Will We Learn To Mature Through Our Experience Of Feeling Alone?
Good Morning Friends,
Today we have both Martha and Jeremiah complaining about life and then being reassured as to God’s love. Their lament though highly personal is also a reflection of the community’s cry that we were born both as individuals and as a culture protesting the kind of persons we are, with all our moods and tempers over which we often have little control. The point is that without God we are and will always feel alone even in community. Today’s scripture is a cry of lament because of the bitterness of isolation and rejection we experience as part of life. The experience boarders on being God forsaken. Disconcerted and dismayed until God brings things back into balance and growth. So, Will We Learn To Mature Through Our Experience Of Feeling Alone?
Scripture: Woe is me, my mother, that you ever bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land! I have not lent, nor have I borrowed, yet all of them curse me. Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I am called by your name, O Lord, God of hosts. I did not sit in the company of merrymakers, nor did I rejoice; under the weight of your hand I sat alone, for you had filled me with indignation. Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? Truly, you are to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail. Therefore, thus says the Lord: If you turn back, I will take you back, and you shall stand before me. If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless, you shall serve as my mouth. It is they who will turn to you, not you who will turn to them. And I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail over you, for I am with you to save you and deliver you, says the Lord. I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.
Jeremiah 15:10, 16-21 (NRSV)
and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
John 11:19-27 (NRSV)
Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10:38-42 (NRSV)
For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
Romans 9:3-5 (NRSV)
Message: The burden of leadership is loneliness.
Sometimes the events of life seem to want to steal our time, energy, hope, peace and joy from us. Often it is because of loneliness that we feel this way. And sometimes we fall prey this darkness. Jesus compared these situations to a thief coming in the night to steal, kill and destroy. But what we really want is to have life more abundant and not just more things. Amazingly sometimes less is sometimes more when it comes to the real rewards of life. But to experience the best of life some things must get much simpler. God wants His people to worship Him and experience His rest and freedom. We all know what it is like to get too busy, even doing good things. But we miss out on an intimacy with God. In our hurried and hassled age, we are more like a herd of cattle on a stampede than a flock of sheep beside still waters. What is missing is the change in us. It is about perspective. Sin never changes, the intention of His word never changes, the penalty for sin never changes, and the plan of salvation never changes. And yet if we see life with a purpose, if we see with a perspective and a position in God’s plan… in the middle of all this sameness we can become something fresh and new and lasting for a larger community. Jeremiah points out the loneliness that he suffered was because of his concern for the truth of God, and his choice of being willing to pay the price. He had not joined in with those who made merry, he did not enter into the general rejoicing of men and women, he had not set out to enjoy life, rather he had sat alone as the weeping prophet because God had had His hand on him and had filled him with indignation at the behavior of the people, whose ways were contrary to God’s covenant. He had refused to compromise because he was responding to the call of God. The idea was of God’s irresistible power and pressure. But that is not the way God always works. God’s response to Jeremiah and Jesus’ response to Marth was to bring home to them that the fault lay at their own door. Jeremiah’s problem lay in the fact that he had gone astray from his own dedication and needed to sort out his life and return to God in repentance. Martha too needed a second chance. There is always a choice to do what we are intent on doing or to seek what God is doing and join in. Power in ministry as in life is about being aligned with God’s purpose.
And So, today we have been exploring the social and emotional learning process that is going on in the lives of Jeremiah and Martha that leads them to a more mature relationship with God. It is an inside out process reflected in many of the Psalms and in leadership that starts with indignation and hopefully develops into intimacy. Jeremiah’s conflict as with Martha’s arises out the fact that they had a corporate personality with responsibilities to people and to God. And what a person does with their own aloneness in a process of maturation is important in these situations. For in this experience is the emergence of an individual consciousness born out of our collective consciousness. Hopefully here our aloneness in our relationship with God transforms from an experience of God the void and God the forceful power, to God the companion. Friends, we too need to let go of the collective demands with their compromising security to venture courageously with faith to a new awareness. That is what Jesus is asking Martha to do. It is what God is asking of Jeremiah. For the human spirit stands alone before God but for those who have worked through the pain a value judgement is made on what is better.
Pray God help us to discern the difference between what is worthless and what is precious. Pray we are still enough to experience God. Pray we see clearly and yet think differently than the world. Pray we reason together for a better solution. Pray we realize that waiting time is never wasting time. Pray we look at our schedule. Pray we look at our heart. Pray we realize our place at the table is not because of our actions but because of the sacrifice of Christ. Pray we realize we have been invited to the celebration of life and need to mature in our relationships. Pray we step out of the heavy traffic and find rest. Pray we take time to experience the grace of God. Pray we know we have a place at the Lord’s Table. Pray we see in scripture the story of how God intervenes in the lives of human beings in order that we all might know more of God’s character and mercy. Pray we rejoice when considering the ways in which God cannot change…and further rejoice when considering the ways in which He does change us! Pray we substitute our anger for God’s better plan. Pray we admit when we are wrong. Pray our prayers are filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. Pray we experience God and enjoy a heavenly fellowship in ways that change the world. Pray we realize that sometimes we feel alone so that we might mature into a more intimate relationship with God that affirms that we are never alone.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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