News Blog

Last evening the Youth and friends hosted a great Pancake Supper!  

We served over 200 pancakes and had a lot of fun in the process.

Thank you, to EVERYONE, who helped.  Without you we could not have done so well.

Hespeler, 26 February, 2017 © Scott McAndless

Genesis 37:1-11, Genesis 45:1-8, 1 Peter 2:1-10

D

ifferent people are driven by different things on their path through this life. I think we all recognize that. Some people are driven by ambition or pride. Others are motivated by greed or envy or lust. But there are some people for whom all of that really means very little. There is really only one thing that matters to them: that they are unique and special.

      Now, I realize that we are all, in our own ways, special. We are all individuals who have a unique makeup of habits, traits and interests. So, in a way, these people aren’t any more unique than anyone else. It is more a matter of how such people want to be seen and treated. They want everyone to see and notice how unique they are. They need to stand out from the crowd in some significant way.

      If you want to compliment such a person – I mean, give them a compliment that will actually mean something to them – do not bother saying things like, “You look nice,” or “You did a great job.” They will hardly hear compliments like that. But if you say to them, “Wow, I’ve never seen anybody pull off a look quite like that before,” or “I didn’t even think that anyone could do that like you did it,” they will likely go away very happy and remember you fondly.

      There are not necessarily a high proportion of such people in any given group because most groups can only tolerate so many people who grab all of the attention. But I imagine that you have known some. When they are around, after all, you can hardly help but notice them. They are brightly dressed, doing something weird and probably making a lot of noise doing it.

      The great Biblical example of such a person is the patriarch Joseph, the son of Jacob. Throughout his long story, as told in the Book of Genesis, Joseph goes through many ups and downs. He goes from favoured son to slave to prisoner to prince. But at every point in his story, both in times of good fortune and of bad, you can always say one thing about him: he somehow always manages to stand out and get noticed.

      There are probably some people here who are like Joseph. There are others who may have a Joseph in their life or in their family. And there are still others who have a little bit of Joseph in them. I think I have a little bit. Somewhere deep down in­side, I do struggle with that desire to be recognized to be special and unique and I certainly have done some things in my life to get noticed for being different (and, no, I am not going to tell you what they were right now.) So I think it is worthwhile spending some time talking about Joseph and his incredible journey. God did something in his life – brought about a maturity in him over time that we should pay heed to and aspire to.

      We first meet Joseph as a very young man. He is one of the youngest children of his father but he is also his father’s favourite. And right away Joseph stands out as special and unique. Now, it may seem at first that this is not something that Joseph wants for himself but that it is rather something that his father does to him. After all, it is his father who gives him the rather unique coat. In some ancient manuscripts is described as having fancy sleeves while in others to be made of many colours, but clearly, however it had been made, it definitely stood out from the ordinary.

      But that was dad’s idea, not Joseph’s. Maybe that is how it all started with Jacob treating his son as special, but at some point Joseph clearly internalised that message. We see it coming out in his dreams. Joseph’s dreams are not hard to interpret at all. Unlike some of the other dreams in Joseph’s story that take a real expert to interpret them, the meaning of his dreams are immediately obvious to everyone. Joseph is having dreams that mark him as being extraordinarily special and unique – so much so that everyone else is bowing down before him.

      I know that dreams mean a great deal in this story of Joseph. They are generally understood as being key indicators of future events. These dreams of Joseph do indeed predict the future events of the story as, before the end of it, Joseph will be a powerful ruler in Egypt and the members of his family will literally bow down before him. But I don’t think that it is a stretch to say that these dreams are also an indication of Joseph’s internal psychology. They are about how he is coming to see himself.

      But even as Joseph begins to understand himself and what really matters to him, we realize that there is a negative side to being like him. It inspires envy in the people around him. His brothers start to hate him and even his father, who loves him, becomes concerned. Envy is, in fact, the big issue that people like Joseph will run into. They easily inspire it in others who can quickly get tired of them always stealing the spotlight.

      But the really deep secret of the Josephs is that they tend to struggle with envy within their own soul. You can maybe understand why. The problem with wanting to be different and unique is that there is always the potential that there is somebody else out there who has something that you haven’t. And so Josephs are constantly on the watch for anybody who might just be getting too much attention or praise. The deep, dark secret of the Josephs is that, even as they suffer as victims of envy (which Joseph certainly does) they may harbour more of it in their heart than anybody else. Envy is, in fact, the sin that lies at the heart of a Joseph and, if redemption is not found for that sin, they will never be the person that God created them to be.

