Series: Growing Up Into Christ
#5: The Journey Inward
Ephesians 3:16-18 and Luke 10:38-42 (The Message)
By John Gill ~ January 29, 2023

Before I begin I’d like to thank Mary Yochum, Elizabeth Flynn, and Pastor Bob Williams for filling in for me last Sunday so effectively. Clearly, I am expendable! A special word of thanks to Mary, who brought such a fine message on “The Productive Life” stage of our spiritual journey. In fact, she did SUCH a good job in speaking about the importance of discovering your Spiritual Gifts that several of you have asked about the possibility of learning more about Spiritual Gifts. If there is enough interest, I’d be glad to offer a short class on Spiritual Gifts. Let me know if you are interested, and we can plan one.

This morning, we are continuing our series of sermons on life’s spiritual journey, a series I’m calling “Growing Up Into Christ.” That title is based on a scripture from Ephesians, chapter four: “We must no longer be children… but… must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” We are all on a spiritual journey. If we stay on the path, it will lead us into the very heart of God. The series of sermons is designed to help us along this most “critical of journeys.”1

This series of sermons is loosely based on the book, The Critical Journey1 by Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich. They identify various stages we must all pass through as we “grow up into Christ.” These stages are: Our Recognition of God; The Life of Discipleship; The Productive Life; The Journey Inward; The Wall; The Journey Outward; and finally, The Life of Love.

Our journey of faith begins with an encounter with God that is our first recognition that God is real and that this God has a claim on our lives. The second stage in our journey is, what Hagberg and Guelich call, “The Life of Discipleship” as we learn more and more about this God we have encountered, and commit our lives to Jesus, accepting by faith that God’s mercy and forgiveness is made possible by what Jesus did on the Cross – even though we may not yet understand fully what it means to be a disciple.

When we have gone through this learning or apprentice stage, and feel confident in our faith, we are excited to move into the “Productive” stage that Mary spoke about last Sunday – the stage where we find ways to live our lives for Christ, in service to the world, and are eager to share our new faith with others. We can feel we now “have figured out what faith is all about,” and have reached the pinnacle of our spiritual life. We have been tutored in the faith, become part of a loving congregation, and now are busy living out our faith in the world, involved in many worthwhile activities and ministries. We may actually feel like we have “arrived” – that we have reached the Golden Age of our spiritual journey! It’s an exciting and gratifying stage of our faith development. Perhaps this is where you are in your journey of faith.

And yet, as you can tell from the list of stages, we are actually not fully spiritually mature. After all – there are still three more sermons to go until we reach “The Life of Love,” which is our goal and hoped-for destination. We have not “arrived” at the “heart of God” just yet.

While living in the Productive Stage is comfortable and gratifying, and we may wish we could just stay at this stage indefinitely, inevitably the luster of our new-found faith will begin to become tarnished. “Life happens,” – circumstances arise in our life or in the lives of those we love, that may cause us to begin to question what we thought we believed. The simplistic, almost child-like understanding of God and our faith that served us well when we gave our life to Christ no longer seems adequate to make sense of the tragedies and complex challenges of the real world. Or, our idealistic zeal to see our work for the Kingdom of God

succeed fades as our efforts are not as successful as we had anticipated, and we become discouraged. Or, something happens within the life of our congregation that causes discord and we discover that our church family isn’t as perfect as we had first believed. Or, we begin to burn out – because we have taken on so many volunteer roles and ministries that we become frazzled and exhausted, and we wonder if we were mistaken in devoting so much energy for so little reward.

As we begin to wrestle with our doubts and questions and discouragements, we can begin to pull back from our engagement in ministries we had been so committed to, or even pull away from our congregation and Christian friends. Our spiritual energy and focus turns inward as we reassess what we thought we believed. We enter into a time of soul-searching, as we struggle with doubts about faith. And so, we spend our energies seeking deeper truths, and a more grown-up faith. Perhaps you can identify?

This is how Hagberg and Guelich describe this stage of the Inward Journey:

“Stage 4, The Journey Inward, is aptly described by its title, for it is a deep and very personal inward journey. It almost always comes as an unsettling experience yet results in healing for those who continue through it. Until now, our journey has had an external dimension to it. Our life of faith was more visible, more outwardly oriented, even though things certainly were happening inside us. But the focus fell more on the outside, the community of faith, nature, leadership, the display and use of the Spirit’s gifts, belonging, and productivity. At this stage, we face an abrupt challenge (at least many do) to almost the opposite mode. It is a mode of questioning, exploring, falling apart, doubting, dancing around the real issues, sinking in uncertainty, and indulging in a self-centeredness. We often look hopeless to those around us. A symbolic name for people in this stage is the ‘vertical people.’ It is a time when the issues go primarily up and down between you and God. Others are involved, but the focus is on the issues, battle, healing, and resolution in your relationship with God.”2

In their book, the authors include several quotes from people who found themselves struggling through this “Journey Inward” stage. One puts it this way: “I can no longer go on basing my faith on what's right for others or what feels good. I must find out once and for all what God's truth is for me in my own life. But how do I go about that?”3

In reflecting on that person’s question, I believe the answer can be found in the scripture from Luke’s Gospel that Elvita read a few moments ago. In that beautiful story, we see two sisters whose encounter with Jesus that day illustrates two different stages in their spiritual journeys. Martha has become the symbol of “The Productive Life” stage – Mary, of “The Journey Inward.”

