September 7, 2025

Year C-I, Proper 18

Luke 14:25-33

[Philemon 1:21, Psalm 139; Deuteronomy 30:15-20]

My sister in Christ and colleague, the Reverend Deacon Catherine Costas, once opened a Good Friday sermon with the observation, “It’s hard being a Christian.”

I must agree with that.  But why is it? 

What makes it difficult, when we have the baby in the manager, the rabbi on the mountain top telling us who are blessed – all of us – who heals, and teaches, and tells us of a better world that is here and now?  Why, when some of us as children, had the blue-eyed, blond hair Jesus looking down at us from our bedroom walls with the sacred heart glowing in his chest, protecting us while we slept?

Why?

It is how we respond to Christ that can make it difficult.

Hate life, your family, and friends, if you want to follow Jesus?  Give up all your possessions?

Now, indulge me for a moment for the Christian Mythos geek that I am as I pick apart the back story.

The author of Luke, it is believed, wrote this gospel between the years 80 to 85 CE, some fifty years or so after the resurrection, and ten years, give or take a year, after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.  It is also believed that this work was a Christian-to-Christian endeavor.  These scripture sentences may have been cautionary advice to the author’s contemporary Christians: to follow Jesus was going to be, and at times, difficult, and against what their society expected.  It was going to throw everything they knew on their head, and it was deadly. They must recognize that the true cost of discipleship was expensive – not in terms of coin, but in what one must give up; you just don’t leap into something that cannot be pursued to its end. Jesus tells his contemporary followers that such rash action puts one in a position of ridicule, like someone who doesn’t do the research for building a tower or realistically consider what resources it would take to lead an army.   They had better be prepared for the coming reality—resistance, backlash, and persecutions. Death.

Back to that word, “hate.”  

How do you reconcile “hate” with the central aspect of Jesus’ teaching and message, that of loving one another as ourselves and as Christ loves us,  to love God, to love our enemies?

The use of the word “hate” may be one of two things, or both.  First, it could be Semitic exaggeration—an idiom that means “love less than.”  It could very well be hyperbole for the uncompromising dedication and loyalty Jesus requires of his followers.  This was a crowd of people who came to him and were enthusiastic, and probably had no idea what would transpire in Jerusalem.  His response to them is, “think about what you’re about to do and decide if you’re going to stay with me.”

How should we respond today?  Consider this: if you were to make a list of all those you loved, God and Jesus should be at the top.  Loving them makes all else possible.  What possessions should we give up?  Our need to acquire, to be the first at everything, the most successful, give up our prejudices and hatred, are a start.

Loving God and Jesus makes all else possible. 

Who else should we love?  Our enemies.  Now more than ever. 

Another response is obvious: giving to those in need – those coats, sweaters and rain boots in the back of the hall closet that haven’t been touched since the kids moved out, a sack of groceries from the produce store, reading to someone, listening to someone.  Speaking up for those without voices.  Speaking out against tyranny.  Let our voices be heard. And here’s the best – praying with someone.

Yes.  It is hard to be a Christian on most days of the week that end in ‘day.’  When it seems to be too much, when your inner voice says, “I can’t do this today,” or “I’m too tired of this,” take a breath and remember that what we’ve been called to do is a gift.  As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “The call to discipleship is a gift of grace and that call is inseparable from grace.” 

That grace comes from God and Jesus and nothing will take that away from us.

Accept it with all your heart, mind, and soul.

©2025, Rev. Dn. Ellen L. Ekström

July 20, 2025

Season After Pentecost, Year I/C

Pentecost 6

Luke 10:38-42

Does the conversation in Mary and Martha’s home sound familiar?  Guests arrive for dinner, perhaps a holiday meal, and one family member is rushing around cleaning the house: they’re in the kitchen preparing the meal, setting the table, making room for the inevitable surprise guests that show up, getting the cat and dog out of way, while another is talking to the guests, catching up, being welcoming.

And then the family member working themselves into a stroke blows up.

“Why. Aren’t. You. Helping????”

So.  Are you a Mary or a Martha?

I was raised in a house full of strong women and one brother.   They were always doing something, always in motion, competitive in everything.  

So, guess who wasn’t a Martha?

I used to get “why aren’t you helping??” a lot.

Of course I knew what was good for me; I helped with the household chores, but I did them as quickly as possible so I could get back to whatever I was doing, which usually was reading one of the ten-allowed books I checked out of the Rodeo Library, or drawing castles and princesses in a giant newsprint tablet and eventually disappear into the EllenSphere. My mother loved baseball. On most Saturdays and holidays, the family would go down to the baseball field to play a couple of innings, but I would just want to stay home and read or draw.  On several outings, I tagged along– not by choice, as we were short a fielder. My mother drew the line at carrying books and paper tablets out to left field. She took the book and paper, handed me a mitt, and off I went.

Few, if any, fly or ground balls were caught.  But we won.

Societal norms were quite different in first-century Galilee.  Women were expected to take care of the children, the house, do the laundry, shop for food, fetch water from the well, and prepare the meals.  They just didn’t sit down at the visiting rabbi’s feet. Come to think of it, that was the norm for women’s work until the last century, but throw a nine-to-five job onto the pile.

Yet, when we hear Martha’s complaint and Jesus’ response, are we, given the teaching and actions in the season’s previous gospel lessons, getting conflicting messages regarding listening and service?  Is Mary’s place at the feet of Jesus more important than Martha’s attention to the meal?  Is a contemplative focus superior to an active one? 

I don’t believe so.

In a recap of what happened before Jesus arrived at Mary and Martha’s, he shows us that the two are not mutually exclusive: Jesus sent out the Seventy with specific instructions on what how they were to act and what to say as they enter a service of proclaiming the gospel, he answers the lawyer’s question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” with a definitive response that requires listening to what he’s saying and thinking, and tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, to illustrate how one serves Jesus by serving others. He healed, and he taught, and he expected his students to listen to his words. 

Imagine Peter listening.  He did.  Eventually.

It is this deacon’s opinion that the story of Mary and Martha is an illustration of the types of ministry we are called to through Christ.

One is “go and do,” the other is “sit down and listen.”

The Word is not the same for everyone in every situation or need.

Sometimes we are just so busy and caught up in daily life as we know it that we don’t hear the Word.  It is when we realize what we’re doing that we’re given the opportunity to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen and learn; we should take it.  It is never too late. And when the call comes, we take action.  We feed the hungry, clothe the needy among us, offer assistance required by the moment and immediacy, and make good trouble to speak to all kinds of social injustice, as so many millions of Americans have been doing.

Mary and Martha were doing exactly what they should have been at the time.  Mary, in an act unknown for women in her society, sits at the feet of Jesus to listen and learn.  This is the act of a disciple.  Martha, for her part, demonstrates discipleship through her numerous tasks, including the offer of hospitality.  Perhaps on another day, their roles would be reversed, or they do a bit of both.

Remarkable women.

I close by commending to you the extraordinary women honored in today’s Episcopal calendar: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Jenks Bloomer, Isabella Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Ross Tubman.  Each of these women listened and served.  They risked their lives and the condemnation of their society to work for women’s rights, freed slaves, began programs to assist the poor, educate children, spoke against inequality, preached, and lived out the gospel.

Whether you’re a Mary or a Martha doesn’t matter.  What matters is that you go and do, and sit down and listen.

Rev. Deacon Ellen L. Ekström

© 2025