeding people, caring for guests, showing up with loaves and fishes,

casseroles and comfort is very important. They are holy acts of love and care.

Nourishing people around the world is something that our denomination,

the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, excels at and that God God blesses.

As we said, God's work, our hands is our motto.

And we have people, of course, doing service this afternoon.

You can see some of our t-shirts.

But Jesus saw something in Martha's face, in the tension in her voice and in

her shoulders hunched up by her ears, in the way her spirit was tied in knots.

He saw that her service had lost its serenity because it had lost its center.

I think the trouble with how we have understood the story lies in the word better,

which sets up this tension between Mary and Martha, an either-or dichotomy,

a binary of black and white choices.

So I did some investigating. The Greek in the original text is often translated

instead, the good portion.

And even more important, the word for good in the Greek can also mean peaceful.

Beneficial, life-giving. In fact, 1 Peter 3, verse 10,

1 Peter 3:10

uses the very same word to describe a person who desires to see good days in

terms of days that are peaceful,

blessed, and serene.

So Jesus was not saying that Mary chose the better part as if she is somehow

holier, but that she chose the peaceful or the serene part.

Mary chose sitting at Jesus' feet, which is the part that nourishes her soul before the work begins,

the part that brings her serenity before the schedule is acted upon.

What Jesus wanted most for Martha is to taste this same peace,

to let her service flow from stillness and serenity, not from stress.

Jesus didn't say to Martha, stop serving.

Instead, he was saying, remember to sit.

Remember to receive my peace. Remember to de-stress in my serenity.

Because both are necessary, right?

Serenity and service. Contemplation and action. Listening and doing.

Mary and Martha. They're complementary, not in competition.

When we focus only on service, we end up spiritually dehydrated,

running on fumes, trying to do the Lord's work without the Lord's peace.

And by the way, our whole day is the Lord's work, regardless of what you're doing.

Remember Acts 17, 28, in God, we live and move and have our being.

All of us are doing the Lord's work all day long. Amen.

Amen. I'm not, it's not like, oh, Pastor Linda's doing the Lord's work and I'm

over here doing whatever.

No, you are doing the Lord's work from the moment you get out of bed until you go to sleep at night.

And even then you're doing the Lord's work because you're resting in the Lord. Amen? Amen.

But if we only sit and never serve, whether it's a phone call or a note,

if we are more of a home person, our faith then becomes detached from real life.

And then we don't have engagement and relationships and the real needs of the

world to bring back into prayer, scripture, and listening to Jesus where we

receive the serenity and the peace.

So it's not about one or the other. The balance is the point.

Gosh darn, those NRSV translators, I'm going to, I want to call them up and

say, you got this wrong, and you're messing with all of the women who are servants of the Lord, right?

I mean, man, how old am I? 63, and I've been struggling with this my whole darn ministry.

Gosh darn it. Okay, I'm going to tell them. Well, who am I going to write to

to tell them I have figured this out, and they haven't?

Okay, no, I should not go off the text.

Okay, erase that from the recording. Okay.

Think about Jesus himself. He didn't spend his entire life sitting in prayer.

He prayed deeply and often, but his prayer always led him where? Back into the world.

Jesus went off to quiet places to pray before healing the crowds.

Jesus withdrew to the mountains before calling the disciples.

Jesus rested after feeding the 5,000.

Jesus prayed in Gethsemane before facing the cross.

And then the world led him back into prayer. Do you see that?

Jesus lived this rhythm, retreat and return, contemplation and action,

peace and productivity.

That's the rhythm of serenity and the schedule.

Even Psalm 121 follows this pattern.

It begins, I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?

My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.

You know, even my Martha mom understood this.

And when she was in the ICU at the end of her life, okay, I wasn't going to

tell the story, but now it's coming to me.

I went to go read her the Psalms, and she had this oxygen mask on her face.

And I started to read her Psalm 121.

And I said, I lift up my eyes to the hills from where does my help come?

And through this mask, my mom said, the Lord.

Right, she knew. Of course she knew. She always knew. She always knew.

And since God creates and sustains the whole cosmos, surely God can bring peace

to your day, to your life, to your needs.

And that's the posture of serenity, looking up before we look around,

trusting before toiling, prayer before producing.

I sometimes imagine, sometimes imagine how that day in Bethany then could have gone differently.

What if Martha had taken a deep breath, stuck the bread in the oven,

wiped her hands on her apron, and sat down next to Mary for a while?

You know, maybe she did because scripture never tells us the end of the story,

and that's so that we can finish it ourselves.

What if she let herself listen, not to abandon her work, but to be renewed for it.

And then what if then Jesus finished his teaching and then everyone,

including all of the disciples, Mary and Martha, all of them went to the kitchen together.

And people helped finish the cooking, and the disciples set the table.

What if dinner became a shared act of love, and not one person's burden on one person's shoulders?

And I think this is what Jesus is pointing to.

Not a hierarchy of holiness, but a community rhythm.

