Randy Newswanger
March 2, 2008
Luke 10:38-42
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
When you lie awake in the middle of the night, do you wonder if what you do makes a difference? Do you wonder if what you do really matters?
I know that every person in this room is making a difference. I know that you give time and money to projects and committees of this church, and many other organizations. But how do we decide which time we spend doing what tasks for ourselves, for our families, for our communities, and for the world? How do we decide when to make a difference? How do we decide what really matters?
We each have a default mechanism for making decisions. Most of the time, on most days, we are able to flow through life responding to the world around us, with constant thinking and decision making. But we don’t stop at each decision and analyze the specific dilemma in front of us, pull out our systematic theology, consult our astrologer, read the tea leaves, flip a coin, or roll some dice. If we did that at every decision, it would be sunset before we finished breakfast. The basic framework that we each use to efficiently make decisions is our own personal ethic.
In my family, when a meal was eaten, the next step was to wash the dishes, dry them, and put them away. It was not until I was living away from my family, with roommates, that I realized some people don’t know the right way to do dishes. Their dishes might stay in the sink, unwashed, for days. And no matter how much passive/aggressive behaviour I exhibited, I couldn’t get some of my roommates to do dishes the right way at the correct time. Our basic framework for daily decision making was not the same. We had different ethics.
In the gospel reading, the sisters Martha and Mary clearly made different decisions. Martha opened her home to Jesus, and proceeded to provide hospitality. Mary, chose to sit and engage in relationship building. Why did they make these decisions?
How did you arrive at your framework for daily decision making? Well, you learned it, first from your family and your peers, from educational and religious communities, and from your experiences.
Maybe Martha was fulfilling a role in the family. She expected of herself the role of hostess. Mary, somewhere, had experienced that learning, or relationships, sometimes are more important than hospitality. Maybe she just thought jesus was hot and apparently single. The part of the story with which I resonate the most, is the desire for other people to have the same decision making framework that I do; to live from the same ethic. I get so annoyed when I have to be responsible and someone else gets to do easy stuff and have fun.
Sometimes we learn a new decision making framework based on our experiences. I’m a relative novice at using my cell phone for text messaging. On Friday I pulled into a gas station to fill up my truck, and after I parked, I sent a text to a friend asking if he was free for lunch in a few minutes. I was so distracted by the phone messaging task that I left the keys in the ignition, hopped out, locked the door, and swung it shut. It took fiddling with the truck for 15 mintues, a $5 taxi ride to retrieve a spare key, a 1 mile run back to the gas station before I was in my truck and driving again. My new framework for decision making probably includes not texting at gas stations. But I’ll have to wait a year or two to know for sure. Perhaps Mary was experimenting with a new behaviour, by sitting and talking to Jesus. Maybe she was in the process of learning if this is a good idea, or not.
I have a framework for decision making about my daily life. You have a framework. We have arrived at this framework through modeling, education, and experience. We also have a framework for decisions about work, career, major tasks, and making a difference in the world. Do you have any idea what your decision making framework is for the big stuff?
For some of the major dilemmas we might rely on words like the ones from Micah, “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.” However, that doesn’t seem to be useful in choosing courses of study, internships, jobs, career paths, employers and partners. And it doesn’t tell us whether or how to have children.
I think we arrive at the larger life decisions with a framework that we learned in the same way that we learned our framework for daily decision making, through family modeling, peer relationships, educational and religious communities, and our own experience. Maybe Martha ran a guest house. Maybe she was a professional hostess. Perhaps Mary was a career philosophy student. One of those people who was 35 and still working on her PhD and teaching a few courses at the local community college. Maybe Martha hired her sister to work at the guesthouse part time. Maybe Martha was frustrated, not just with the fact that Mary wasn’t helping in the kitchen today, but that she was on the wrong path altogether. Have you ever thought your sister or brother was on the wrong path?
But back to the question of careers, partners, and making a difference. Garison Keillor in his daily radio show “The Writers Almanac” ends with the simple admonition, “Be well, Do Good Work, and Keep in Touch.” In some ways, this seems to be a more practical path to doing daily life than the text from Micah. But we still must each decide how to be well, which good work to do, and how to keep in touch. For one answers I’m going to turn to gurus, books, and pop psychology.
(Pulled out of bag: Your Best Year Yet, Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life, Harold Benders The Anabaptist Vision, Phil Porter Having it All, Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step, John Dewey, Herbert Stein, Warren Buffet, Joe Dominguez and Vicky Robin, Art Gish, Ron Sider, Living More With Less, Tracy Gary, Starhawk, Martyrs Mirror, the Bible, the Faerie Way, Friedman, The Path, and finally, Steven Covey.)
You may be familiar with Steven Covey who wrote the book “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” I have not studied his techniques extensively, nor do I consider myself a highly effective person. In fact, I’m convinced that if I practiced any of his advice, my life would be more effective. But there is one of his ideas which I find useful in this discussion. Covey lays out two ideas for the tasks we do in our lives then combines them in four possibilities. The variables are Urgent versus Not-Urgent. And Important versus Not-Important.
