the preacher kneels facing the altar in SILENCE for about three minutes

"Get to work, Pat! We pay you to preach, not to kneel there in silence."

Sounds kinda familiar, doesn't it? "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me." ... "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."

How easy it is to identify with Martha. We are a culture that values hard work, accomplishment, and success. We work hard, and it is annoying when we have too much to do to see someone who appears to be doing nothing. And it would have been especially difficult for Martha to see her sister sitting at Jesus feet -- because learning from a rabbi was not something that a woman was supposed to be doing.

We have our neat categories of appropriate behavior, then Jesus comes along and turns everything upside down. Jesus breaks those narrow definitions of who we can be. Breaking a few more assumptions, there's part of me that wants to imagine the story continuing in the kitchen, where Jesus and Mary and the disciples all roll up their sleeves and chop vegetables. Jesus isn't saying that the service Martha offers is bad, or even ‘less good' than Mary's actions. In fact the word used here for what Martha does is "diakonian." Martha is ‘deaconing' -- serving her Lord -- ministering just as a deacon does in a worship service. It is her calling and her gift. A gift necessary to the community.

Listen again to what Jesus says to Martha: "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things;... " Martha's trouble is not the service she offers but her distraction and worry. Her attention is distracted by worrying about what others are doing instead of focusing her attention on her guest.

So Jesus says "Mary has chosen the better part." Not that Mary's quiet nature or her individual abilities are better than those of Martha. But Mary has centered her attention on her guest. Mary's quiet, thoughtful nature could also have been distracted from Jesus with her own worries -- our thoughts can be as busy and distracting as our hands. But instead Mary has done the one thing that is necessary.

Just what is this "one thing" that Jesus says is needed? It has to do with hospitality, with how we welcome Christ into our lives. Being a disciple -- following Jesus and working for Jesus -- is important, But we cannot follow until we have heard his call. We need first to listen -- to welcome Christ into our lives.

Mary's actions were centered on Jesus. He had her full attention. She sat at his feet and listened. Martha's focus was on Mary and on herself.

Before we can know what is "the better part" for us -- the way in which we as unique individuals are called to welcome and follow Jesus -- we need to focus on Christ, to welcome Christ into our lives. We need to listen.

Sarah and Abraham welcomed and listened to God's messengers. Although understandably, being in past 90 and told to expect a baby, when they listened they both laughed. But they listened attentively, just as Mary did at Jesus' feet.

We, too, need to take time to focus our attention on God -- to listen.

Listening isn't easy. Silence is hard for us. It seems like wasted, useless time when compared to our busy lives.

When we think of prayer, we usually think of words. Most often of asking for what we need -- like Martha asking Jesus for the help she really did need. And God loves those prayers of petition and intercession, just as God loves prayers of praise and thanksgiving. But prayer is a two-way street, a dialog. And unless we sometimes stop filling the silence with words we will not be able to hear what God is saying to us.

Silence is hard for us. But listening in the silence is the necessary precondition for hearing God's word for us and for following Jesus in the actions of our lives.

Mary listened. And her unconventional response -- sitting at Jesus feet, being taught by a rabbi -- was affirmed and not taken from her. Sarah and Abraham listened. And they were promised and given the miracle of new and continuing life.

What unexpected miracle might the Lord have in mind and heart for you? Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? Listen.

Today is the day that Delaney & Hailey's names are written in heaven and we all rejoice in their baptism.

Today when we baptize Hailey and Delaney, we celebrate the ways they are different: as new Christians they each get their own special name. And we celebrate the ways they are alike as God's children. Today we celebrate all the ways that Delaney and Hailey are made in God's image: the ways they are pictures of God, the ways they can show us something about what God is like.

People are made in the image of God. But what about dalmatians? What if these dalmatians had their own god? What would that god look like? Like a dalmatian? Do gods look just like whoever prays to them? What kind of things make gods different? How would a god for dalmatians be different from a dalmatian? -- big, good, powerful, friendly, scary, like but not like, the best parts of all of them together

How about this rottweiler?
Could she be a god for dalmatians? She's like them, but different too. Her name is "Shekinah" -- it's the Hebrew word for "glory," for God's glory. But Shekinah is not a god, not even a dalmatian god. Not even a real dog. She's a toy. But then these dalmatians are toys too. So Shekinah could be a picture of what a god for dalmatians might look like. She's like them in some ways and very different in others.