      The entire story of Joseph, therefore, is the story of how God worked in Joseph’s life to bring about redemption, renewal and change. In the beginning, Joseph is an unredeemed Joseph. We see that in the way that he deals with his dreams. He is driven by envy of his brothers (who are all bigger and more important culturally than him) to boast of the contents of his dreams. And of course, his brothers are all very wrong in how they respond to this boasting. They plot to kill him and then tone down their response to merely selling him off into slavery! We, of course, condemn them for what they do. But at the same time, if Joseph had dealt with his envy differently, maybe they wouldn’t have reacted as they did.

      Now the work that God did in Joseph’s life took many steps. I cannot do his story justice in a brief summary and you really do need to read his story for yourself. It is one of the most accessible stories in the entire Bible – it almost reads like an ancient novel – so I would definitely suggest that you take the time to read it in Genesis 37-46.

      There are many ups and downs as Joseph deals with slavery (during which he stands out among all the other slaves in the household and ends up running it) and then becomes a prisoner (during which he stands out from the others in the prison population and ends up running the prison) and then becomes the Pharaoh’s advisor (where he stands out from all of the other advisors and ends up running the country). There is obviously a very clear pattern in all of this. God may be at work in Joseph’s life and taking him through some very serious ups and downs but God clearly isn’t taking away anything that makes Joseph special and unique and very much in the habit of standing out in any crowd. God, I believe, is not at all interested in taking away the things that make you uniquely you.

      But, at the same time, God is working on Joseph’s life and working, in particular on that venomous envy that coils at the root of Joseph’s life. We discover this near the end of the story when the dream that Joseph had at the beginning is finally fulfilled and Joseph, ruler in Egypt, reveals himself to his brothers and they bow down before him. This is Joseph’s moment of triumph – that moment we all hope for when we get to say, “I told you so.”

      But surprisingly, and seemingly uncharacteristically, Joseph doesn’t do that. Here is what Joseph says to his brothers at this key moment: “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.”

      Compare that to the way that Joseph described his dreams to his brothers at the beginning of the story. Back then it was all about “me” and how everyone would give attention to “me.” Now when he speaks about everything that has happened and even as everyone is actually giving all of that attention to him, he is not at all interested in revelling in that attention. God has given a new perspective. Now Joseph is able to see and speak of God’s presence and God’s action in and through everything that has happened to him.

      Now, of course, what Joseph says does not exclude consideration of himself and his part in everything that has taken place. He says, “God sent me before you to preserve life.” He recognizes, to a certain extent that he had unique talents and insights and abilities that meant that he was maybe even the only person who could have played a part in what God’s intentions were. Joseph is still special and he still knows it. This is such an important part of his personality that God is not interested in taking it away from him.

      But what Joseph has gained is an incredible insight into how he, in his uniqueness, can be an essential part of what it is that God is doing in the world. This allows him to give all glory and praise to God when he sees God working in and through his life.

      This is, in fact, the special gift that a mature and redeemed Joseph – a mature person who is motivated by that need to be unique – can offer to the church and to the world. When they finally get to that point in their life when God has worked on them enough to purge away their envy, they are uniquely able to see where they can fit in with God’s plan. Unfortunately a lot of us (who are not like Joseph) can miss that and wander through life with no clear vision of how we can be a part of what it is that God is doing in the world. The incredibly valuable gift that the Josephs give us is a new vision of how each one of us can be an essential part of the work of God’s kingdom on earth. And honestly, if we don’t have that, we will never reach our full potential as the church in this world.

      What are some practical applications of Joseph’s story therefore? Well, first of all, it can teach us, when we come across people like Joseph (people who seem to have this deep need to be recognized and valued for being unique) in life or in the church, we can value them for who they are and for the insight they can give us. And if, as must be the case for some of us, you recognize some of Joseph’s traits in you, it can teach you to be open to allow God to work on the envy that may very well be hidden deep in your life so that you may become truly open to see how you can work together with God to see transformation for good in this world.

     

Hespeler, 19 February, 2017 © Scott McAndless

Genesis 32:13-32, 1 Timothy 4:1-5, Psalm 34:11-22

acob, the son of Isaac, was always driven by one thing: the need for success. It had started, for him, even in the womb. Jacob had been a twin with his brother Esau and, as it turns out, was fated to be born second in a world where the difference between being the firstborn and the second born was only everything. But do you think that Jacob was inclined to accept that second place position? Not that all! We are told that he fought for dominance even in the womb with his brother. And, even when Esau came out first, Jacob followed right after gr asping his heel.

