Instruction About Compassion & Fellowship

I think it was Grady Wilson that used to be with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. I think it was him that I read this story about that when he died, one of the stories that was told about him at his funeral service was that he was a great man of prayer. And when he would pray, he would always begin his prayers with the word and. And it was as though he was just continuing on with a conversation he'd been carrying on with the Lord all day. And so he would start praying, he would say, and Lord about this, I want to. I kind of feel that way when we come to Wednesday nights, I kind of feel like saying, and Jesus next goes to. We just kind of pick up where we left off last time, right? So let's talk about what Jesus does next. And Jesus says in Luke chapter 10, Luke chapter 10, we find ourselves tonight. Remember that Jesus is in Judea around Jerusalem, in and around the city of Jerusalem. He is facing intense opposition by the Pharisees and other religious leaders of the Jews, but he is also using these opportunities to instruct his disciples. Most recently, as we saw last week, he set out 72 others, not the 12, 72 others to go throughout, not Galilee this time, but Judea and Pariah, the southern part of the nation where Jesus is ministering now. And where he will minister for the next few months and to prepare the soil, to plant the seed, for where Jesus will travel next is basically what we saw last week. Now the very next event that takes place is found in Luke chapter 10 beginning in verse 25. And that is instruction about compassion. This is better known as the parable or the story of the good Samaritan. It is a very familiar story and a very blessed story with a lot to teach us. Let's see what happens here. It begins with a Q&A with a lawyer in verse 25. On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus, teacher he asked, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Now it would be expected that rabbis would answer these kinds of questions in public. In settings where there would be a crowd and there might be a group kind of a class almost going on, a group being taught by the rabbi but the crowd would be listening in. And the rabbi might have questions fired at him from the audience if you will. And it may have looked something like this. If you will look at this picture, it may have looked something like this. Jesus standing, teaching in the temple courts, some of his disciples or followers seated around him taking it in and possibly over here. The Pharisees and so forth, I think I'm losing my battery here. One of them poses a question to him. And that question by this expert in the law, this Jewish Old Testament scribe or lawyer, is what must I do to inherit eternal life? A familiar question in that day in the first century, was this theological issue of what must I do? How much must I do? How much of the law must I keep to be able to inherit eternal life? And Jesus' answer is very interesting. Notice what Jesus says verse 26. What is written in the law? He replied. How do you read it? Now Jesus knows this man is an Old Testament scholar. He knows that this man is familiar with the Old Testament. So he sends him back to the law but he also knows that it's very common for these Old Testament scribes to quibble over the meaning of the law but never really get around to applying it to their lives. And so Jesus really asks two questions. What is in the law and then how do you read it? How do you read it? The question of application. What does it mean to you? What is it saying to you? What do you take from this? What is the law saying? But then what do you take from it? So he takes him back to the law and the man gives a reply in verse 27. He answered, love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. That is a pretty direct quote from the most familiar passage to a Jew in the Old Testament. The Shema. The Deuteronomy 6.5 passage which they would have usually wrapped up in a little scroll and put in a factory, a little box they would wear on their forehead or on their arm. And that was a passage of Scripture that they kept with them at all time. It was the summation of everything a Jew was to believe. So he quotes the most familiar, most basic command in all the Old Testament. That's a great start. But he also quotes a second one. And love your neighbor as yourself which is a summary of all that the law taught about how to treat other people. Now have you heard, is there any place else in that in the New Testament where you hear that response given? Jesus gave that same response, didn't he? A little bit later, the last week of his life as he's teaching in the temple, a scribe asks him a question and Jesus answers with the same answer. What's the greatest command and Jesus answers with this same answer? So the scribe is on to something here. This lawyer is on to something. He's on to summarizing the Old Testament really in these two basic commands. Love God, love others basically is what the summary of Old Testament teaching is. So look at what Jesus says to him next. You have answered correctly, Jesus replied, do this and you will live. Basically the matter is closed as far as Jesus is concerned, but this raises a troubling question. The lawyer asked what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus turns him back to the law and says do this and you will live. Wait a second, that's not what we would expect to hear Jesus say. We would expect to hear Jesus say something like, you can't do anything to inherit eternal life. Trust me and you will have eternal life. That's what we would expect. So why does Jesus answer in this way? Why does Jesus take him back to the law and say if you do that, you'll live. Because he knows he can't do it. All right, anything else? If you