Mary, Martha, and Kingdom Work ~ Luke 10:38-42 (An Upside-Down Meditation)

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“Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.”

We think we know this story — and that’s what makes it dangerous. So pay careful attention and let it upside down your life. Jesus and his disciples arrive — thirteen tired, hungry travelers — and Martha opens her home to them. What an amazing gift! Hospitality has always been a deeply spiritual act. In the Bible, it often brings people face-to-face with the divine — with angels, prophets, and even strangers who turn out to be God. Imagine the scene for a moment: the chaos of a surprise visit, the sounds of hungry, boisterous men, the pressure to prepare food, to make a space feel welcome and to meet every need. What an act of grace — and what a weight to carry.

🕊 Meditative Question:
Close your eyes and step into the story.
Where are you? Are you bustling in the kitchen beside Martha, sitting quietly at the feet of Jesus like Mary, or hungrily arguing at the table with the disciples? What stirs within you as you take that place — the joy of giving, the weariness of expectation, the longing to be seen, the desire to rest? Why do you think you chose that place?

2 minute silence

Song: Servant Song / By Our Love

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“She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying.”

The men settle into the main room — the public room — the space for men.
You see in that world, spaces were divided: men in one space, women in another. But Mary does something unexpected. She crosses an invisible and physical boundary and sits down at Jesus’ feet to listen.

That’s not just a posture of devotion. That’s the posture of a disciple. In first-century language, “to sit at someone’s feet” meant to study under them — to be in training. It’s the same phrase Paul uses when he says, “I was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel.” So Mary isn’t just listening — she’s learning – she’s joining – she’s making the world upside down. She’s courageously stepping into a space no woman was supposed to enter.  She’s becoming what the culture said she could never be — a teacher, a leader, a voice for the kingdom. And Jesus welcomes her there.

In Mary, the promise of Galatians 3:28 was present: “There is no longer male and female, for all are one in Christ Jesus.”
This is Jesus’ upside-down kingdom where learning is not limited by gender, status, or expectation — it’s open to all who draw near to him.

🕊 Meditative Question:
Who in your world is a “Mary” (maybe, it’s you). Someone longing to learn, to listen, to belong — yet who finds themself held back by barriers or unspoken rules? Can you imagine how it feels to stand at the edge, waiting for an invitation to draw near? How might you help open the space for them to be fully welcomed so that they fully belong? If you are a Mary, what is that invisible boundary that seeks to keep you from following Jesus?

2 minute silence

Song: Make Room

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“But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’”

It’s easy to judge Martha, but think about it — she probably wanted to sit too.
She just couldn’t. Because in that world, and often in ours, the “hospitality work” always seems to fall on the same female shoulders.

The text says Martha was “distracted,” but the word really means “pulled away” or “pulled apart.” She’s pulled from presence by pressure. She’s doing what needs to be done — the work of care, the work of service — and yet she feels the sting of being alone in it, the burden of being required to do it. Many of us know that feeling. We start with love and end up with exhaustion. We serve faithfully but wonder if anyone notices, or if it even matters. Martha’s frustration isn’t faithlessness — it’s fatigue. She’s pulled away from Jesus by the weight of a gendered expectation and pulled apart by work that is too heavy to bear. Because someone had to make the meal, right? Someone had to serve.

🕊 Meditative Question:
When do you feel your yourself pulled away from Jesus or pulled apart from yourself — not by indifference, but by the weight of too much? What burdens or expectations press upon you, whispering that you must do more, be more, prove more? What would you like to set down so that you too might sit at Jesus’ feet?

2 minute silence

Song: Shattered Things

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“But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’”

Notice how Jesus says her name — twice. “Martha, Martha.” It’s not a rebuke; it’s an embrace. He sees her. He sees the weight she carries and invites her to set it down. And in that moment, something shifts. Jesus redefines what matters most — not the endless doing, but being present, listening, and resting in him. And maybe, if we listen closely, we can almost hear the rest of the story —
“Judas, go buy the food.”