      Faced with the seemingly overwhelming disadvantage of being born second, Jacob never gave up. First he persuaded his brother to sell him his birthright for the price of a few lentils and then, when for some strange reason, nobody would honour a contract made over seaming bowl of hot stew, Jacob went ahead and tricked his blind old father into giving him the blessing of the elder child instead.

      As a result, everybody hated Jacob (except his mother who was in on it with him). His big brother Esau even vowed that he would kill Jacob, but none of that mattered, you see, because Jacob had won. Sure he had to run for his life, but he had succeeded, that was clearly the only thing that mattered to him. While he was running, he had a famous dream about a ladder, a perfect symbol of the ladder of success that he was building his life around.

      And we all know people like that, don’t we? They seem to live a charmed life, going from success to ever greater success. They are attractive and charismatic. If they are in sales they can sell you just about anything. Many of them go into politics where they tend to advance to positions of ever more power and influence. You may be secretly jealous of them, of course, but you really can’t help but admire all that they achieve. They are the heroes of our modern age. They are the people that everyone wants to be.

      Of course, their need for success can run so deep that it becomes pathological. That can be devastating to them when success doesn’t come. Jacob went through that. When he ran away from his brother Esau, he landed in the country of Haran and he met this beautiful woman named Rachel. He fell in love with her right away which meant that he had to have her. His marriage to Rachel was to be his next success. But Rachel’s father, Laban, tricked him into marrying her less beautiful older sister, Leah instead.

      Oh, you can bet that Jacob was angry that he had been beaten like that! But a defeat like that will only make a man like Jacob more committed to win in the long run. And, in the end, after about fourteen years spent in his father-in-law Laban’s house­hold, he plundered the man of everything of value that he owned.

      Jacob left with both of Laban’s daughters (both Rachel and Leah) as his wives and their slaves as his concubines. They took the very best of Laban’s flocks and herds with them and even stole Laban’s family gods – precious idols that had been in the family forever. Even more important, Jacob left with the most important indicator of success in that ancient society: twelve fine sons. I am sure that, as Jacob watched Laban disappear in his rear view mirror, he said to himself, “Who won this time, old man!”

      The world seems to demand that we all set our hearts on the pursuit of success. After all, success in this world is often seen as the only measure of a person’s value. But there are some, like Jacob, who not only have a special gift for finding success but also a deep-seated need for it. The quest for success can be a very noble thing, of course, but Jacob’s story also reminds us that there is a dark side to being this type of person. It seems that Jacob’s need to win was so powerful that it pushed him to do things that were not exactly ethical.

      In particular, you have to admit, Jacob had a tendency to play fast and loose with the truth. He often got ahead by means of deception. It was by lying and pretending to be his own brother that he was able to trick his father into giving him the blessing. It was through trickery and deception that he was able to get control of the best of his father-in-law’s flocks and herds. In fact, when you look closely at every incident when Jacob made progress towards his goals, you will probably find that there was a point where he didn’t exactly tell the truth in order to get there.

      And that doesn’t just seem to be a part of Jacob’s story. It seems to be true of many people who, like him, are primarily motivated by the pursuit of success. I mean, think of it this way: what sort of professions do people go into who are driven by success? I think we would agree that a lot of them go into politics. Those who don’t often end up as very successful lawyers or salespeople or other kinds of high powered business people. These are the professions that will most feed people who need to succeed.

      Now, if I were to ask you what are the most dishonestprofessions, what do you suppose the answer would be? Chances are that, in any random group, you would come up with a list that included what: politics, law and used car sales. Now please understand me: I would never say that all politicians and all lawyers and all sales people are liars. They are not. I have known people in all of those categories who were nothing but honest, full of integrity and honour. But the perception is still there, isn’t it? At the very least, these are the sorts of professions that seem to push people to stretch the truth and speak in ways that only benefit themselves.

      Sometimes, these days, it seems as if we are all living in Jacob’s world – a world in which success is the only thing that matters and in which truth is usually the first casualty in the pursuit of that success. When I think of this in light of Jacob’s story, it actually seems inevitable. Once we had built our entire Western society around the goals of Jacob – the goals of worldly success – it was inevitable what we would sooner or later find ourselves in a society that had given up on the truth and retreated into the comfort and convenience of fake news, alternative facts and the post-truth world that we seem to be living in today.

