Just One Thing: On Hearing and Being Heard

Sermon from Sunday, July 17;  Luke 10:38-42

The man said to the doctor, “I’m concerned my wife isn’t hearing well, and I can’t convince her to get it checked.”

“Here’s what you do,” said the doctor. “Stand on the other side of the room and say something. If she doesn’t hear you, move a little closer and try again. Keep doing that until she responds, and then you’ll know how bad the problem really is.”

So that night, the man sat on the far side of the room and said, “What’s for dinner?”
No answer. So he moved a little closer and tried again. “What’s for dinner?”
She still didn’t answer, so he moved right up behind her and asked again, “What’s for dinner?”

She turned around and said loudly: “For the third time, chicken!”

The moral of the story is–if you feel like you’re not being heard, the problem could be a little closer to home… It could be that you’re the one not really hearing.

In the gospel of Luke is a short but classic episode: Jesus in the home of good friends, enjoying a good meal. After dinner, the disciples gather in the next room to hear his teaching. Mary, one of their hosts, joins them. Her sister Martha is left doing the dishes, and complains to Jesus that she’s been abandoned with all the chores.

Jesus could have said something like “My bad, Martha; what rude guests we are! We’ll all help clean up, and then we’ll all come and visit together!”

I guess that would be asking a lot. Jesus was a product of his time… What he does say is, “Martha, Martha… You are consumed with many things. There is need of only ONE thing. And Mary has picked the right one.”

Jesus has been enjoying the gift of Martha’s hospitality all day, and he’s nagging her for working too hard? That doesn’t quite jive. After all, the dishes don’t wash themselves! (So our mothers told us.) I can just picture Martha standing there, sudsy water dripping from her elbows and perhaps a spatula in her hand—poised to whack Jesus on his ungrateful head.

But maybe that’s not all there is. I wonder if Martha heard an addendum to Jesus’ words, something that I’ve always thought is implied here.

What if the thing Jesus really said was —“There is need of only one thing…at a time.” Does that change anything?

For Martha, it sure would have. “There is need of only one thing” implies that the domestic tasks she spent her time on were not important… But saying there’s need for only one thing at a time does not discount the value of her labors. It simply calls her to step away for a minute. It might be an invitation to a much-needed rest; and, more importantly, an invitation to ministry. An opening in the circle of those disciples gathered to hear scriptures. This is Jesus telling her—no matter how great a cook she might be—there’s a place for her in that other circle as well.

That’s quite a different story.

This story is, in many ways, a parable; one that reflects that truth learned in Ecclesiastes: there’s a time for everything…and everything is right in its time.

The story of the Good Samaritan, which appears right before this one in the gospel, is all about learning to see: seeing the full humanity of our neighbor; seeing need where it exists; and seeing the world outside of our own privilege. Mary and Martha, then, show up to teach us about hearing.

There is need of only one thing at a time… But that one thing is always in flux. The afternoon might be for cooking and cleaning, while the evening is for fellowship and spiritual growth.

Today might be for prayer; tomorrow might be for great social change.

One season of life might be about raising children, while another is about vocation, education, or travel.

There’s a time to see, and a time to hear. There’s a time to learn the word, and there’s a time to act on the word that we’ve learned.

But here’s the big question —if there is need of only one thing at a time, how do we know which thing it’s time for at any given moment?

The answer, it seems, is in the hearing.

On any given day, we can be like Martha, “consumed with many things.” But, Jesus asks…are our actions rooted in a deep desire to understand our neighbor and community?

Do our decisions and our words reflect an understanding of who God is, and what God desires for us?

Does the way that we spend our time reflect our values, and demonstrate the kind of world we want to live in?

If the answer to all these questions is ‘yes,’ then we are truly people who have mastered the spiritual discipline of discernment —knowing ourselves, our neighbors, and the nature of God so well that we are profoundly rooted in knowing what we should be doing at any given moment.

However–if the answer to these questions is ‘sometimes,’ and ‘sort of’– which is probably the case for most of us– then we could stand to spend a bit more time in the ‘hearing of the word.’ The word of scripture, the word of nature; and the word of our neighbor.

Some students at Bryan Station High School in Lexington, KY, started a club. The school is one of the most diverse in the state, and this group of students wanted to encourage open dialogue about race among students. They got teachers involved. They’ve hosted events where they invite local police officers come and spend time with the students, and together they all talk about ways that mutual trust can be built between law enforcement and youth of all races.

It sounds pretty life-giving and transformative, right?

But then they hung their club’s sign up in the gym—right next to 4-H and the drama club and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes—they placed their sign that said: “Black Lives Matter.” And all heck broke loose. There was predictable outcry from some parents and community members about how groups like this were intentionally divisive.

The superintendent has publicly supported the group, which goes a long way. But it’s the public statement made by the principal James McMillin that is especially powerful: He said that when the students first approached him, his initial thought was, “Can’t we call it All Lives Matter?”

“I too had bought into the misinformation about the Black Lives Matter movement,” he said. “Instead of interpreting the slogan as ‘only black lives matter,’ we need to see it as ‘black lives matter too.’ Just as I challenged the students to bring me a detailed proposal with their vision and mission for the club, they challenged me to do more than listen to a Facebook feed. I’m so proud of our students and the work they are doing…They are having the kind of in-depth discussions that make adults uncomfortable, but need to happen.”

The truth is—hearing can be profoundly uncomfortable. It can call us to step out of the thing we know– the work that we can do in our sleep, and our most dearly held assumptions, and stretch us to the edges of our humanness.

As this school, and hopefully their whole community is learning—listening can change the world far more than hanging a sign, or always just acting and reacting. Believe it or not–listening can change the world more powerfully than fighting with strangers on Facebook.

There is need of only one thing… But what is the one thing? And is today’s one thing different from tomorrow’s? Is the one thing for our church different from the one thing of the church down the road? Will our one thing be a different one thing next year?

Maybe each season, each day, each moment has to teach us its own thing. And we only have to listen—to the news, to the Holy Spirit, to our neighbor. Not necessarily in that order.

I know of no better story to demonstrate the power of hearing and being heard, than the poem Gate 4, by Naomi Shihab Nye.

Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning

my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement:

“If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please

come to the gate immediately.”

Well—one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.

An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just

like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. “Help,”

said the flight agent. “Talk to her. What is her problem? We

told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.”

I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly:

“Shu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-
se-wee?” 

The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly

used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled

entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the

next day. I said, “No, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just later, who is

picking you up? Let’s call him.”

We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would

stay with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to 

her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just 

for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while

in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I 

thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know

and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee,

answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool

cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and

nuts—from her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate.

To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a

sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the

lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered

sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.

And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two

little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they

were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend—

by now we were holding hands—had a potted plant poking out of her bag,

some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country tradi-
tion. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This

is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that

gate—once the crying of confusion stopped—seemed apprehensive about

any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too.

This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.

There are many good things. And any work can be good work. But there is need of just one thing. Every day brings its own invitation to find that thing.

You hear?