wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Go and do - or listen and reflect?

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Note #7797 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Go and do - or listen and reflect?
GA03108

Go and do - or listen and reflect?

Assembly preacher mulls Martha on the one hand, Mary on the other

by Nancy D. Borst

DENVER, May 30 - A mild message about listening was delivered with humor and
received with laughter by an audience of more than 1,000 Presbyterians at
Friday morning's General Assembly worship at the Colorado Convention Center.

	The Rev. Martha Sadongei, the pastor of Central Presbyterian Church,
of Phoenix, AZ, preached about the Biblical sisters Martha and Mary and the
different ways they reacted when Jesus came to their home - a story recounted
only in the Gospel of Luke. In particular, she spoke of Martha's overwhelming
need to offer hospitality to Jesus, rather than stopping to listen to him. 

	Sadongei admitted that she has had a lifelong disagreement with those
who criticize Martha, whose actions are in keeping with Sadongei's
Native-American upbringing, which places so much emphasis on hospitality.

	"It's hard for me to understand why Martha gets scolded," she said.
"Shouldn't it be Mary?"

	The key is the unwritten message of Mary - who, recognizing that this
was "no ordinary visit," chose to sit at Jesus' feet and listen to him, with
a discerning ear and a heart open to surprise.

	"I challenge you not to be over-confident about the gift of
listening," Sadongei said. "Take care not to multi-task while listening."

	Too often, she said, Christians "really do intend to listen," but
instead "find ourselves distracted by all that is going on around us, or we
think we know what is going to be said."

	"We would rather tune out than hear the soap-box speeches we have
heard before," she said, asking her listeners: "How much have we missed
because we quit listening to each other, we haven't prepared to listen, we
are too preoccupied with strategic planning or too busy with all life
brings?"

	She said the Christian believer's goal should be to spiritually
discern whether it is time to "go and do," or time to "listen and reflect."

	"This has been a week of listening," she told the Assembly
participants, "a time when the church is listening, and you have been
listening for her. The church is waiting for a response to the needs of her
people. But we still need to remember that the answers we are waiting for
will come in God's time. God's word will come, whether we are ready or not." 

	Sadongei, a member of the Kiowa and Tohono O'odham tribes, wore a
stole with pictures of feathers and "man in the maze," representing those
tribes. 

	She was joined in worship by the Jubilation Ringers, an 11-member
hand-bell choir from Westminster Presbyterian Church, of Westminster, CO,
that performed three compositions combining hand chimes, hand-bells and bells
struck with mallets.
 
	The liturgists were the Rev. Judy Wrought, of the Women's Ministries
national staff, and four Denver pastors - the Rev. Paul Martin, of Macedonia
Baptist Church, Elder Anne Wainstein Bond, of Central Presbyterian Church;
and Commissioned Lay Pastor Jorge Barbaran, of First Avenue Presbyterian
Church. The organist was Rick Seaton, of Central Presbyterian Church, Denver.

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