CAN YOU TRULY FIND WHAT YOU TRULY NEED
Luke 10:38-42
July 21, 2013 – Pastor Jeremy Mattek
Kaliysha Barrett is 6 years old, and she has something called hydranencephaly. To get an idea of what that is, I’m going to take you back 6 years to when Kaliysha was in her mommy’s tummy. A week before her due date, the doctor told April, the mom, that the baby in her womb didn’t have a brain and that April should take a picture of her belly because that would be the last time her baby would be alive ever again. Every time the baby kicked for that next week, it made April cry because she thought, “This is the last time you’ll be alive.”
A week later, April went into labor and gave birth to Kaliysha, who was, indeed, born without a brain. She had her brain stem, but the cerebral hemispheres of her brain were missing and replaced by sacs of fluid. That’s hydranencephaly. But since the brain stem was working and is part of the nervous system that controls automatic functions like breathing and blood pressure, Kaliysha didn’t die as the doctor had anticipated. She can’t talk. She has no memory and very little personality. But for six years, she has been a living, breathing joy to her parents – without a brain. You probably thought you needed a brain to live. It turns out, you don’t.
But if you had to pick one thing you do need, what would that be? Maybe it would depend on who you ask and what kind of situation they’re in. A person at a funeral might say they need just one more moment with someone they love. Someone on a tight budget might say they need a little more income. Someone else might say they need someone to love them. Someone who messed up might need someone to forgive them. The family of Trayvon Martin might say they need justice. The family of George Zimmermann might say they need protection. After the last week, any American might say we need better race relations. If you ask people what they need, you might get all sorts of different answers. But if they gave you any of the answers I just mentioned, they would all be wrong. At least according to Jesus.
In our sermon this morning, Jesus says that only one thing is needed. Just one. And he wasn’t talking about a brain, as important as that is. He also wasn’t referring to money or companionship or social justice or jury verdicts. In fact the big question for us this morning isn’t what one needful thing Jesus is referring to. The big question for us is: Do we believe him? Do we believe him that only one thing is truly needed when what we feel in our belly fills our hearts with sorrow or fear or doubt instead of the anticipation of something wonderful coming?
Is it possible for each of us, as different as we all are, as uniquely as life treats us, to find one thing that we can have and hold that is going to keep your heart and soul alive with strength and hope no matter what happens, no matter what’s missing? Jesus believes it is. And it’s not only possible. It’s closer than you would ever imagine.
38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things,42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
A young investment banker was driving his new BMW on a mountain road during a snow storm. As he veered around one sharp turn, he lost control and began sliding off the road toward a steep cliff. At the last moment he unbuckled his seat belt, flung open his door, and leaped from the car, which plummeted to the bottom of the ravine and burst into a ball of flames. Although he had escaped with his life, the man’s arm had been caught near the hinge of the door as he jumped and his arm was torn off at the shoulder. A passing trucker saw the accident in his rearview mirror, pulled his rig to a halt and ran back to see if he could help. When he arrived at the scene, he found the banker standing at the roadside, looking down at the BMW burning in the ravine below. Incredibly, the young man was oblivious to his injury and moaned, “My BMW! My BMW!” The trucker pointed at the banker’s shoulder and said, “You’ve got bigger problems than that car. We’ve got to find your arm. Maybe the surgeons can sew it back on!” The banker looked where his arm had been, paused a moment, and cried, “Oh no! My Rolex! My new Rolex!”
I don’t know if that story’s true. But I do know that the one needful thing is not a Rolex or a BMW. Jesus commended Mary for simply sitting at his feet and listening to him, which is exactly what the bible tells us to do in Colossians: “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly,” and Psalm 1 promises that when you do you will be “like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaves do not wither. Whatever [you do will prosper].” “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every Word that comes from the mouth of the Lord,” Jesus told Satan. “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,” Jesus said in Matthew. And do you think most people do?
If you want an idea of what we seek first as a nation, you can get a pretty good idea by looking at where we spend our tax dollars. Do you know which publically-funded position we pay the most money? I’ll break it down state-by-state, which won’t take as long as you might imagine. In four out of our 50 states, the public sector job that gets paid the biggest amount of our tax money is a College President. In 5 of our 50 states, it’s a school dean, chancellor, or department chair. In 1 state, the highest salary is given to a plastic surgeon. And in the other 40 states, the publically-funded position with the highest salary is a college sports coach – football, basketball, or, in one state, hockey. In 80% of our nation, the one thing needful is a good sports coach.
And maybe that’s not the case for you (even though it is your money paying for it). But, then, what is? Or, let me ask you this: How did you react to the George Zimmermann “not guilty” verdict? What did you feel needed to happen now? You told people that the one thing our nation needs more than anything is … what? Was it the same thing Jesus would have said, if you could only choose just one thing? We know he believed that the one thing we need is one thing we already have.
But how many people believe that “Things would be better if I had or saw something different – if people weren’t so judgmental or racist or so quick to bring race into everything; if more folks would just get off their tails and do something, and not forget that this happened, and not let this turn into just another tragedy that stays on the front page for a week before football season starts and we forget all about it”?