love God with all your heart, you are trusting Jesus. All right. What do you read in the law? Why do you think Jesus is sending back to the law? What is the purpose of the law? To point us to Christ, Paul says that in Galatians 3. It's like a mirror where we see what, Margaret, our sinful self. Okay, let's follow that trail for a moment. What is the purpose of the law? To show us what? Our sin. Yes. To show us our sin. So what Jesus is doing then is really taking him back to step one. Even before you place faith in Christ or in the Old Testament, faith in God and His revealed word, there has to be a recognition of your sin. And that's what the law is designed to do. In other words, before there can be conversion, there has to be conviction. Right? I mean, we still believe that today. It's still true today. Before there can be any conversion or understanding of the need to put faith in Christ, there has to first of all be an understanding of the fact that we're a sinner. And that's exactly why Jesus is taking him back. Jesus really is brilliantly taking him back to square one to see if there is any conviction in this man's heart. What does the law say? And if this man is honest with the law and honest about his own life, he will realize nobody has ever done perfectly what I just said, what the law you're just said. Love the word you're God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love others as yourself. If he's honest about himself, then he knows he hasn't lived up to that summary of the law. But does he come to that conclusion? Does he come to that conclusion? Look what happens next. But he wanted to justify himself. So he asked Jesus, and who is my neighbor? Okay? Is there any conviction in this man's heart? Is there any reason? Is there anything that indicates I'm really asking about eternal life because I'm really desiring to have eternal life and to know what I must do? Is there any sense of that in this man's life at all? Of course not. He's wanting to justify himself. The Bible says there is no conviction. There is no recognition of sin. Actually, verse 25 tells us he only asked the question to test Jesus to try to trip him up. So Jesus basically is saying this, if there is no conviction, then there's no point in me telling you how to be saved. If you're not coming because you have a recognition of sin in your heart and you're convicted about that and you realize you've broken the law, there's no sense in the answer in your question. In fact, you're not even asking the question out of any real sense of conviction or guilt. So that's the reason Jesus responds as he does. He really takes the man back to square one before conversion, before eternal life comes the recognition of sin. Do you understand what the Old Testament teaches? Do you understand what the law teaches? If it does anything, it shows you that you're a sinner, but the man didn't get that. That's not at all why he's asking the question. So Jesus does what the Bible always does. The Bible never starts out with how eternal life is given. The Bible always starts out the gospel with we are sinners. And thus we understand our need so that we can understand why we must trust him. So this man really is trying to justify himself. He has no conviction, no concern about sin in his life. And so that's the reason Jesus is not saying if you keep the law, you'll have eternal life. Okay. Obviously that would go against everything. Jesus taught and the rest of the Bible teaches. You cannot gain your salvation by works. So what Jesus is doing is taking him back. He's going to start back at the beginning. Okay. First of all guy, we got to understand you need to understand your sin or what is the law teach? But when the guy didn't even get that point, didn't even get that was not willing to even go that far, then Jesus just stops the conversation. It's over. He would have gone further with him if the man had responded to that. He would have gone further to explain what it means to have eternal life through faith. No question about that. Okay. Any commoner question at this point before we move on to the story that Jesus tells to highlight things here quickly. Steve. That they encourage each other to be encouraged to do the law. They have to ask for it. They are always encouraged to do the truth. And so it really didn't threaten the heart of Jesus. Although it's against the things that you've been trying to do. It's against the things that you've been trying to do. You're encouraged to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Again, it's another way of saying I earn it by works. It passed down to me from my forebears. Okay. All right. Look at the story that Jesus any other comment or question before we move on to the story that Jesus tells. Okay. Jesus tells a story about compassion. And he begins with the neglect of compassion. And by the way, the man's question, who is my neighbor, is to deflect attention away from what he probably realized Jesus was getting at. He does not want to face up to the fact that he has never kept that command. Because he probably, he probably surmised that's going to be Jesus next question. Okay. You know what the law says. Now, have you done it? So he doesn't want that incriminating evidence. He doesn't want that much of a look inside. So he does what everybody does who's trying to deflect attention away from the real issue. He quibbles about words. Let's talk about this word neighbor. You mentioned the word neighbor. Let's define that more carefully. Jesus. Just who is my neighbor? Okay. Lots of theological discussions are designed to get away from the real spiritual point of what God wants to do with his word in our heart. Nothing wrong with good theological discussions. I love them as much as anyone. But a lot of quibbling about words and cutting hairs finally