Prayer and action, contemplation and service. feeding and being fed.

And this is the rhythm that brings serenity into the schedule.

So how do we find this balance today when our lives are overflowing and the

pace of life never stops?

I think it starts with small intentional practices and pauses like merry moments

in the middle of a Martha day.

Here are a few things that I try to do that help me and that can get you started

or help you on the path that you have already worked out those Mary moments.

So start the day with prayer. And we've talked about this if you've been here a while.

So when you get out of bed, the first two words, when you put your feet on the

floor, two words, thank you. I try to do that every morning when I put my two

feet on the floor say thank you to God for breath and for life and for waking me up today.

Thank God for the gift of life. And then before looking at email or scrolling

the phone, do a 30-second breath prayer.

Lord, order my steps. I love that gospel song. Order my steps in your word.

Be a light unto my path and a lamp unto my feet.

Whatever words are meaningful to you, be with me today. Help me do your work.

Whatever short phrase is meaningful.

Number two, give thanks at meals. not just a quick thank you God,

but a real pause, a recognition that God is present in the food and all of the

people who labored to bring it to your table,

from those who planted it, for those who picked it, for those who trucked it,

for those who labored to get it there, and also those who are with you,

whether they're at the table or those you love who are other places.

Number three, step outside if you can, or open a window during the day.

Every coffee break, every lunch break, even if it's just to walk to the mailbox

or take a lap around the house or the block or the office, lift your eyes to the hills.

Or if you don't, you know, I don't have a hill around here in Texas,

but the sky, the trees, Notice God's creation. Give thanks. Breathe deeply.

Ask God for help. Turn over your day, your current task, over to God.

Number four, close the day with gratitude. Instead of falling asleep,

scrolling through your phone, or the day's worries, name one or two things that you're grateful for.

Share it with your partner, or have a gratitude buddy.

And at the end of the day, text each other things that you're grateful for.

One or two things that happened that day that you give thanks for.

And number five, build in margins. You know, with Google Calendar,

it's all color-coded, so I can see if I have too many blocks of color in my

day. So build in margins.

I've got to see white space in my day, and if I don't, I'm in trouble.

And if I don't have a white space in the evening, you know, Dan will find it.

He'll look at me, and he goes, mm-mm, mm-mm.

No. So we have to build in margins.

Don't fill every square. Leave some white space because that is where serenity lives.

That's where the little chats with Jesus, you know, all these gospel songs and

spirituals or whatever your favorite religious music hymns, that's have a little chat with Jesus.

I think I just said that recently. I'm always having little chats with Jesus.

Right? That's where those happen.

And then you can invite your family, your children, your grandchildren into

this kind of community rhythm, creating your own family ritual around prayers and your calendar.

The goal, of course, isn't to fit prayer into your schedule.

The hope is that you let prayer shape your schedule, right? It's the reverse.

Let it shape your schedule.

So when we start to live this way as individuals and families,

and of course, as a congregation, then amazing things happen, right?

Our work becomes calmer and more centered. Our service becomes less frantic and more joyful.

We stop trying to prove our worth through busyness and other external measures,

and we serve or work or study from a sense of fullness.

And then our lives and our families and our church embodies the kingdom of God.

Imagine us as a congregation growing more and more into a place that prays together before it plans.

Did you know our council spends 20 to 30 minutes in devotion and Bible study

before we even get to an agenda?

You know, I know so many councils, they do a five, a 30-second prayer,

and then two hours of sort of contentious whatever.

I'm like, you know what? No, we spend 20 to 30 minutes in devotion and Bible

study. Are there council people here? Amen.

And that means we can get the business done in an hour and a half, and sometimes shorter.

The longer the devotion, the shorter the meeting.

I had a spiritual director that said to me, if I have a really,

really, really busy day, I pray for an hour and a half instead of an hour.

Okay, that's God's math. Okay, that wasn't in the script either.

You get a lot of freebies today, I'm just saying.

All right, and so then we rest before we rush,

and then we know how to be still before we act, and we both have Mary's listening

heart and Martha's serving hands, and then Mary and Martha, of course,

have both these gifts, right?

So it's not either or, it's both and. And then we're the kind of church that

brings peace to a stressed-out world. Wouldn't that be awesome?

It's like, I'm going to St. Luke's because that's where I experience peace in

a stressed-out world. And then people will notice.

And they'll ask you how to have what you have.

You know, that is how Rick Rodriguez got here. I'm sorry, this isn't here either.

I hope it's okay I say this. Why? Because he knew Brent.

And he was like, Brent, how do you have such a peaceful life? Right?

It's because of faith. And then people will say, well, I want what you have.

And so then what do you do?

You will bring him to St. Luke's and you invite them to join us because this is where what?

Serene spirits come alive to serve. Amen.

Go in peace, unstruck from slaves and anchored in God's love.

Carry Christ's compassion into the world that longs for hope as you love,

serve and welcome all. thanks be to God and we will if you were inspired by this week's.