Knowing our "why"

 

Luke 10: 38-42
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
July 20, 2025

Photo of a piece of paper with light blue and purple watercolor washes, with a fine tip marker used to write these words over the paint in black ink; "Be still and know that I am God".  Psalm 46.10

Okay, let’s just get down to it. Mary wasn’t shirking her responsibilities. Martha wasn’t being a self-righteous do-gooder who never gets enough praise. I believe both women were seeking after their “why”. Why they do what they do. Why they follow Jesus. Why should they be consigned to one kind of service just because of a man-made gender role that they had no say in? Why should Martha have to serve alone or serve at all? Why shouldn’t Mary be free to choose, to sit at the feet of Jesus? If we’re going to follow Jesus, it’s important that we know our “why” because our “why” informs our “what”—what will our service look like and our “how”—how will we remember and embody Jesus.



I think some corners of Christianity have lost touch with the “why”, the life-giving “why” of the Christian faith. At some point, the “why” became more about survival, influence, and power over than feeding the hungry, liberating the imprisoned, healing the sick, bringing justice to the oppressed, and declaring the year of jubilee. I think human beings have corrupted God’s “why” which is always, always, always love, compassion, connection, relationship, power with, justice, liberation, and most importantly, transformation. I think it is because we want to avoid transformation that we have perverted God’s “why” and live with a watered-down version of Christianity.



I think the United States has lost sight of its “why”, why are we here, why we are the United States, why did our forebears break with monarchy to form a free country. Why did we establish a nation of laws only to elect a convicted felon as president? Why can’t we repair the harmful past of this nation? Instead of asking ourselves an honest question, we are doubling down on White supremacy, Christian nationalism, dismantling democracy bit by bit, revealing that for some people in this country, the “why” is the rightness, the entitlement of power, money, security, and Whiteness, which in part is how this nation began.



I think humanity has not only forgotten its “why” but has distorted and twisted humanity into something evil and ugly. Millennia ago, we had to be aggressive and violent for our survival. Now that our aggressive tendencies do not have a survival focus, we have turned hostile to one another, dividing ourselves against each other, centering Whiteness, wealth, and aggression, creating pointless suffering and trauma. We still think genocide is a solution to a problem. We join cults, religions, armies to assuage our pain, in search of our “why”. We cling to the past, to magical thinking, to obsolete and destructive ways of order and control as a substitute for an authentic, fearless “why”. A month ago I posted this tweet: “I feel like humans are gonna have to learn how to be human again. Could we please be on the same team this time?”



Pastor and author Trey Ferguson tweeted yesterday, “It’s hard to love others well if you’ve never learned to love yourself well. It’s hard to love yourself well if you don’t know how to rest.” And then he ended the tweet with words he has been repeating for months now: “Today is a great day to overcome evil with good.”



It’s also hard to find your “why” if you’ve never learned to love yourself well. I imagine that is why Mary could give herself permission to sit at the feet of Jesus, why she could take a rest from serving and instead learn more about her “why” for following Jesus. I think Martha had found her “what”—providing hospitality for others—but perhaps in that moment she had forgotten to love herself well and so could not love well her sister or her dear friend Jesus. Why was she serving? I am sure it was for love’s sake. But why was she serving alone? Love is not love if it does not liberate, if it does not set us free, if it does not gather in the lost and the lonely.



If we want to learn to love well, we need to take time to sit at the feet of Jesus. If love is our “why”, we need to take time to sit at the feet of Jesus, to sit with unmerited, unlimited, unconditional love. The thing about love is that it is messy, it’s imperfect, it’s human, and it is often painful. With love comes loss, chaos, questions more than answers, and we will never come to the end of it. And as much as this is all true, love is also what makes life worth living.



If we’re open to it, love changes us, transforms us, resurrects us. Love can rewire our brains (and sometimes that love can look like chemicals that help our brains), heal our wounds, open our hearts to the vulnerable and oppressed. Love can stop hate in its tracks and move us to compassion and empathy for the despised enemy, who really is a miserable human being who was never taught, never learned how to love themselves well, who never found a life-giving “why” for themselves. As I heard it once said, we can’t allow our hearts to harden because of someone’s refusal to soften their heart.



We also have to nurture our “why”, be tender with and protect our “why”, not take our “why” for granted, check in with our “why” to see if it has changed. We do this not only as individuals but also as a community of faith. Why is our presence on Main St. in Newark significant? Why are we the church that we are? Why are we considering building affordable housing? What are the many things that worry and distract us from our “why”? What is the better part, our “why”, that we need to choose and not have it taken away?



Beloveds, knowing our “why” is the fuel for our action, like Martha, and the peace for our contemplation, like Mary. Knowing our “why” is the relationship between service and joy, the connection between knowing the gospel and living the gospel, the juice between understanding how to sing and embodying a song.







Church, when we know our “why”, we are moving toward our purpose and anything is possible. Amen.

Benediction - (paraphrased because I composed this on the fly)

This is from the Nap Ministry's Rest Deck.

"How will I be useless to capitalism today?"

My friends, I encourage you to be useless to capitalism

And be useful instead to unconditional love.

Don't think of it as "even if I'm only spending it on myself".

Spending unconditional love on ourselves is the first task, the first thing to do, the better part that should not be taken away from any of us.

Take time to be in that heart space of love

and then see what happens next.

Amen.