Some tasks are both Urgent and Important. These are things that have to get done today. Martha’s preparations for dinner which would be served at 6. Paying a bill by its due date, and many of our daily task. It’s urgent. It’s Important. it’s at the top of my to-do list.
Some tasks are Urgent, but not actually Important. When my cell phone rings, it interrupts whatever I am doing with it’s urgent demand. But seldom is the actual call of high importance. However, I answer it anyway. These tasks grab our attention, and we do them, whether we should or not, because they are urgent, even when they are not important.
Some tasks are not urgent, and they are not important. For some of us, television is not urgent, and not important, but we watch it anyway. Computer solitaire, piddling around, twiddling our thumbs, wasting time, puttering, tinkering, lollygagging, loitering. Like the proverbial Eskimos with numerous words for snow, we have numerous expressions for tasks in this category because we have them in abundance. We all have tasks which we know aren’t really important, and certainly aren’t urgent, but we do them anyway.
And finally, we get to the tasks that are important, but not urgent. These are the tasks we are most likely to overlook. They involve preparation, planning, prevention and relationships. I think Garison Keillor’s admonitions fall into this category. Be well. Do good work. Keep in touch. Take a walk. Get exercise. Create something. Write, Dream, Sing. Call someone. These are not urgent tasks. They can be put off until later. But they are so important. Mary’s decision to spend time with Jesus might be in this category. She didn’t NEED to do it, but it was important.
Steven Covey says that if we spend time doing these tasks, the ones that are not urgent, but clearly important, we will be on a path to greater effectiveness. And the place to find time for this, is by not doing tasks which are urgent, but not important. He doesn’t say take the time from tv watching, lollygagging, and loitering. He says take it from not getting caught by interruptions and other tasks that are urgent but actually unimportant. when it really doesn’t have to get done at all.
But how would anyone actually do this? How do people do the important stuff. How do they do what really matters?
I think there are two approaches. The one small step at a time approach or one big leap approach.
The first task in both approaches is to spend a little time figuring out what we really think is important in our lives. What really matters. What makes a difference.
Some people, after deciding what will make a difference, make a big leap for that dream. I think of Kinari and her health project in Indonesia. I think of Helen Stoltzfus launching an arts non-profit for kids. I think of VSers who give a year or two of their lives. I think of everyone who becomes a parent. These are all big leaps in the direction of doing things that really matter.
The second approach is to find the way to just spend a little time, on a regular basis, on one of the things you think is important. I find there are some structures that make this easier. Committees and boards which meet once a month let me show up, do a little work, and take a small step toward doing something that really matters. Volunteering for a community organization, or giving money to a worthy cause also fall in this category. I think everybody here is doing some of this.
Some of these little steps don’t fall into a regular structure, and those I find more challenging. Here are some more of mine that I wish I did regularly.
Remembering to take a walk through my neighborhood park twice a week. Calling my mother and father on Sunday afternoons. Smiling at strangers.
Today, during education hour, we will have a chance to talk with Kinari Webb about her life and work in Indonesia. I believe she is so clearly someone who has made a huge leap toward doing something that really matters.
Next week during education hour, I will be guiding a process to help focus our individual understanding of purpose using the book “The Path” by Laurie Beth Jones. If you participate next week you may arrive at a one sentence purpose statement. Here is mine.
My purpose is to structure and encourage creative expression in spiritual communities. I arrived at this purpose statement over the past 5 years. Originally it was twice as wordy as this version. When I look at my life, I see that perhaps 10% of my time is actually spent in this core purpose. The rest of my time is spent doing things I enjoy, and things that will make me money.
But knowing this is my purpose statement, sometimes helps guide my decisions about how to spend my time. Eight years ago, in my second year here at this church I was invited to join the retreat planning committee. At the time I didn’t really know why I said yes to such a job. But now I see how it is in line with my purpose. Three years ago when I was invited to help plan the annual church retreat for Metropolitan Community Church, I knew why I said yes. My purpose statement. Since I have articulated my purpose statement, it has become easier to say yes to opportunities that fall directly in line with the statement, and to know that they will bring me satisfaction. It is these tasks that make me feel like I am making a difference in the world. When I’m in line with my purpose, then what I am doing really matters.
And the more I am able to line up my own efforts with my purpose, the less I worry about whether other people are getting to have too much fun, or slacking off, or sitting and talking with Jesus while I’m making dinner. When I align with my purpose, I become more compassionate and more loving. I don’t know how this happens. I don’t know why it happens. But it does.
So I offer my ongoing commitment to engaging creatively with this community. I hope to hear your stories about doing what really matters. I want to know what makes a difference. And this
week, I want to be well, do good work, and keep in touch.