is basically an escape from what the Bible is really doing, but we have surgery on our hearts. Okay. So that's what this man does. Well, let's talk about the word neighbor. What do you mean by neighbor? And Jesus is going to show him what he means by neighbor with this story. Notice the neglect of compassion verse 30 and reply. Jesus said a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. We're going to stop right there. I want to take a look at where we're talking about here. The road from the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was a 17 mile almost completely downhill road. The terrain drops 4,000 feet in these 17 miles. I don't know if I have enough battery left here, but here's Jerusalem. Here's the road right here to Jericho. We're going down to the to the Dead Sea, which is below sea level. The lowest place on earth is the Dead Sea. And you're up here in the mountains in Jerusalem. You drop 4,000 feet to Jericho and then drop further before you get here. Now here's what it looks like. Here's what it looks like. These are the roads right here from Jericho to Jerusalem. This is called the Wadi Kilt. A Wadi is a dry streambed for most of the year. And in the rainy season for just a month or so when you get a rain occasionally it will have water in it. But most of the time it's a dry riverbed. And this is where the road, this is how the roads went. Here's another picture of the Wadi Kilt. You can see a road alongside here. Let's go back to that first picture. Right there. You see that? That's a monastery. This is absolute, as you can tell, it's absolute wilderness. And monks have for hundreds of years sought the most out of the way places to try to locate monasteries. That's a monastery in the side of that, built in the side of that cliff. Now let's move on to the next slide. And then the next one. Here again you're getting a bigger, kind of further away picture from the Wadi Kilt, which is the main road. The main road goes along the hill tops along the side here from Jerusalem to Jericho. One more picture. You can see the road better here. Right here and here. You can see the road and the Wadi Kilt is the darker, the green area right through there. Now one last picture takes us down into Jericho. This next picture drops out of those mountains down into the city. This is the city of Jericho today. Right here. And you would drop down off of these mountain roads at the bottom of the screen down into Jericho. And you see the river right there. Well you see it at the top of the screen. That river is a Jordan river. And to the right of your screen would be the Dead Sea. Okay, that's Jericho. So this is uninhabited wilderness. In fact, this is the same wilderness. It is believed where Jesus spent the 40 days in the temptation right after his baptism. This is uninhabited barren wilderness desert area. And this road is very hazardous and dangerous. And you can see as it goes along those cliffs and there's caves all over the place, it was it was a very opportune place for robbers, thieves to hide. And it was the main way. It was about the only way from Jericho to Jerusalem. So it was a main thoroughfare, believe it or not, for that day. All commerce, all traffic from Jericho to Jerusalem went by that road. And so it was a very popular place for people to be surprised by thieves. In fact, it was known in that day as the bloody way, the bloody way because of the common occurrence of thevery. Jesus is telling a story that is not at all imaginary. This happened all the time to people who may have tried to travel alone on this highway. So he tells this story about a man who is the victim of these robbers and they have stripped him of his clothes, beating him, leaving him half dead. And then two people come by 31, verse 31. A priest happened to be going down the same road when he saw the man he passed by on the other side. So to a Levite when he came to the place and saw him passed by on the other side. Now let me ask you what do a priest and Levite have in common? Religion? Okay. They're both religious. Can we go a little further with that? So I'm supposed to care for people for sure. And the reason Jesus uses them is because they would certainly expect to be the people who would reach out to help someone. Why? What does a priest do? Where does he serve? In the temple. He serves in the temple. He is one of the religious leaders of Israel. He's supposed to be one of the shepherds of the people. He's supposed to be, remember Jesus just got done talking in John 10 about the shepherd analogy and how the the shepherds of Israel, the religious leaders have failed the people. And so he is the true shepherd. Okay. The priests are supposed to be the shepherds. They're supposed to tenderly care for the people. Jesus knows what he's doing by using these two as an example. Levite. What does a Levite do? One is a high priest from the tribe of Levi. Right. The Levites, the tribe of Levi is the tribe from which all the priests and all the temple workers come. We don't know whether this man was another priest or whether he was just a worker in the temple, but he would have been involved in the religious system again. Supposed to be someone who would be caring for the people. But they both go by on the other side. Why do you think they would do that? Why do you think they would see a man who's obviously in danger, who's been beaten and has been left for dead? Why do you think they would pass by on the other side if there are people who didn't want to get contaminated? Hang on to that thought. I think that is a lot of truth to that. Hang on to that one. There are some other things. Some other reasons why you think they might have just said I'm not going to get involved. The time involved? They're not supposed to touch dead people. Put Margaret's comment with Audrey's comment