Of course, sometimes it’s not civil rights and jurys that have our attention. It’s our own sanity in the middle of a schedule that’s already far too busy. Yeah, God wants me to read the bible and pray more often. But when you wake up in the morning, there’s so much that needs to be done waiting for your attention. The kids needs need to eat. There’s a mess in the yard. The dog needs a bath. By noon, you could use a drink. But there’s no time for that because the house is a disaster. The laundry’s not done. Your parents want to spend some time with the grandchildren. The work you took home didn’t get done. The search for a new job that won’t be so demanding isn’t going the way you were hoping. Oh, and then the car’s broken because you got in an accident. The community group is looking for a volunteer. And now it’s summer, and the kids are supposed to do something fun, which requires some planning, which you haven’t yet done because you’re trying to get back into exercising. And there’s this big meeting coming up, and you’re going to have to share your side of things, and hopefully people will just keep their judgmental arrogance at home for once. And, of course, somebody’s sick or going through something tough, and you don’t know what’s going to happen, and you should probably call them to let them know you were thinking about them. Maybe you’ll even say that you’ll pray for them, even though it’ll be hard to squeeze some time in to actually do that with everything else going on. And maybe once you can get all this done, you’ll feel good about your day instead of feeling so … worried and upset about everything.
“You’re worried and upset about many things, Martha.” You are. And you know why. If this whole trial and verdict has shown anything it’s that people are pretty eager to jump to conclusions and make judgments about people they don’t even know and situations they didn’t even witness. And so, what are people who do know you going to think when what they do witness is you not getting anything done that they’re expecting. Who are you going to choose to disappoint? Do you want your boss to think you’re lazy, your parents to think you don’t know how to raise your children, your kids to think you don’t have it under control, your friends to think you’ve forgotten about them, or your neighbors to come to the conclusion that you don’t work as hard as them?
And what about Jesus? What’s he going to think if the house is a mess and the meal isn’t satisfying? Maybe he didn’t care about the things Martha did. But if we truly believe what he says, that holding and hearing the Word of God is more needed and necessary for us and our children and every person in our nation than even having a functioning brain inside our head, do you need to do anything better for him? Should your life look any different than it currently does? Should you keep up with your current bible-reading schedule, or should you change it? What would you want your life to look like if you knew Jesus were coming to visit?
Keep in mind there was only one person in the room that day who did exactly what God wanted. And it wasn’t Martha. And neither was it Mary. We know she listened for maybe 20 minutes. Can you really know someone by observing them for 20 minutes? Mary is the one who, later on, after Lazarus had died, criticized Jesus for not being there to stop it from happening while Martha confidently told Jesus she believed in the resurrection.
It was only when the Father looked at the daily life of Jesus that he saw something he hadn’t seen in the life of Mary or Martha or anyone else since the Garden of Eden. After busy days and nights full of more people calling out for his time and attention than he ever ended up helping, he got up early, before anyone else would awaken,so that he could spend time in intimate, private conversation with his Father in heaven. Every morning, Jesus listened. He really did believe that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from his Father’s mouth. And so, at the beginning of his ministry and again near the end, it wasn’t Mary God was referring to when he shouted, “This is my Son, whom I love, with you I am well-pleased.” It was Jesus.
But it was you who was clothed in the perfect obedience of this well-loved Son when water was sprinkled over your head at your baptism. “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,” it says in Galatians,“for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with [the perfection of] Christ,” which means that when he tells us to “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,” he’s telling us to seek something that is already our possession. Like so many today, Martha was working so hard to find the one thing Mary already had just by sitting down and doing nothing: The unconditional approval and acceptance of one person who, regardless of how devoted you have or have not been to him, proved his undying devotion to you with a cross and some nails and a crucifixion.
When Jesus calls listening to his Word the one needful thing, he isn’t saying that what happens in the rest of your day, or to your family, or even in Florida, isn’t important. He knows the pain of this life. He knows better than us how hard it is. But he also knows how to rise above it even after it’s killed him. And he wants you to begin each day listening to him tell you again and again that, whateveris waiting for you today, wherever the schedule pushes you, whatever life takes from you, there is nothing in all creation that will keep the members of his kingdom from rising above it in the end with him. Nothing.
Kaliysha Barrett is the 6-year-old girl who didn’t need a brain to keep living. But she does need something. Kaliysha is in the news this week because her brain stem now has a serious infection. She’s been moved to hospice care because they’re convinced that there’s no way for her to keep living. Except there is, if you listen. Listen to Jesus promise that “whoever believes in me will live, even though they die. And whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”
“Lord, to whom else shall we go?” Peter once said after so many others had grown tired of listening to him. “You have the words of eternal life.” So let’s listen. Let’s “not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.” Let’s have family devotions. Let’s fill our Sunday morning Family Bible Hour to beyond capacity and overflowing. Let’s be a congregation that knows the Word of God better than we know anything. Let’s work as hard as a tree planted by streams of water needs to work in order to grow. In other words, let’s “be still” and find rest from worry and anxiety, as well as confidence that when we labor in the Lord, when we extend our branches and carry out our work in our communities, at home and at church, it will never be in vain. Not when we already have the one needful thing.
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