Annual Conference 2005 - Monday Sermon Page

Sandy Bosserman
Photo by Regina Roberts

Good evening, Brothers and Sisters, all of you, gathered Peacefully, Simply, Together in Peoria, Illinois for Annual Conference. There are many important jobs in preparing for the annual meeting of the Continuing the Work of Jesus Church. One of those is the preparation of the conference booklet, and that is Martha’s work. It must be, for it is steeped in deadlines and preparation, planning and detail. It necessitates the selection of scripture text and sermon title in October of the previous year and depends on preachers remembering in June what on earth they had in mind when they turned in the theme. All of that in order to present you, six weeks in advance of the event, with the booklet, without which you would not know where you intend to go when you leave worship tonight. That is, if you have stamina left to go anywhere else. From the BRF Advisory Council breakfast to the Global Ministries Dinner, you, today alone, enjoyed or endured 5 ½ pages of edification and inspiration. Martha, Martha, Martha!

When the big gathering of the Continuing the Work of Jesus church meets Moderator Jim’s theme, “Fixing our Eyes on Jesus,” we are just bound to face some thought provoking dilemmas. Our response in the midst of those dilemmas may be important beyond our wildest dreams, our staunchest stands, and our grandest disagreements. Joan Chittiser has written that “the way we do the little things in life is the mark of the bigness of our souls.” So we journey to Martha’s house.

Jesus was in town, so he dropped by Martha’s house. He knew he would be welcome. Martha went right to work to see that his needs were met. After all, when Jesus arrived, there were usually several others in tow and potentially many more not far behind.

Sweeping the panorama of all that should be done, Martha likely counted heads and measured supplies. She considered cooking time and seating space. As a woman of the Middle East, she understood the importance of hospitality well practiced. Far from being only a social grace, hospitality could be the antidote for feuds among family and clan, village misunderstandings, and regional conflicts. Martha could do no less and do her duty.

Mary stood before the same panorama. We don’t know the details of Mary’s work ethic, but we do know that what caught her eye on this day was…well, Jesus. In this moment, with Jesus at the door, with the life giving teaching shared from the family room, with his presence filling this house one more time, she made a decision, conscious or unconscious, stated or silent: rather than spending the time wringing her hands over duties, she would relish relationship and learning from the one who brought her newness of life. Mary could do no less to show her devotion.

At the meeting of duty and devotion, the devil is invited. Was it the heat in the kitchen or standing over the oven outside of earshot of the rich conversation in the house? Was it the position of the sun, signaling mealtime was near? Was it a boatload of past resentment and differing priorities? Was it simply that it can be very difficult to knead dough when other able-bodied folk are sitting around? Old wive’s tales and old men’s proverbs advise us the devil is in such details as these.

Whatever happened, we know that Martha’s focus shifted from her soup to her sibling. Lo and behold, the accuser of the Brethren and of these sisters shows up, alive and well. And when the accuser shows up, preconceived notions, assumptions, and judgements fly: “there is but one right way to show hospitality;” “I’m overworked and underappreciated.” “Here I am, shouldering the whole load, doing my duty, bearing my cross, and nobody notices.” “You tell Mary to get up and help me.”

The meal, rather than the guest it honored, became the main thing. Martha’s duty had ceased to be a dance of devotion; it had become an end unto itself, and that sisters and brothers, bears example of the idolatry of distraction. Distraction: that which robs our focus from who we really are, what we’re really about, who and what really matters. Distraction: that which polarizes us and fosters disproportionate response.

Bent on “resolution by ruling” Martha petitioned Jesus to take her side and straighten out this matter. What did Martha really want? A bit of embarrassment for her sister? Validation to continue doing and thinking and being exactly as she had grown accustomed and comfortable? Role clarification and order in her own household? Some assurance that all this work she has been continuing to do for Jesus really mattered? Is that too much to ask?

Jesus responded that what Martha personified today were worry and distraction rather than grace and hospitality. Mary was traveling lighter today. That was the better choice and he wouldn’t change a thing. Just like that. No query. No study committee. No conference insight session on right priorities. No invalidation of anyone, no scolding, but an opinion that reflected Jesus’ unwillingness to preach a fiery sermon, as he was surely capable of doing, nor to render a strident ruling on something that two sisters needed to continue to talk about while living, working, and loving in the same household.

To paraphrase William Barclay, we who would travel far must travel light. And whether we are in Martha’s hard-working kitchen or in the Continuing the Work of Jesus Church, we need to jettison baggage and shift loads. For what begins as a labor of love for us, always threatens to descend to a needy collections of duties, devils, and distractions which liely exceed those of our sister, Martha of Bethany. Iyanla Vanzant, in the dedication of her book One Day My Soul Just Opened Up, names some of their entanglements for our lives: “This book is dedicated to Ego, that part of us that continues to worry, lives in doubt, judges other people, is afraid to trust, needs proof, believes only when it is convenient, fails to follow up, refuses to practice what it preaches, needs to be rescued, wants to be a victim, needs to be right all of the time, and continues to hold on to what does not work.”

There is enough distraction in that ego trip to keep us busy and preoccupied for a lifetime, enough to restrict our travel to a tiny circle around ourselves. Add schedules packed so tightly there’s little time or space to notice the movement, the presence, the call of the Holy Spirit. Pile on our “stuff.” The overabundance of goods and gadgets to which we can quickly become slaves, rather than being freed up to serve. Anyone who has ever seriously tried to clean a George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Grilling Machine knows exactly what I mean.