and I think you've got something there. They may have been concerned about ritual uncleanness, but they don't even know if this man's dead. So really that's not. They didn't care. Okay. I think they may have been concerned about ritual uncleanness, but what I was going to say is that's just an excuse. It's a hypocritical religious excuse for not getting involved because it's obvious that if a man is in danger, you go ahead and make yourself ritual unclean. That only lasts for seven days and there's a sacrifice to take care of that, but you save a man's life. That's what you do. So that's a hypocritically induced excuse. I think basically yeah, they don't care. They may have used a lot of the same excuses we would use. The priests and Levites served for like a week at a time in the temple, then they would go back home. They came from all over the nation and they would serve for a period of time and then they would go back home. Maybe these guys are on the way back home. I've done my time. I've served the people. I'm not unduty anymore. I want to get home. Aren't those kind of excuses we might use? It gets too complicated if I get involved. Okay, there are any number of things they may have been thinking that we would have a tendency to think as well. The man who was robbed? Wouldn't have had anything to do with him, but there's no indication of that. No indication of that. So we don't know obviously, but yeah. Good. I got to in our day that would certainly be caused to think twice when the. There may have been any number of reasons why someone would say I don't want to get involved. It's a busy road. Someone else will come by. They'll take care of it. I mean don't we use the same rationalizations when we see someone that may need help. And so, you know, let's not do like the lawyer who doesn't know how to apply these, you know, the word of God to his own life. Let's make sure we put ourselves in this story. And we're not always the good guys. And these two, these two guys would be expected to be the good guys, pretty soon to leave. Good Jewish religious leaders. They should be expected to be the good guys in the story, but they're not. And then notice who enters the scene next. Verse 33, but us Samaritan as he traveled came where the man was. And when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an end and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. Look after him. He said, and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have. Okay, this is the expression of compassion. Okay, then we've seen the neglect of compassion. This is the expression of compassion. And isn't it interesting that Jesus does use a Samaritan now to be the hero of the story? Remind me, who are the Samaritans? Why would we not expect him to be the hero? They're hated by the Jews, aren't they? Do you remember why? Partially paganistic, yes. Halfbreed. You remember the history in Jewish eyes. They were halfbreed of the worst kind. And the reason for that is, the Samaritans came from when the northern kingdom of Israel was taken into captivity and the Assyrians repopulated that area with Assyrians, the remaining few Jews that were there, intermarried with them and formed in the Jewish eye kind of a Mongol race, if you want to call it that. And so they were seen as inferior by Jews. I mean, this is obviously just plain out and out prejudice, but that's how they were viewed. Plus, the Samaritans didn't help things any by hating the Jews and forming their own temple on Mount Gerasim, their own religious system, in opposition to the temple in Jerusalem. So there was bad blood on both sides. They hated each other. But Jesus uses Samaritans as the hero in the story. It's very interesting. Very interesting. And this man expresses compassion in very specific ways. You can see them there as we read the story. True compassion makes your heart move towards someone who's in need, but it goes a step further, doesn't it? If you truly have compassion, you have got to do something. It stirs and troubles your heart to the point that you've got to do something about it. And this man did something about it. He saw the man in need, but he went over to help him and he did something about it. And it cost him plenty. Now, this is a direct slam in the Lawyer's face. The Lawyer wants to quibble about words. What does neighbor mean? And Jesus is going to show him a man who does what a neighbor does. You can talk about the words all you want to. Here's a man who did what a neighbor does. That's a neighbor. Someone who swings into action when compassion is needed. And you know, we have a tendency to do the same thing. We can quibble about methods of evangelism, but never witness to anybody. You know, we can fuss about which method is best, but never witness to anybody. We can quibble about worship styles and what's the appropriate music and never really worship. You know, what's the purpose of that? We can quibble about what's the best translation, but not do what all good translations are clear about we should do. So we're guilty of the same thing sometimes where we like to quibble about the differences, but don't do what the Bible says to do. And Jesus says, I'll tell you a neighbor is a neighbor is someone who does, who swings into action when there's a need they get busy, they get involved. They don't sit around and talk about it. They don't form a committee to explore it. They do something. They just do something. And that's what a neighbor is. That's a person who has compassion. And he gave very selflessly, didn't he? A couple of pictures just to give you an idea of what this might have looked like. This is an artist rendering of the man putting the Samaritan, putting the man on his own donkey. And then the next picture getting him off at the end, and you can see him up there on the porch telling