Grace to you and peace, from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

            First, let me say what a privilege it is to be with you this morning to join with you in worship and to share God’s word with you. I bring you greetings from our bishop, Peter Rogness, along with the other 113 congregations and seven new mission starts of our synod, and I bring a message of gratitude for your faithful witness to the power of the Gospel and your willingness to partner with God and with all of us in God’s great mission to love and redeem the world.

            It seems that things have been busy for you here at Gloria Dei, at least as I read your monthly newsletter. You just completed your centennial celebration, with all its wonderful and festive events, and, as is usually the case with a large and vibrant congregation such as this one, there are always things happening here, from worship to classes for all ages, to retreat and service opportunities, to ways to connect with and support your many partners in ministry in St. Paul and around the world. This is a busy place.

            This is a good thing, because we live in a doing culture, one that values getting staying as busy as we can. As our technology continues to advance, allowing us to get things done more and more quickly, we don’t get to enjoy more free time; we just try to get more done. I remember speaking with my grandmother a few years back before she died, when she and my grandfather had just moved from their house of many years into an assisted living facility up in New Brighton, and I was complimenting on how well this transition had gone. Within a very short time, they had become quite involved in the life at this facility, serving on altar guild and preparing things for the weekly worship services at the center, attending bible studies and craft sessions, and simply getting involved in the life there, so much so that we could rarely reach them on the phone or find them in their apartment. We had been worried that moving out of their home and giving up so much of their independence would be a difficult transition for them, but this was certainly not the case. When I told my grandmother how pleased I was with how they were becoming involved in the life there, she shrugged and said to me, “Well, God didn’t put us on this earth just to be ornaments, you know.”

            We value a strong and healthy work ethic, and perhaps this is why this morning’s brief story from Luke’s gospel is difficult for us to hear and make sense of. When Jesus stops by to visit Mary and Martha, Mary sits at his feet, while Martha does the right thing, following the ancient cultural commands to provide hospitality for their guest. But when Martha asks Jesus to get Mary to help her, he reprimands her for “being distracted by many things,” and he encourages her to pull up a pillow and sit by his feet, as well.

            Certainly we can understand that there needs to be a balance between listening and doing, between time spent in worship, study, and prayer, and time spent loving and serving our neighbor, but this isn’t what Jesus says. He doesn’t quote Ecclesiastes, telling Martha that there is a time a place for everything under heaven, a time to listen, and a time to serve, and since he will not be with them forever, this was the time to sit and listen. What Jesus does say is that while Martha is distracted by many things, there is need of only one thing.

the sermon too long? (Don’t worry; I’m more than halfway home.) Are the hymns singable? Are the microphones working right? Will we be done in time for whatever is coming next? Even in our individual prayer lives, few of us have the mental discipline to block out all distractions and focus on the task at hand.

            And what is the task at hand? What is that one thing that is to receive our sole focus? Surely scripture calls us to worship, prayer, and the study of God’s word, but scripture also calls us to love and serve our neighbor. Indeed, this passage from Luke follows right on the heels of Jesus’ telling of the parable of the Good Samaritan, in which he directs the lawyer who asks him what he must do to inherit eternal life to care for those in need. How, then, can he now commend Mary for stepping away from caring for others so that she could just sit at his feet and listen?

            Perhaps what Jesus is talking about is not so much what we do but how we do it. Perhaps he is not so much inviting us to throw away our daily planners, quit our jobs and sit and meditate, but to look at everything that fills our hours and our days with new eyes. Perhaps Jesus’ words to us are not that we need to carve out special time to listen to him, but that we are to find a way to listen to him in all times and in all places.

            Lutherans have a wonderful theological heritage, in which we understand God’s Word as coming to us in three ways: the written word, that which we read and study as Holy Scripture; the proclaimed word, that which we experience in the preaching, the music and the sacraments of our worship; and the living Word, the presence of God’s Holy Spirit in all times and all places.

            God is alive and well and speaking to us all the time; are we able to quiet our minds and hear God as we worship, as we study, as we sing, as we clean, as we serve, as we play, as we work, as we do all the many and various things that fill our days? The rhythm of our life in Christ would then not be that we spend an hour a week here in church, listening to God and then going out the rest of the week and doing what God wants, but finding a way to center all our tasks in a spirit of paying attention to what God might be saying to us.

            This is true for us not only as individuals, but also as congregations. Here at Gloria Dei, you are beginning a very important transitional time in your life together. As soon as Pastor Susan announced her retirement, the wheels began to turn, as folks began to attend to all the tasks that needed to get done. There needs to be a celebration and recognition of Susan’s wonderful ministry here; there needs to be an interim plan put in place, and an interim pastor interviewed and chosen; there then needs to be a team assembled to prepare the Ministry Site Profile, which describes the life and ministry of the congregation in order to help find the next senior pastor; there needs to be a call committee chosen and trained, candidates interviewed, decisions made, plans implemented, and on and on, and my guess is that most people in the congregation would like to see these things take place as quickly as possible, so that the ministry of Gloria Dei can continue strong and unabated.

            Our job, in the office of the bishop, is to come here and offer up what may well be unpopular advice: slow down, take your time, and listen. We all need to take a deep breath, and remember that all these tasks that will fill the coming weeks and months are not just preparatory, done so that the real work of the congregation can continue; this is the work God has set before us, these are holy tasks, for God can and will speak to us in and through them all.

            I look forward to spending time with you in these months to come; I look forward to hearing how God is speaking and moving in your midst; I look forward to walking with you, for however long it takes, as together we discover and celebrate all that God has in store for us. Thanks be to God; amen.