      But the story of Jacob in the Bible isn’t just a story of a man, who is fairly comfortable lying and who is pursuing success with everything he’s got. His story is also about how God reached out to him and called him to embrace the fullness of who he had been created to be. As a result, Jacob isn’t just a representative of all those people who are driven by success but also a representation of who they can become.

      We meet Jacob in our reading this morning from the Book of Genesis when he has made a very momentous decision. He has made the decision to go back to where he came from – to revisit his own past. This can be a very risky thing to do for people who have lived their whole lives seeking success at all costs because you are likely to find yourself face to face with those you have deceived or hurt on the way up the ladder of success.

      That is, of course, the very thing that Jacob dreads in this passage. He knows that his brother Esau is waiting for him back at home. But Jacob has decided to do whatever he needs to do in order to seek reconciliation and make amends for the past. That is the first work that God wants to do in the life of you if you are like Jacob: help you to reconcile with the wounds you have caused people in your own past.

      This is not an easy process for Jacob – indeed he has to put everything that he has achieved in his life on the line for the sake of reconciliation (including his family which he sends on across the river ahead of him) but it is worth it, because it is the first step to the wholeness of that he needs.

      But there is an even more important task that waits for Jacob. Once he has done that – once he has determined to set out and confront his own past and put everything on the line – he is left all alone. “Jacob was left alone;” we are told, “and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.” He now enters into the most important struggle: his own struggle with God.

      What is different about this wrestling match, however, is not how difficult his opponent is. Jacob has faced powerful opposition his whole life and triumphed. What is different this time, is what he is fighting for. Jacob, at this point in his life, is no longer fighting for the things he has devoted his life to: success, recognition, taking one more step up the ladder of life.

      This is how the climax of the wrestling match is described: Jacob is grappling with the stranger who actually appears to be losing. That is how powerful a fighter Jacob is. “Then [the stranger] said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’ Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’”

      What is Jacob struggling for now? He is fighting for a blessing first of all: “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” And fighting for blessing is different than fighting for success. Jacob has finally realized that there are some things that God can give him that the world and success in the world cannot. He has realized the truth that Jesus put so well, “What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves.” (Luke 9:25) This is the work of maturity that God has done in Jacob’s life.

      Jacob, therefore, is not just fighting for a blessing, he is fighting for his self-identity. That is why he is given a new name in the midst of the wrestling match: “Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’” Jacob, after all this long journey and struggle finally understands who he is – who he has always been meant to be – the one who struggles with God. His struggle will no longer be only for success and advancement because he recognizes that blessing and knowing himself means more. And for whose sake does Jacob struggle now? Not merely for himself, I think, but for his family. The blessing he seeks is for all of them.

      I look around at the world today, and I see many who are oriented towards the never-ending quest for success and advancement. Some of them pursue it so relentlessly that they’ll sacrifice everything, even and especially the truth, in order to get there. Some, when the success that they have oriented themselves towards, doesn’t appear, retreat into lies and hide from the truth. We seem to have heard a lot about politicians doing that lately.

      The good news is that God doesn’t want to leave the Jacobs of this world to their own devices. God will do a work of transformation in them if only they will open themselves to it. This is the promise of the gospel. If you are someone who has sacrificed everything for the sake of worldly success and you find that there is still something missing, God would love to meet you by the side of the river – to wrestle with you over the mistakes and even the lies of your past – but he will do it in order to bring you hope and a blessing. It will be a blessing both for you and for the people you love.

      I am thankful for all of the Jacobs and all the great things that they achieve. What would the world be without them? But I also pray that they would open their hearts to hear the deeper blessing that their God has for them.

     

For the past few weeks our Holy Sherlocks Sunday School class has been planning a Bake Sale.  This Bake Sale was planned to participate in PWS&D's newest Sunday School Challenge, Farming for the Future in Malawi and Guatemala.

The children decided to use $400 from their pop can gatherings and add to the Bake Sale proceeds.  Well this morning they did such a great job (thank you to everyone who baked and purchased the baked goods, too!), they will be able to send over $750.00 for the Farming for the Future PWS&D Sunday School Challenge.

Way to go Holy Sherlocks.  You are awesome!

In Sunday School this morning, we heard the parable of the Great Banquet, had time to play together and put the finishing touches on the Bake Sale.

Today we had a special guest here to teach us how to weave milk bag mats.