the man he'll take care of everything and pay for everything. This man is stepping out into a risky position. You don't know how long this man's going to be at this end. You don't know how long it's going to take for him to get better. You don't know anything about him. You've never met him before. You don't know if he's the kind of man who will take advantage of that and say, well, I'm all better now, but this is a pretty nice place to take a week's vacation. I think I'll just hang around a while. You don't know him. You don't know if he's going to do that or not. You don't know if he's going to take advantage of you. Hmm. Some lessons there, aren't there? This man did what he could do to show compassion. Now, notice how the story ends, verse 36, which one of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? The expert and the law replied the one who had mercy on him. Jesus told him go and do likewise. Again, he's pointing him to the fact. Now you have a deeper understanding of what the law says. A deeper understanding of the heart issues about being a neighbor. Can you measure up to that? And if the man's honest, he's going to have to say no, but there's no indication he's at that point. There's no indication that there's any conviction of sin here. But Jesus really has shown him the deeper meaning of the law. Love your neighbors yourself. It's what the law says. I'll show you what that really means. It has to do with the heart issue of compassion toward others who are in need. That's what it means. And a compassion that actually does something rather than just talks about it. Compassions willing to give selflessly to risk even. Isn't it interesting that the man was not willing to say or did not say the Samaritan? When Jesus clearly identified the hero in the story is the Samaritan, but he's not willing to use that word. He just says the one who showed mercy on him. I find that interesting. Okay, any comment or question about the story of the good Samaritan? It is herb what they call going the second mile really is. Yeah, he did much more than would be required or be expected really of anyone. He did go the second mile. Okay. Anything else there? All right, the next story is a fairly short one, but packed full of good teaching for us. And that is instruction about fellowship. It's the familiar story of Mary and Martha. And it's just such a great story. It's just one of those stories with such a human touch. You know, this is the way we are and we can see ourselves in either Martha or Mary and how Jesus deals with them. It's just so, so beautiful. The home here that he goes to verse 38 says, as Jesus and his disciples were on their way, they're traveling now, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. Sister named Mary, they come up several places in the Gospels. We know where their home is. John 12 tells us it's in Bethany. Let's take a look at this map again. And if you can find Jerusalem there, Jerusalem here, Bethany right there. Bethany is a suburb, if you will, of Jerusalem. It's only two miles outside the city. In fact, let's take a look at this picture. This is a really wide scale panoramic picture of Jerusalem. Up here is Jerusalem. Right here is the dome of the rock. You can barely see it. It's so small. This is the temple mount right here. That area is where the temple would be. We've looked at this before, but much closer. So we're looking at much more wider angle here. This is the Kidren Valley and this is the Mount of Olleves right here. It hardly shows up as a mount in that picture because again, such a panoramic view. But if you go from Jerusalem to the Mount of Olleves, can I throw it up there and you can see it? Maybe not. If you look from the Mount of Olleves down toward the left lower corner of the screen, right there. That's Bethany. Right there is. So you can tell it's just outside of Jerusalem. It's just a really two mile walk, just a brief walk. But it was on the main road out of Jerusalem going toward the south, not toward the northeast toward Jericho, but the southeast going down toward Bethlehem area in that way. You would go through Bethany. Now, here's another picture of Bethany. This is an old picture of Bethany before automobile kind of traffic and the old homes that were there, Adobe style, tight homes that would have been found in the Middle East a couple hundred years ago maybe. Okay. There are three people in this story. Obviously, Mary, Martha, and then Jesus. So let's quickly take a look at Mary in verse 39. Martha is the one who opens her home in verse 38. Verse 39, she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet, listening to what he said. There are two things that are said about Mary here. First of all, she's sitting. Does that tell you anything sitting? Think about the way things happened in that day with a rabbi, a teacher, and his disciples. The disciples, as we saw in that picture, representing the temple where Jesus was teaching often the disciples would be seated around him. The picture of being seated or sitting is that of a learner. It's that of someone. Yeah, see it there. They would sit at the feet of the teacher to be instructed by the teacher. And so the fact that she's sitting at the feet, it's not talking about her being lazy. It's talking about I'm wanting to learn. I'm listening. I'm intent on listening to what Jesus says. By the way, Mary occurs is found three times in the gospels and all three times she's sitting at the feet of Jesus. That would make a good sermon sometime to put those three together. I have to work on that sometime. She's found here. She's found in John 11 when Lazarus dies. Jesus comes and she falls at the feet of Jesus. Lord, if you'd been here, my brother would not have died. And then John 12, Mary is the one who pours the ointment on his feet, getting kneeling