What is Sunday Sermon? · All sermons
One Thing Is Needful
Sunday, July 19, 2026 — Proper 11, Year C
By Shawn P. Cosner, J.D.
We are still in Luke ten. Two weeks ago the Lord sent the seventy out with peace in their hands. Last week a Samaritan stopped on the Jericho road: Go, and do thou likewise. Doing is holy. Keep that in your pocket.
Now watch what Luke sets directly after the doing.
"Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house." — Luke 10:38 (KJV)
Give Martha her due before one word gets said against her. Martha opened the door. Martha received him. The seventy needed houses that would take them in — Martha is that house. Hers is the roof, the table, the kitchen. Nothing Martha is doing is sin. The food is for Jesus. The work is for Jesus. The whole production is for Jesus.
And it is pulling her away from Jesus.
"And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving..." — Luke 10:39-40 (KJV)
Cumbered. Old word. The Greek under it means dragged about — pulled in every direction at once. Luke is not describing a busy woman but a distracted one. Busy is a schedule. Distracted is a soul being hauled away from the one thing by the many things.
You know the condition. The phone that never stops handing you one more thing to tend. The calendar you keep full because a full calendar feels like proof you matter. You can be cumbered in a sanctuary. You can be cumbered in a soup kitchen. The tell is the direction of the drag.
Watch what much serving does to Martha's mouth.
"...and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me." — Luke 10:40 (KJV)
The serving started as a gift. By afternoon it is a ledger. Dost thou not care. My sister hath left me. Bid her help me. Accuse the Lord. Indict the sister. Recruit Jesus as enforcer of the score. She does not even speak to Mary. She speaks to Jesus about Mary. When your service starts auditing other people's service, it has stopped being service. It is scorekeeping wearing an apron.
You have done this. I have done this. The mental tally of who signed up for the church workday and who did not. The sigh pitched loud enough to reach the living room. The must be nice typed into the group text and deleted. This is not a condemnation. It is a diagnosis. Somewhere in that afternoon, Martha's serving became her righteousness — the way she knew she was good. And a righteousness built on output has to keep score.
Listen to his answer.
"And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." — Luke 10:41-42 (KJV)
Martha, Martha. The doubled name. He doubles a name when he is reaching for a heart. Simon, Simon, before the sifting. Saul, Saul, on the Damascus road. The doubled name is not the voice of a critic. It is the voice of a man taking your face in both hands to turn it toward his own.
And mark what he does not say. He does not say the meal was sin. He does not cancel the Samaritan. He says the many things have her careful and troubled, and one thing is needful, and Mary chose it, and it will not be taken away from her. One sister's work lasted until supper. The other's lasted past her funeral.
Amos saw where this road ends.
"Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:" — Amos 8:11 (KJV)
Amos preached to busy people. The merchants of Israel kept the sabbath on the calendar and resented every hour of it — asking when the new moon would be gone so they could sell corn. And the judgment that fell was not fire. It was silence. A famine of hearing. They will wander from sea to sea, Amos says, and not find the word of the LORD. God does not take the harvest. God goes unheard by people too busy to listen.
Now set Amos in Martha's kitchen. The Word of God — not a scroll this time, the Word made flesh — is sitting in her front room, speaking. And she cannot hear him over the pots. Nobody sent that famine on her. She catered it. That is us. The Word is in the house and we are in the kitchen. The famine of hearing in your life did not start because God went quiet. It started because the kitchen got loud.
You are living inside the strangest version of that famine there has ever been. You have four Bibles in the house and one in your pocket. Verse of the day at eight a.m. Sermon clips between videos. A preacher in every podcast app. More words of the LORD sit within reach of your thumb than any generation of believers has ever had. And you are starving. Not because the words are scarce. Because the hearing is. The words can be everywhere while the hearing is nowhere.
Even this sermon can become one more thing you got through.
What is the sitting for? Paul answers.
"To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:" — Colossians 1:27 (KJV)
The mystery hid from ages is not Christ near you. Not Christ pleased with your output. Christ in you. Martha wanted Jesus in her house. Mary wanted Jesus in her. And Christ does not get in through your hands. He gets in through your ears.
"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." — Romans 10:17 (KJV)
And heard his word is what Mary was doing down there. Earlier in the same chapter Paul says of Christ, "And he is before all things, and by him all things consist" (Colossians 1:17). Martha is trying to hold the afternoon together while the One who holds all things together waits in her front room. You are not the glue of your house, your church, your job. He is. Sitting down is not neglecting the world. It is remembering who holds it.
Here is the hard turn, and I am going to look you in the eye for this one.
You have been treating the full calendar as a moral credential. Cumbered has started to feel like consecrated. You say I never sit down the way a soldier shows a scar. You have jobs at church stacked so deep you have not actually heard a sermon in a year — you were in the hallway, in the sound booth, in the kitchen, counting heads. And some of you are using the kitchen to hide from the front room. Serving, you control. You hold the spoon. You stay in motion, and motion is the best place in the world to avoid being seen. Sitting is exposure. Sitting is his eyes on you while your hands are empty. The moment you start keeping score on other people's serving, your serving has left his feet. It is feeding something in you, and the something is not faith.
So sit down this week. Not forever. Mary's part and Martha's hands belong in the same disciple. But the order is fixed. The sitting feeds the serving. It never runs the other way. Serving that does not begin at his feet ends at somebody's throat. Usually a sister's.
Which shall not be taken away from her. Nearly everything in your week can be taken away. The job can go. The health can go. The people you cook for can leave the table and forget the meal by Thursday. The part you take at his feet is the one thing that cannot be touched. Choose it first. Then serve out of what you heard.
Amen.
One thing is needful.
Lord, I have been cumbered. You know the many things — the phone, the calendar, the jobs I stacked up in your name until I could not hear you over them. I have kept score in the kitchen. I have spoken to you about people instead of sitting with you. Say my name twice if that is what it takes. Before the serving starts this week, I choose the good part. Plant me like a green olive tree in your house — rooted, not running. And when I rise from your feet, let my hands carry what my ears heard there. Amen.
What serving in your life has drifted from his feet — and what would it take this week to sit back down?
The charge committed to you for the week ahead. Carry it through. Return Sunday.
This week the charge is the chair. One deliberate sit-down at the feet of Jesus before the serving starts — Bible open, phone in another room, long enough to actually hear. Guard it like an appointment you would never cancel. And watch for the tell: the moment you catch yourself tallying who is not helping, the drag has you, and the answer is to sit back down first. The serving that follows will be different, because it will be carrying what you heard.
Each night this week, before you fall asleep, with your evening prayer or as you lay in bed, take five quiet minutes. Focus only on THAT day. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Bring the charge into your prayer. Ask: where did I keep it? Where did I miss it? Confess what is honest. Receive what is mercy. Then rest.
On Saturday night, before sleep, judge yourself as you would be judged. Look back across the seven nights. Did you pass the test? Or did the same failing return, day after day, with no change? This is not a place to feel horrible. This is a place to recognize what is real. The Lord knows already. The work is not perfection. The work is RECOGNITION. See where you stand. See where mercy was given. Then bring it all into Sunday. Not as shame, but as the thing that was committed unto thee. Kept, or to be kept again.
Get the Sunday Sermon
Anchored to the same scripture the global church reads that week. Written in my own voice. Free, forever. One email Sunday morning. Unsubscribe in one tap.
No tracking pixels. No sharing your email. One-tap unsubscribe.