Milk bag mats go to countries like Malawi and Haiti for people to sleep on.  By our standards this would not be appealing, but many people sleep on dirt floors in Malawi and Haiti.  The good things about these milk bag mats are that the bugs don't like them (so people don't sleep with bugs), they wash easily and dry quickly and they last a long time.

Thanks, Henk, for helping us out today!

If you are interested, please stop by Tuesday (tomorrow) about 10:30 am as we will be finishing up our 2nd mat.

Hespeler, 12 February, 2017 © Scott McAndless

Luke 10:38-42, John 11:17-27, Psalm 12

W

e all know a Martha. For that matter, many of us are Marthas. I hope you all recognize her type in our story this morning from the Gospel of Luke, but, just in case you’re not sure, let me lay out for you some of what I think that Martha’s backstory must have been.

      Martha was the oldest of three siblings. There was Martha, then her brother, Lazarus, and then the baby Mary. As often happens with the oldest child – maybe especially when the oldest is a girl – Martha was given a lot of responsibility early on. But of course, given the realities of the world that they lived in, the family pinned all of their hopes and dreams on the only son, on Lazarus. He was the one who had to succeed. Indeed his failure would destroy the fortunes of the entire family.

      And that was a problem because, from an early age, Lazarus was rather sickly. His lungs were weak; he always seemed to come down with fevers and spent as much time on his couch as he did learning a trade. Is it any surprise that Martha was the one who was always called upon to tend to him or to pick up the slack in the household when others were looking after him? Their parents, frankly, were at their wits end because of their worries for their son. If they lost him, they lost everything. And more often than not it was Martha that took care of them and helped them to calm down. She became like a mother to her own parents.

      And so it was that Martha, from a very early age, learned that there was one thing that he needed above all things. She needed to be needed. It was the one thing that gave meaning to her life, the one thing that she could not do without. And so Martha went to work to make sure that absolutely everyone needed her. No one could cook or clean or organize things better than Martha. In fact, she set things up so that nobody but her could figure out her system and do any of her work in her place. She made herself completely indispensable.

      When Martha’s parents fell sick, it was she who took care of them, of course. And when, in spite of her excellent care, they died, both of them within the space of about two weeks, she just automatically stepped into the parental role for her siblings. She did everything for Lazarus and Mary. And she was so good at everything she did that soon lots of other people were depending on her too – friends, neigh­bours, more distant relations. All any­one had to say to Martha was that they needed her and she could not resist. She served them.

      Don’t misunderstand me, she often regretted it later. She cursed herself for taking on too many tasks and trying to please too many people. How often did she berate herself? How often did she vow that next time she would just say no? But when she was there, faced with someone who needed her, she just couldn’t do it. Martha just needed… to be needed.

      So, now you know a little bit about Martha, do you recognize her? I’m that sure you have met her before. Some of you may even be her. I have certainly known many Marthas (and not all of them were women, by the way). I have especially known them in the life and the work of the church. They are the people who tend to do the lion’s share of the work in a given congregation. They are the people to whom you only need to say three small words, “I need you,” and they are there. The church, quite frankly, would probably not survive if it weren’t for the Marthas and I am frequently thankful for them.

      And we see Martha in action in our reading this morning in the Gospel of Luke. There are guests in her house – not just any guests, mind you but only the most famous preacher and wonderworker that has ever arisen in Galilee. And Martha is doing what she does best. She is bustling around the kitchen and the dining room and taking care of everyone, making herself indispensable. But there is a dark side – a bit of a bite to Martha in this story, isn’t there? And it is, in fact, the dark side that is common to all Marthas.

      In this story, Martha seems to snap suddenly. She has been taking care of everyone’s needs all afternoon – just like she always does – when she suddenly stops. She directs her complaint at Jesus even though she says she isn’t mad at him. “Lord,” she says, “do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”

      I have known enough people like Martha to interpret what she says here. It may sound like she’s asking for help, but she isn’t exactly. First of all, Martha knows very well that, even if Jesus tells Mary to help her, that won’t make her happy because, let me tell you, Mary can’t do it right. She has never been able to do it as well as Martha. She’ll just get in the way. No, her message isn’t in the request for help, it is in her opening words, “Lord, do you not care?” She’s not looking for help, she is looking for sympathy, recognition and maybe even flattery. “Don’t you care that I am doing all this work all by myself because you’d better care!” She doesn’t just need to be needed, she needs the appreciation that comes with that.

