SUNDAY READING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8300, 5 July 1890, Page 4 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING.

MARY AND MARTHA: A TALK TO J-'USSY CHRISTIANS. [JJY KKV. JOl IN MON KILL.] I do not want .to say much against Martha. In some respects she was a very good creature —may her number be increased ! Ido believe that, if you could get a Martha and Mary combined, you would get a perfect wife, or mother, or sister ; but, as we cannot get both, let us have each at her best. Martha, despite her faults, was a most excellent character. She was observant, and she could mark Christ's weariness—for the Son of Cod could get leg-weary on His journey, even like ourselves, and He needed kindness and attention at these times as we need them—and Martha went on the right track; she did the right thing and at the right moment.

Speaking of myself as God's servant, I have found after doing Christ's work in a certain neighbourhood—l. won't say which neighbourhood ; 1 don want to make anybody's face red—l missed .Sister Martha. In order to do Martha's work you have to leave the drawing-room or the sitting-room and go away into the kitchen, and be perhaps covered with Hour up to the elbows; still, I mint say you never look better than when doing even such domestic work as that. Don't be ashamed of the kitchen. Let me say a word to those who are superfine ladies : don t be so ignorant of the duties of the kitchen, as some of you unhappily are. Your education is not finished unless you have gone through the training of a cookery school, and can work like Martha. Bless God for the Marthas, and I say again may their number increase ! Probably some of you have thought 1 was going to run down Martha. I wish Christianity would teach people to boil a potato readily, and to cook a bit of food. Still poor Martha made amistake. She vas cumbered about much serving, and she came to Him to say, "Dost Thou not care that my sister has left me to serve alone ? Bid her therefore that she help me. ' She made the mistake that we are all apt to make. She was a handy and a clever woman, and she believed herself, or thought herself, to be the type and model— and "that is a peculiar mistake to which everyone is liable. One Martha in the house is a great blessing ; but when there are two or three of them hurrying and scurrying about the house it is too much for one man. They never rest; they won't sit down and speak to a body. It is no doubt done from a very good motive, but all this fussiness only upsets and irritates. Martha, dear, betimes rest; take a leaf out of Mary's book ; try to understand that when Christ comes this Hurry and this tendency to fly in the face of other people is sin, not service. That was where Martha was wrong, when she burst so suddenly upon Christ. Having been busy, bustling and fussing in the kitchen with no one to help her, her temper had been touched, and she broke in upon Christ, and, without giving herself time to think, she gave utterance to this wild speech, " Lord, dost Thou not care &c. Ah, yes ! there are many of us who, like Martha, would always like to be in the right, and would always like the Lord to stand by and hear Him say, " Mary, take to your feet and go into the kitchen.'' If we could only get the Lord to endorse our own Certificate about our own mighty service, how glad we would be. No, the Lord will dare to tell a Martha that she is wrong. What a poor speech she made. Just think for a moment who that Man was —Jesus, the Incarnate Son of God. The same words as used by Martha were on another occasion used by His disciples in tones almost blasphemous. And such words sometimes are not very far from our hearts, it not from our tongues. "Master, carest Thou not that we perish, whilst Thou art sleeping there ?" What awful thing is this which has come upon us Let us set a watch upon the door of our lips that we sin not, with our tongues. _ Brother, sister—for in this business there is neither male nor female—a great deal of your fussing, which is not working, has it iiot this complexion in it; a great deal of grumbling, not at each other, but Him — "Dost Thoil care?" Martha was cumbered about much serving. The word "deacon" lias the same meaning in the Greek. Might I be allowed to constitute the Deacon's Court, and to say to some of them, Is there not just a little of this fussiness in our Deacon's Court—is there not just a little of this fussiness in all of our Church service? What ail ado we make. I was preaching to a magnificent audicnce in another part of London one day, and I noticed how fussily the deacons were going to work, so much so that they nearly spoiled everything. They were bringing in piles of chairs, though the people were quite content to be' as they were; but Martha must be flouncing here and there ! Serve if you like, by all means ; do all that is in your heart; but let other people alone. Don't think that there is no other way of showing kindness to Jesus but your way. I need this truth taught me ; we all need it. The Lord thanks no man for turning His service from being a pleasure into a burden. " Mv burden"—and it is true in every sense —" My burden is light." "They also serve." says John Milton, " who only stand and wait;" and they may keep up a waiting, restful attitude who are yet full of activity. 11l the spiritual, as in she natural world, there is what is called l iable and unstable equilibrium. Let .Mary tepresent the one, and Martha (after her adjustment) the other. What shall 1 say about Mary? Mary is ditlieult to understand, and Mary is difficult to preach about, because she is so deep, because her spirituality is so simple and so profound ! When Christ entered the house Alary put aside her work. Her heart at once enters into a peace and a rest that the world cannot give and the world cannot take away. Mary represents the profound, adoring, contemplative side of the Christian character. But may there not be spoiled Marys as well as "riled" Martinis among us? There are those who are too quiet; there are those amongst us who do too little: there are those who are not too spiritual, but are always running to meetings when it would perhaps be more proper for them to stay at home and wash the dishes. You understand? I am glad you do. I shall hope to sec a great improvement in domestic economy after this sermon. The Lord save us from the woman, the Lord save us from the man, who talks as if household duties and secular tilings were becoming to them unholy because they arc getting so profoundly spiritual ! Out upon such spirituality ! I am not speaking to Mary; I am speaking to you. here arc many of us who are finding excuses for laziness. It is much nicer and easier to come to meetings and sing, " All hail the power of Jesu's name," Ac., than it is to set to work like Sister Martha. It is not so nice to go home and roll up your sleeves and set to work. Who knows but that some of you here might have been better employed than in coining to this place of worship! You might have been keeping the bairns of some poor woman who never more will be able to come to church unless someone lakes the bairns oil' her hands for the time being. There is nobody so easily served as Jesus. You will find this in your family circle. Anybody who loves you is pleased, easily pleased. Your master, your mother, your wife, your sister, your friend, your.minister, your Saviour, if they love you, they are easily pleased. Now. Jesus loved Martha and her sister; let us get the benefit of that i idea in our church service, and cease striving