The writer of our Hebrews theme text spoke of throwing off the encumbrance and sin that clings so closely.” Vanzant worded it this way to her ego trip: “you are on notice—your days are numbered!” Thanks be to God—on our personal journey, longer, lighter travel could lie before us!

And what of the church? The church, where we too often do things in a way that expects too little of our big, God-created, God-gifted soul. Where we prioritize a hodgepodge of trends and tirades ahead of the conversations, the study, the prayer, the relationships which have been our hallmark. Where we sometimes appear to believe that honorably preferring one another refers mainly to who goes first through the line at potluck. What of the Church of the Brethren, where our pietist heritage would lay us down to sleep with the prayer that our actions today are forgiven and our journey tomorrow more closely mirrors that of Jesus because we love Jesus. What of the Church of the Brethren, where our Anabaptist heritage reminds us anew every morning that our process in dealing with one another can be as important as our positions on issues we discuss—because we love each other.

I commend to you a recent article in Christian Century by Martin Marty. It is entitled “Open Season” and traces the schedule of church conference. How we gather in unity on Sunday, hear from agencies and committees, begin to emerge in factions on Wednesday, vote on Thursday, and go home mad on Friday. OK, so the Brethren operate now on a bit different schedule, but we’d be hard put to exempt ourselves from the rest. Marty’s solution might be worth a serious glance for the fragmented and diverse family of Brethren: don’t vote on that which is not “settle-able” by vote and is not settled because of vote. “We don’t vote at family reunions,” he said, “and we do not settle things. We find new ways to renew acquaintances, tell stories, affirm missions and commit ourselves to coming back next year.”

That is true, denominational family, if we are a healthy family, a healthy church. When and if we are not, we merely note more vacant places at the table. No conversation has more potential for lightening our load and making for further travel than that which invites us to consider not how to do church or to have church, but what it means to even be the church—because we are yet to be the church.

Jesus said if we would be the church, if we would come after him, we must take up the cross daily and follow him. Brethren we have a way to go. As long as we suppose that cross bearing consists of valiantly striving to carry our too-muchness to the end or to settle our arguments and prove our points by logical corporate models alone, we are more distracted than we thought. More importantly, the world will not come to know, through us, another way of living fixed in the life of the Christ.

If we travel light enough and far enough, we are bound to encounter the cross, the suffering that must always come with being a people who lives mostly by Jesus’ words and his life. Some of the suffering will come from within, as it did in Jesus’ lifetime. We recall that his strongest warnings were to church leaders and his death in part came by way of their demand for resolution by ruling. Some of the suffering will come from without, where the “Romes” of our time still do not get it, and execution chambers abound.

Those who would seriously consider an openness to bearing the cross and following Jesus Christ would do well to choose the better part, remembering the best posture of Mary and Martha.

Remember Mary, who knew sitting a spell with Jesus was not a forced time-out but the opportunity for then cleansing, hydration, and enlargement of the soul. Remember the posture of Mary, for we are enabled to stand the weight of the cross when we’ve spent time with the one whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light.

Remember Martha, a woman who landed on her feet and stood up to the workload of the day. Her love was translated through baking and taking, gleaning and cleaning. Like a multitude of her brothers and sisters in the Continuing the Work of Jesus Church, Martha put practice ahead of theology and dogma, and thus offered the warm hearth and the open door.

Those who would travel far must travel light, and Brethren, we’ve a far piece to go, not as do-gooders and superior busybodies, but as a church which needs others as much as they need us.

We’ve a far piece to go:
To a thousand, million little worlds, all on this one good earth God created and redeemed through the one on whom our eyes are yet to be fixed;
To continents where pollution and deforestation are stewardship issues on an earth that is the Lord’s;
To countries studying war some more as the only viable antidote for evil empires and infidels;
To cities and towns where gang violence, family violence, greed, and clutter are more normative than exceptional;
To dusty roads where the tickling aroma of meth labs waft the air almost as reliably as honeysuckle and wild roses;
Across the tracks where the lonely and homeless, the despised and rejected, old men and single women, search for ways to survive in a culture detached from its poor and disenfranchised;
Over the river and through the woods, to cozy homes and hearths where prejudice and provincialism distract us from being a welcoming people rooted in the grace, forgiveness, and new life offered in Jesus;
To Brazil, the Dominican, Haiti, to Nigeria and the United States of America, and a dozen places yet uncertain, where we discern God would be well-pleased to find a bunch of Anabaptists/pietists model and preach another way to follow Jesus;
Anywhere, everywhere, along the 15,399 miles where our Brother, Don Vermilyea, has trudged along with his 70 pound pack to simply bring a wake up call: a journey of 25,000 miles begins with a spell at the feet of the living Christ, means jettisoning the trash picked up along the way and regularly liquidating the wealth of coins extricated form asphalt and cracks in the sidewalk; that the journey will bring experiences of being ignored and rejected, and that the end of the race depends, for its meaning, purpose, and strength, upon our eyes remaining fixed upon Jesus until journey’s end.

Members of the 2005 Annual Conference news team, a ministry of the General Board, contributed to this report: Regina Roberts, Jesse Reid, Hannah Edwards, and Sarah Kovacs, photographers; Kathleen Campanella, Karen Garrett, Jill Kline, Frank Ramirez, Frances Townsend, Sarah Leatherman Young, and Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford, writers; Amy Heckert, technical support; Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford and Becky Ullom, editors.