      And I realize that appreciation is a good thing and that it is something that does us all good. (Always be generous in giving people appreciation; it will only sow good will.) But there is something dark going on in Martha in this passage. It is not just that she desires some appreciation, it is that she needs it. Her identity has become so caught up in being the one who helps that she needs the appreciation to know who she is.

      The problem at the heart of Martha’s life, in fact, is pride. I hesitate to call it by the name of pride because she does not suffer from the kind of egotistical self-centredness that we often associate with pride. Martha is the opposite of self-centred; she is selfless to a fault! But there is pride in what Martha is doing. She has taken on the self-image of the helper so completely that she has begun to believe that she and she alone is able to bring help. Everyone needs her but (and this is the sad part) she doesn’t need anyone. To believe that you don’t need anyone and that you cannot receive help from anyone is a particularly dangerous kind of pride, and it is the kind of pride to which Marthas are particularly susceptible.

      But it is even worse than that for Martha. It becomes clear that she has even concluded that she does not need God. If she had any inkling of how much she needed God, after all, where would she be? She would be right where Jesus tells her she ought to be: right beside her sister Mary at Jesus’ feet absorbing everything that he says like a sponge. But Martha, in her pride, has decided that she doesn’t need that.

      I have been deeply blessed throughout my life by many Marthas. Their service has so often been there to make life and work in the church bearable and meaningful. I would never presume to criticise a Martha because I do indeed appreciate them. But I have also known a few of them well enough to know that they often struggle as well. They struggle when they do too much, help too much and serve too much and so neglect their own needs. They struggle when they don’t receive the appreciation that they often deserve. And it can make them lash out like Martha does in front of Jesus. I also know that they often struggle to ask for help and mean it and that they have a hard time accepting help when it is offered.

      But do you want to hear something wonderful? I think that Jesus understood and appreciated Martha better than she even knew. He didn’t just rebuke her that day, he began to work in her for transformation. He didn’t seek to take her serving heart away from her, but he did help her with the pride that threatened to destroy that heart.

      These two sisters, Mary and Martha, are never again mentioned in the Gospel of Luke after that incident when Jesus was in their home, but they do surface later in the Gospel of John. The story in the Gospel of John must take place sometime later than the one in Luke because it comes near to the very end of Jesus’ ministry. So it turns out that we are given two distinct episodes out of Martha’s life: an earlier one when she had just started to know Jesus and another one very close to the end of his life. We get a chance to see what a difference Jesus had been able to make in her life.

      So what do we see in the more mature Martha in the story in the Gospel of John – the Martha who had had Jesus working in her life for a while. Jesus comes along this time at a much more difficult time for Martha and Mary. Their cherished brother, Lazarus, has died. Not only have they lost someone that they love, they have lost the one who is the security and hope of the family. If ever they needed help, they need it now. And the old Martha, the one we met in the Gospel of Luke was not very good at receiving help. What do we see now?

      When Jesus finally arrives, what happens? This time it is Mary who stays in the home but it is Martha who runs out of the house and straight to Jesus’ side. It is Martha who confesses to Jesus just how much she needs him – needed him four days ago in fact: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Even more important, it is Martha who proclaims an amazing trust in Jesus: “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”

      What has happened to this woman? Rest assured that this is that same amazing woman that we met in the Gospel of Luke – a woman who knows how to take care of everyone’s needs. Why, I’ll bet that she has spent the last four days organizing funeral lunches and taking care of everyone who came to pay their respects. She still knows the joy that comes in serving others and being there to provide for them to the best of her ability. But her dealings with Jesus have also taught her something new – a humility that does not oppress her but actually makes her free to rest in being able to need another – in being able to need and trust Jesus.

      And, because she has grown so much, Martha is even ready to receive a fundamental truth about Jesus – one that few others were ready to hear at that point. “I am the resurrection and the life.” Jesus says to her. “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” To this, Martha is also able to reply with a remarkable statement of faith: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

      Yes, the Marthas of this world are a wonderful gift to all of us. If you have a Martha in your life or in your circle of friends, you are truly blessed. Make sure them you appreciate them; it will mean a lot to them. But never forget that Jesus also has work that he wants to do in the life of the Marthas – in your life if you are one. Jesus wants to set you free from the burden of helping, that you might rest in him, learn to receive when you need to receive, and live in the joy of who God created you to be.

      Jesus did a marvelous work in the life of Martha. He still does that work today in the life of people like her. If you are a Martha, then practice trusting Jesus and admitting that you need Jesus. If you know or love a Martha, be patient with him or her as they learn that lesson. Expect miraculous transformation and I think you will see it.