But is our God like a rottweiler? Maybe in some ways: Like a rottweiler, our God can be both loving & good and big & scary. Like a rottweiler, God can protect us & make us happy. But we'd be in big trouble if our only picture of God was like a rottweiler.

Now gods are hard to get pictures of. One of the ten commandments even tells us that we must not make pictures of our God. But still, we wonder what God is like, and it's okay to think of things, even pictures, that help us know what God is like -- as long as we don't think that those pictures are all that God is.

So, when you think about God, what is God like? Old & wise, white beard & robe? Kinda like if we got your great grandpa Lou to grow a beard and wear a white robe? Or could God be like your great grandmother Clark? (Applause, laughter, and comments like "She's more powerful.")

The Bible, even in our readings today, tells us some things that God is like: mother& father ("as a mother comforts her child" or "our father in heaven") fire & eagle & rock, wind & water, shepherd & lamb, shield & king & bread, and . . . . Does it begin to seem kinda like God is like everything? God is that big ... big enough to be like everything, and then even bigger. Almost everything can tell us something about God.

So, let's see if we can stretch our pictures of what God is like. Here's a box of things -- let's see if we can find something about each one that tells us something about what we think God is like. The kids choose different small toys and tell the congregation what we could learn about God from them:

• a dragon tells us God is powerful and frightening
• a fish is in the water -- like baptism (an adult mentions the symbol on the car)
• a dancing lobster tells us God has a sense of humor
• a teddy bear tells us that God comforts us
• a helicopter is the wind of God -- God's Spirit

So how do we know what God is like? We look at all of us together: at Delaney and Hailey and their parents, at Clark and Lou and Cassie and Lydia, at the person in the pew next to you. All pieces of a picture of God, but how do we put this picture together?

When we looked in this basket, what did you see? A racing car, a dragon, a plastic dalmatian, a stuffed animal? What are all these things? Toys! But they are so different, how do you know they are toys? We play with them. They are all really different but still all toys. We don't have any one toy that is everything that a toy can be. You know that something is a toy by what you do with them -- you play with them. What we do with them is what they have in common.

So, I look at all of us We are all so different and none of us alone is all that God is like. Except for Jesus we don't have any one person that is everything that God can be. So I ask the same question: What do we have in common? What is it that WE DO with people that tells us what God is like? We love them.

We know a teddy bear or a matchbox car or a handsome stuffed rottweiler is a toy because we play with it. We know that Delaney and Hailey are pictures of God because of the love around them. Their baptism celebrates God's love in them -- the Christ in them. People will know they are Christians by their love. It is the love that holds our picture of God together.

Want to know what God is like? Want to see a picture of God? Open your eyes, look around you, and see the love.

Now let's be sure that we kites don't misunderstand this biblical concept behind this story: the "opposition of the flesh and the Spirit" stuff: When the Apostle Paul talks about "the opposition between the Spirit and the flesh," he is not making a distinction between body and soul or between the physical world and the world of ideas and feelings. He's not saying that our bodies and material things are bad and intangible bodiless things are good.

When he talks about the opposition of Spirit and flesh, or about the sinful "works of the flesh" and the wonderful "fruit of the Spirit," Paul understands Spirit as those things that unite us, those connecting things that bring us into wholeness or into community; and flesh as those things that separate and divide us, those selfish things that lead to brokenness in our community and in ourselves.

In the Spirit, we are one in love with God and neighbor. In the flesh, we are divided and broken, self centered and sinful.

It is the flesh that breaks the string. It is the Spirit that guides us in tension with the String. Like the kite, we seek our freedom, our abilities, our hopes and dreams, our likes and dislikes. And God wants us to fly high and free.

So "Let us also be guided by the Spirit": Don't break the connections, so that we may fly high. Because it is "For freedom [that] Christ has set us free."

-----------

Thanks to Sue Stromquist and Bill Mosley for their theological reflections on kite flying.