“Peter, go make dinner.”
“James and John, clean the house.
Because if women are to be free to sit at Jesus’ feet, someone else has to get up and serve. Friends, that’s the gospel of the upside-down kingdom. There is no men’s work or women’s work. There is only kingdom work. And that work is shared.

Brothers, if we want women — our sisters, our mothers, our daughters — to rise into their callings, then we must not only make space — we must take up the work that keeps them from freedom – burdens and boundaries that pull them away or pulls them apart. Because Jesus’ invitation is not just for women to join men’s spaces — it’s for everyone to share the labor of love, together. This is the kingdom that shatters old hierarchies and upside downs our relationships.
It’s not about who serves and who sits — it’s about who listens to Jesus and lives his love.

🕊 Meditative Question:
Where might God be calling you to take a new step — perhaps to serve so another can rest, or to rest so another may serve?

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Closing Reflection

Jesus’ invitation to Mary and Martha is an invitation to us all:
To stop long enough to listen.
To serve without being consumed.
To share the load so that everyone can find a place at his feet.

In his upside-down kingdom, no one is left in the kitchen while others learn,
and no one sits while others bear the burden alone. Men and women are called to the same table — to listen, to serve, to love, and to live the freedom of Christ  - better together.

An Upside-Down Word and Worldview: "Blessed" ~ Luke 6:20-27

All right, let's talk about one single word, “blessed.” It's a word we throw around all the time, right? We think we know what it means: success, the good life, maybe fame, or being the best. But what if that’s not quite right or at least not what God thinks? Today we’re going to discover what happens when Jesus comes on the scene and flips this word on its head in way that might just change how we look at everything.

You know, it's surprisingly easy to get a word totally wrong. I have a funny story. My wife, who’s not a native English speaker, once yelled, "What a humdinger!" at someone who cut us off in traffic. She thought it was like a major insult. I had to gently explain that a “humdinger” is actually something or someone remarkable. We had a good laugh about it, but seriously, it makes you think. If we can get a simple word like that wrong, what happens when we misunderstand a word that literally shapes our entire world view. Okay, so to really get what Jesus did, we’ve got to rewind a bit.

We need to understand what “blessed” meant before he ever showed up. So let's jump back in time and check out the original context. So the word at the absolute heart of all this is an ancient Greek term makarios. Now this is the word that gets translated as “blessed” in the New Testament. And trust me, it did not show up as a blank slate. It came with a ton of cultural baggage. In the Greek world, makarios was for the A-listers, the rich, the powerful, the winners. It was basically a divine thumbs up from the gods.  The ones who used this word were basically on team Pantheon and sat at the Mt. Olympus table at lunch with their best friend Hercules.

Now in the Old Testament, the Septuagint, which translated the Hebrew into Greek, it was a slightly different. Like the original version, it was still seen as a reward and favor from God but here God's favor demanded an ethical component – righteousness gained by following the law (Psalm 1). And it connected back to the blessings and curses pronounced by Moses (Deuteronomy 11:26-28), But here's the dangerous flip side. If your life was hard, well, people just assumed you were cursed (remember Job’s friends). And hey, let's be real for a second. That idea is still very much alive and kicking today, isn't it? I mean, we might roll our eyes at the whole health and wealth gospel you see on TV. But how many of us deep down when something great happens have that little thought, well, “I'm so blessed. God must like me right now.” And of course, when things go wrong, we immediately start wondering, “What did I do to deserve this?” So into this world, a world where “blessed” basically meant you were on top, that's when Jesus arrives. And he doesn't just, you know, tweak the definition a little bit. Oh no, he takes the entire concept, the whole shebang, and flips it completely upside down. Think about it. The world had a really simple scorecard. The blessed, they were the people who had it all: the wealth, the health, the power, and the righteousness. They were the undisputed winners of the game of life. But then Jesus comes along and he walks right past the winner circle. He doesn't even give them a second glance. Instead, he turns his attention to the very people everyone else had written off. The ones everyone thought were cursed: the poor, the grieving, the outcasts. Those beset by “impure spirits” would have been thought to have been impure themselves, the poor were often considered lazy (Psalm 10), at best, or wicked at worst, and “Tyre and Sidon” were two Phoenician coastal cities filled with idolatrous Canaanites, Luke 6:17-20. Basically, Jesus goes to those who were absolutely not winning at life and then says something that must have sounded completely insane to everyone listening. He looks right at this crowd of so-called losers and says, “Y'all, are makarios. You are the blessed ones.”

