Preaching the Scriptures

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 10:38-42   Putting Words in Jesus’ Mouth St. James, Lake Delaware   It was a bold move.   But somebody had to do it.   Because they were hosting a small village and Mary was just sitting there.   There were tons of tasks to do: beds and food and basins of water and coasters to put under drinks.   And with that many young men in the house, messes to clean up and scents to air out.   So, of course, Martha was scurrying around, checking off task after task with little to no help – no help, if you asked her.      And you know how it is: siblings don’t listen to siblings.   Mary wasn’t jumping up at Martha’s command.   Mary was tuning her out to tune into the voice of Jesus.   And, like, Martha got that.   Jesus was a great storyteller; he was interesting to listen to.   Martha would have loved to sit and listen to Jesus but there was a lot to do.   And...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 10:38-42 Mary and Martha When I was in college, my junior year, I was an RA, a Resident Assistant. It was the year that Gallup released their StrengthsFinder test. And every RA was required to take the test. The idea was that once we identified our strengths, we could then lead our fellow students from a place of strength. It was a nice test actually: everybody won because everyone had some strengths. Out of the however-many strengths Gallup identified, each person was given a list of their Top Five. Of course then, because it was a college, we had to talk about those strengths at length with our classmates; we were given exercises to accentuate our strengths; we wrote essays. We were probably even graded on how well we expressed our feelings about our results. Anyway, I don't remember all of my strengths. But I do remember my number one strength: achiever. And while all strengths are special and equally valuable, I was...