after great things. Do simple things, and do them from the heart. But I think Christ's language has a wider application. I think He lifted His eyes far beyond Bethany, and beyond His owu'dav and generation ; His eye swept down through the Church, and He looked grand andnoW and solemn almost to severity, with th* warning tone in- His voice, to keep us all right here, as if He would say, " Martha Martha, take care ! You may make a o<xj of your service in the midst of all your dishmaking. In the midst of your preparing fot Me yon may lose sight of Me. The Chris, tian system is a splendidly simple system. It, focusses all its faith and all its creed and all its conduct upon one, and only one tiling blessed be God, and that one thing you may miss. " Mary hath chosen that good part that shall not be taken from her." Before I let this family go let me be what is called evangelistic. Before I let you go let me preach Christ to you. One thing is needful. In the midst of this dinging out of life to keep it in, to study what we shall eat and drink, and wherewithal we sha.ll be clothed there comes straight from the Eternal dory the ringing words to lift us up from the turmoil and bustle of the world : One tiling needful; one that is really needful. „ It was the salvation of a very busy man in a country village. He gave a good deal to the church, and was very useful in lnuiiy ways, and his minister had watched him for some time, and decided to test him. And one day lie chanced to meet this man, and spoke to him. This man spoke about the great things he was doing in the church, and how well the church was- getting on, &c, The minister looked at him, and said, "One thing is needful, John ; and 1 am afraid you have not got it," and lie passed on. That night John came to the minister's door not s.td and anxious, but in a state of assurance and gladness. lie almost wrung the minister's hand as he said, " Minister, I thank you for your word at the roadside. 11 was the very thing I needed. I didn't know the one thing. Now I believe I have got it," and Indropped down into his native Scotch, and said, " Aye. sir, it is hard to put us richt. Speak to them a' like yon, sir ; say ' yon' to them a'." WHO HAS SEEN CHRIST IN YOU TODAY ? "The parson asked a strange question this evening,' said John Sewell to his wife, Ann, on his return from church one Sunday. " What was it, John ' " ' Who has seen Christ in you to-day?' J. wish you had been there to hear him, Ann; he made it pretty plain that all who love Christ ought to show by their conduct that they are in earnest." "That's true, John. I know 1 often fall short of what a Christian should be." "I'm sure that you and the children have not seen Christ in me to-day. If I'd remember to be like mv Master I should not have Wen so cross with you because you wanted to take your turn out this morning." " And I shouldn't have snapped you up and been so vexed," interrupted Ann. "Then I used Tom roughly because lie worried me, and when he cried 1 boxed his ears, when a kind wotd would have made all right. There are plenty of things 1 should have done even to-day if I'd have acted up to the parson's question." " We'll try to begin afresh, John. Your'e quick and get vexed. We've both a great deal to learn. We must just pray that the children and our friends may see Christ in us.'' Monday morning came. John was up early, and before he went off to work lie asked that Christ might be seen in him that day. Ann did not forget .that she, too, wished that Christ might be seen in her; and at breakfast time the children were told how Christ might be seen in them, and they were cautioned to be kind and loving toward one another and toward their companions. Thus throughout the family tempers were quelled for Christ's sake, and pleasant acts were performed for Christ's sake ; and John was able in the same strength to ask a fellowworkman to forgive the sharp words he had spoken to him the previous .Saturday. '"I've had the happiest day 1 ever spent," John remarked to his wife that evening. " I know I've long been a professor, but I have not shown by my behaviour that 1 do really want Jesus to be seen in me."

"I'm sure it's been the same way with me," replied Ann. " I know why some of the fellows in the shop find fault with religious people, and call them no better than those who have 110 religion at all. We Christians are not shining lights ; we get into the same tempers ami do the same actions as men of the world, and so we bring reproach 011 Jesus." "That's well said, .John. I mean to ask myself every night, ' Who has seen Christ in me to-day?' I know that I shall often have to tell God that I've failed, but Jesus will help me to be true to Him, and you know there is a text which says, 'I live, yet not I, but Christ that liveth in me."' Dear reader, will you take this question home, " Who has seen Christ in me to-day?" —Friendly Greetings.