 Listen, Jesus isn't saying, “Hey, hang in there. You'll be blessed one day.” No, he says, “Yours IS the kingdom of heaven.” That's present tense and he will also say “now.” It's not a future IOU. It's a declaration of a present reality right now in your brokenness, in your grief, you are in the place of God's favor and love. Jesus is saying, “The destitute, the downtrodden, the dark-hearted, the seemingly cursed, are not abandoned by God but noticed by God, favored by God, and beloved by God  - now.”

Okay, so wait, if the poor are blessed, does that mean Jesus is like cursing the rich when he says “woe to you”? That's a super common way to read it, but it kind of misses the heart of what's really going on. Let's take a closer look.

The Greek word he uses here is translated as “woe” is ouai. And this is crucial. It's not a word of damnation. It's not like “to hell with you.” It's a cry of compassionate urgency. It's more like shouting, "Watch out!" to a friend who's about to step into traffic. It's a “Yikes!” or a “Whoa!,” a warning that comes from a place of deep care, not a curse that comes from anger. So, why the warning then? Well, because all the things we usually think of as advantages, you know, wealth, comfort, being totally self-sufficient, they can actually be spiritual traps – not just in some far-off afterlife but right here and right now. They can isolate us and kill our souls by stopping us from ever recognizing just how much we need grace and how much we are loved when we are at our very worst.

So, why does any of this ancient Greek stuff actually matter to us? Well it’s this: God's kingdom, true blessedness, is not found when you've got it all together. It's found in the exact opposite place, in the places of our need. The kingdom of God is built specifically for the frail and the fragile. It's a space where it's genuinely 100% okay to not be okay. I heard a story that nails this idea perfectly. There was a woman who lost her job and she felt like a total failure, completely shattered. But here's the thing. Instead of being abandoned, her church just rallied. They wrapped their arms around her, brought over food, offered financial support. They were just there with her right in the middle of the mess. And right there, in that moment, she had this profound realization. Her big takeaway wasn't about finding a new job. It was this. She said, “I realized that I was blessed because I could be shattered and not be let go.” Now, that that is makarios. The blessing wasn't in her eventual success. It was in the love she received right in the middle of her failure. So, in the end, this whole upside-down blessedness thing, it's all about relationships. It's found in communities where our needs are met with grace instead of judgment, and love even when we’re losing. It’s when just standing with people matters way more than any personal success. It's that deep profound blessing of knowing that no matter how broken you feel, you will not be let go. And that really leaves us with a final kind of challenging question, doesn't it? If Jesus is saying “woe” or watch out to the people who think they've got it all together, well, maybe that warning is for us - for those of us who are too scared to be vulnerable, too proud to admit we need help. It really makes you wonder, by refusing to risk that kind of fragility, what incredible life-changing blessedness are we all missing out on?

 

Upside-Down Prayer Stations (Sermonless Sunday) ~ Luke 6:27-35

 

²⁷ “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹ If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. ³⁰ Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. ³¹ Do to others as you would have them do to you. ³² “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. ³³ And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. ³⁴ And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. ³⁵ But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. ~ Luke 6:27-35

Blessing Station

²⁷ “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

Listening to Jesus isn’t easy, especially when he invites us to bless others who have wished us harm. But Jesus’ upside-down kingdom truly seeks to vanquish our enemies by seemingly killing them with kindness. He seeks to free us from the tyranny of others by not allowing them to determine our response or dictate our actions. Jesus encourages us to not give them that power and to live into way of being that seeks to remake the world through mercy, generosity, and blessing.

