Once a man was visiting his grandpa in a senior's home and there he saw everybody sitting around and having fun. He went and joined them. Then he noticed one old man screamed ten and everybody clapped their hands and lughed and then another man said, 'Twenty-seven" and again, everybody laughed and clapped their hands. The man was curious and asked his grandpa what was going on. The grandpa said, "Since we have been living here for long time, we know each others' jokes and we just numbered them. When someone says a number, we know exactly what the joke is and we laugh. Then he said, "Why can't you try a numer?' he said, "I dont't know any number". you just say...between one and hundred and we know and he said, "seventy-seven". Nobody laughthed and there was a deep silence. He asked his grandpa what was going on. The grandpa looked at him and said, "Son, somebody can tell a joke and somebody can't.."
If anyone wants to try a number between 1 to 100... who said ninty-one, Please don't that is not a church joke.
In Today's gospel, we see how our Lord Jesus Christ with all His disciples is going from place to place to preach the kingdom of God. The mission of Christ is bringing the Good News of Salvation to all. And let everyone know God's unconditional love and kindness. Then He comes to a certain village called Bethany to the house of Lazarus, Martha and Mary. We see how Christ build a deeper connection with every living being. That is why we say that Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship. We are called to build relationships and families not walls and barriers.
As He came to Betheny, there He was welcomed by Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus whom Christ call out from the tomb saying, "Lazarus, come out and he did come out to life". Christ our Lord is still calling us all to come out to life and experience God and His love.
Once a woman by name Martha fell and hit her head on the driveway. The paramedics came and checked on her and make sure everything is fine, asked her, "What is today?" Without any hesistation, Martha said, "It's garbage day". Someone said, "Two scorpions living in the same hole will get alone than two sisters in the same house".
Christ our Lord looked at Martha and said, "Martha...Martha, you are worried about too many things and are distracted". She was a woman of multi-tasking. Multitasking means screwing of several things at once. Running around all day and doing nothing. Martha was so excited and wanted to prepare a meal for Christ and his disciples and she was so distracted and was anxious. Christ in a gentle way pointed out her anxiety saying, she has to focus on one thing and get rid of her self-accumulated distractions and anxiuouness. He helps her to turn herself inwardly and see what is necessary for her to make things right.
There is a story about a man riding an elephant through a village. The elephant would poke his trunk into everything while passing by and causig damage. So to prevent this, the man gave the elephant a stick to hold in his trunk. Thus he was able to ride through the village without the elephant casusing any trouble. We are sometimes like Martha get distracted and become anxious about things. But the important thing is knowing oursleves in the presence of God and focusing on what we are doing. We should know that we can not please everybody. Once a man who wanted to please his wife said, "Honey, you will be so proud of me that I ran all the way home behind a bus and saved five dollars. The wife looked at him and said, "If you were running behind a taxi you might have saved fifty dollars".
Looking at Martha, Jesus says, "You have to focus on what you are doing and you are not going to tell Mary what to do. She has chosen better part for herself and that will not be taken away from her".
Mary is not doing anything better than Martha but Mary knows what she is doing. And she is focusing well on what she is doing.
It's easy to think that Mary is better than Martha. It's not about who is better than who. It's all about how we dedicate and focus on what we are doing.
Who are we? Are we Martha or Mary?
We could be Martha or Mary. We could be Martha sometime and Mary other times but the important thing is we should know that we do everything for the glory of God and thus paying attention to what we are doing. It's like a mother from Scotland called his son in toronto and asked, "Son, how to like your new country and toronto?" The son said, "Mom...I don't understand the people of toronto especially in the night time, they hid their heads against the wall and scream... I don't understand. What do you do son. I just focus on what I do, I just lay on my bed and play my bagpipe".
Let us focus on what we do and glorify God in Christ, Amen.
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