at his feet. So all three times she's found at Jesus feet, sitting kneeling at Jesus feet. She's a learner. She's a follower that wants to learn. But the Bible also says she's listening, listening to him, to what he said, listening to his work, being fed. She's wanting to learn from what he is teaching, what he is saying. In the hustle and bustle of everyday life where things are happening, there's a meal being prepared. She pauses to sit at Jesus feet. There's a beautiful picture there of the need for fellowship with Jesus. There's always a lot going on around us. There's always a lot going on in our lives. And we're going to find out that Jesus said she's chosen the better part. The better part is to sit at Jesus feet for a while. And we all know in this room, don't we how hard that is? Because there's always a lot to do. And to be able to take some time to pause and sit in the place of a learner and hear his words, there's great need for that kind of fellowship with Jesus. But it's hard. It's hard in the hustle and bustle of life. And we see that. Oh, and by the way, there's one other thing that is implied about her, maybe not directly stated, at least in the NIV. It says she had a sister called Mary who sat. There are some manuscripts reflected in the King James, which say who also sat. And the New American standard says who more over sat at Jesus feet, the implication being and it may well be the implication of any translation. It's not that she was just sitting there the whole time. She was probably helping some and serving some as well. But she paused to sit down for a little bit and listen to what Jesus would be saying, indicating that there's a balance here. There's a balance between fellowship with him and active serving. But there's another character in the story who gets that out of whack, gets it all out of balance. And it's Martha. Bless her heart. Somebody folks in this room can relate to Martha. Verse 40. 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 sisters left me to do the work by myself. Tell her to help me. There are several words that characterize Martha. One is the word busy. She is busy. She is the kind of person who sees a need and swings into action to take care of it. She knows what to do. She can organize the kitchen. She can have 10 different dishes going at once and set the table and get things. She is a mover and shaker. She can get things done. She's busy. Martha is the kind of person that Jesus is coming to the house. Jesus walks in the house and Mary says, oh, the Savior. Martha says, oh, the meal. Just a different mindset. And so she's going to get the meal ready. She is going to work herself, work her fingers to the bone to make sure that she gets the very best meal prepared for Jesus. She's busy. But she is so busy that the word, the text uses of her is what? She is distracted. She is distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She's all nervous and all preoccupied with all the arrangements for the meal. She's got to get everything going. She's hustling back and forth, trying to get the table set and make sure there's enough food out. I start cooking this dish in that dish. All the time Mary is sitting calmly at Jesus' feet, listening to him. And here's Martha going back and forth to engrossed in what she's doing to even really notice that Jesus is there. She's concerned about the meal. The meal has got to get prepared. I just, you know, you get this impression as you read through the story here that if you were to take a look in her kitchen, there is more that's heating up than the oven. There's something else heating up in the kitchen and it's Martha. She's getting hotter by the minute. And so what happens is she becomes angry. Notice she came to him and asked, I mean, I can almost see her just bursting out of the kitchen and, you know, with her apron on and sweat on her brow. And she says to Jesus, Lord, don't you care. That's kind of an accusation there. Lord, don't you care? I mean, she is not only angry at Mary. She's angry at the Lord. She's back there in the kitchen thinking, why doesn't he do something about this? Why doesn't he say something to her about helping me more? Why doesn't he care this? Why doesn't the Lord intervene? You ever get angry with God? If we're honest, we would all say yes at some point. We've asked the same question. Lord, don't you care? Why don't you take care of the situation? Why am I having to do all this? Why am I having to bear all of this? Lord, don't you? So she's angry at the Lord, not just Mary. Don't you care that notice this? Oh, this is so human. Don't you care that my sister? You know what it's like when you won't even use their name, don't you? That brother of mine, that kid of mine, that, you know, when you won't even use their name, you're pretty upset, aren't you? Don't you care that my sister has left me here to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me. You know when you're really angry at God, you start ordering him around, don't you? You feel like you know what's better than he does about what needs to be done. Well, she's distracted, she's angry, she's very busy, she's a doer, but she's lost the balance. She's gotten so caught up preoccupied with the meal that she's not enjoying the fact that Jesus is there, the Savior is there, a Savior who has precious little time left. Spend the time with him. Now our time is up and we're not going to be able to talk about how Jesus deals with them, but the way Jesus deals with this couple of ladies, and we'll have to wait a couple of weeks to get to it, so hang on to it. Okay, don't lose it. The way he does so is just a marvelous display of tenderness and grace and yet a very gracious rebuke, but it is a lesson for me and for everybody else in this room, what Jesus does with them. Okay, let's close.