Prayer Activity:

Who are you tempted to curse or speak badly about? Ask God to listen to your heartache and in return take a moment to listen to the God who suffered terrible violence, offered love to enemies, and invites you to do the same. Now, consider writing a brief blessing for the person on the paper provided and tie your blessing to the cross as an act of prayer. If this feels too difficult, invite God to heal and restore you and then hand the person over to Jesus to be blessed by him. Write their initials on a piece of paper and tie it to the cross.

A Prayerful, Peaceful Mad-lib

They will beat their swords into plowshares
    and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
    nor will they train for war anymore. ~ Isaiah 2:4

The upside-down peacemaking teachings of Jesus aren’t simply a phenomena of the New Testament but anchor deeply in the Hebrew Scriptures where the prophets speak of a time when God will come, teach us his ways, and violence will be no more. At that time, Isaiah announces, weapons of war will be transformed into helpful tools that feed people.

Prayer Activity:

Pick up a card and carefully consider the fact about gun violence that it presents. Offer a prayer in response. Now, turn the card over and read the prophecy of Isaiah where the weapon is updated from “sword” to “gun.” As a prayerful act of imagination, fill in the blank and offer a prayer. What would you like to beat the gun into? When you’re done, tack your new paraphrase to the board that is right in front of you.

NOTE: Each card will have one of the four facts.

Firearms remain a leading cause of death for children and teens and have exceeded motor vehicle fatalities as a cause of death for eight consecutive years.

Gun suicides rose for the sixth consecutive year, accounting for nearly two-thirds of all gun deaths.

2025 has already witnessed one hundred incidents of gun violence on school grounds resulting in thirty-two deaths and ninety-eight injuries.

In 2024, there were 488 mass shootings. A “mass shooting” is an incident where four or more people are killed or injured by gunfire.

On the other side it will read:

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
    so that we may walk in his paths. . . .
They will beat their guns into

                                                  . . .
Nation will not take up gun against nation,
    nor will they train for war anymore. ~ Isaiah 2:3-4

Merciful like God

³⁵ But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. ³⁶ Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Jesus invites us to become “children of the Most High” by acting upside down like God and mimicking his kindness “to the ungrateful and the wicked.” Take a look at the four quotes from such “children” who worked for peace and justice. Which quote are you drawn to?

“Darkness cannot dive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Peace begins when the hungry are fed.” ~ Dorothy Day

“Jesus said it is not enough to limit your love to your own nation, to your own race, to your own group. You must respond with love even to those outside of it, respond with love to those who hate you. This concept enables people to live together not as nations but as the human race. We are now at the stage of history where we will either take this step or perish.” ~ Clarence Jordan

“People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day...the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” ~ Rosa Parks

Prayer Activity:

Carefully and prayerfully copy the quote onto a piece of paper for you to take with you. Let the words of the quote inspire a prayer. What might God be calling you to pray for or to do so that you too act like a child of the Most High?

Sowing Seeds of Generous Peace

“Give to everyone who begs from you… love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.” (vv. 30, 35)
Jesus reminds us that violence and poverty often arise from fear, scarcity, and mistrust. His peacemaking calls us to a radical, upside-down generosity that disrupts cycles of greed and harm. By giving freely, we weaken the grip of violence and build peace rooted in trust, compassion, and the sharing our resources.

Prayer Activity:

Take one of the nametags and write the opposite word for any of the following words (fear, scarcity, mistrust, greed) and place that tag on a Ziploc bag. Now take one scoop of bird seed and place it in the bag. Sometime next week, sow those seeds generously for the wellbeing of the birds. Both now and when you share that seed, pray for those living in poverty or trapped in cycles of violence. Ask God to replace fear with seeds of peace, scarcity with seeds of abundance, and hatred with seeds of love. Pray for the courage to live generously and trust that God’s mercy is greater than the powers of violence and poverty.