Clearly, based on Jesus’s comments, Mary was farther along in her faith journey than Martha. But that doesn’t mean Jesus is saying that Mary’s faith is “better” than Martha’s – they are just at different stages of faith development – stages that each of us must pass through. Both women are being faithful in their discipleship based on where they are on their own spiritual journey – and the church needs both Marthas and Marys.

But in our text, we see Jesus addressing each woman at the point of her development – teaching Mary, who is eager to learn more, while gently and lovingly urging Martha to go deeper in her faith – to go beyond DOING FOR Jesus – to BEING WITH Jesus.

In serving, being productive for God, we feel joy and fulfillment. But we may begin to think that serving is the way God measures our faithfulness. We may fall into the heresy of works-righteousness, thinking we are

saved by what we do for God and neglect growing in our relationship with God. We can begin to feel that we aren't measuring up as we try to do more-and-more good works. We may even feel we are disappointing God by not doing enough.

Being productive is wonderful, and it takes all of us working hard for the sake of the Kingdom of God. But our salvation is not based on our deeds, however important and productive they may be. We are saved by our intimate and personal relationship with Jesus. Only by sitting at the feet of the Master can we move more deeply through the “Journey Inward.”

And, we will need to develop this more mature grown-up faith as we continue down our spiritual path – because, sooner than we realize, we will hit a “Wall” – a crisis that will present the greatest threat to our faith we will ever face in our spiritual journey. The Wall, whatever that is for each of us, will either destroy our faith – or prove our faith. But I’m getting ahead of myself – because that is next Sunday’s message.

In our text, we hear Jesus say to Martha, “Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it…”

The text doesn’t tell us how Martha responded to this rebuke. Did she concede that Jesus was right and sit down next to Mary? Did Mary, out of graciousness, go and help Martha get the food on the table? Or did Martha exit back to the kitchen with a huff, still grumbling? Luke doesn’t tell us.

But it seems that the seed of Jesus’s words were planted in Martha’s heart, because this isn’t the last time there is an encounter between Jesus and these sisters. We see them again in the eleventh chapter of John’s Gospel, just days before Palm Sunday. In that story, we witness the moment they crashed into their “Wall” – the death of their dear brother and the failure of Jesus to respond to their prayerful appeal to come and heal him. Perhaps you, too, have hit this Wall, the death of a loved one and anger with God who failed to heal them – a spiritual crisis that caused you to call into question the faith you thought you had. But in Martha’s second encounter with Jesus, I believe there is evidence that she had begun her own “Journey Inward” – and demonstrated evidence of her deepening faith. Her faith had grown – and would survive – even death.

It's the story of Jesus raising a man named Lazarus from the dead – Now this Lazarus just happened to be the brother of Mary and Martha. These three siblings had become like family to Jesus – in fact, the Gospels imply that whenever Jesus traveled to Jerusalem, he would stay with the family at their home in Bethany, on the outskirts of the holy city.

Let me refresh your memory: Lazarus fell gravely ill, and the sisters sent word for Jesus to come. When Jesus receives the message, he deliberately stays away, only going to Bethany after Lazarus has died. In fact, he makes sure that his friend is undoubtedly dead – Lazarus is already in the tomb for four days. The text makes it clear that Jesus was not being cruel or capricious - He had a plan. Jesus wanted to perform the miracle of “raising the dead” in order to drive home his message that He, Jesus, is “the resurrection and the life.” In fact, in only a matter of days, Jesus himself would be dead and in a tomb – only to rise again on Easter morning.

The way John tells the story, when Jesus finally does arrive, Martha is the first to greet him. This is how The Message translation recounts the conversation:

Martha said, “Master, if you’d been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. Even now, I know that whatever you ask God he will give you.” Jesus said, “Your brother will be raised up.” Martha replied, “I know that he

will be raised up in the resurrection at the end of time.” “You don’t have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live. And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all. Do you believe this?” “Yes, Master. All along I have believed that you are the Messiah, the Son of God who comes into the world.”

Yes, Martha’s faith had been transformed by her “Journey Inward.” After Jesus’ rebuke, Martha must have wrestled with her shallow faith and gone deep in her soul to seek God’s wisdom, so that, even when this Wall of death threatened to undo her faith, she was still able to say, “You are the Messiah, the Son of God who comes into the world.” Pretty remarkable!

And so, my friends, where do you find yourself on your journey of faith? Are you like Martha, so busy working for Jesus that you have neglected being with Jesus? In Jesus’s words, are you “fussing and getting yourself worked up over nothing,” neglecting the “one thing that is essential?”

Is your faith simplistic and immature, not solid enough to weather the storms of life? Is it resilient enough to see you through the Wall that you will one day face – or are facing, even now?

If not, the next step for you is to begin “The Journey Inward,” sitting with Mary “before the Master, hanging on every word” Jesus says.

At the close of our service, we will be singing a hymn written by a Presbyterian pastor, named Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. We have used many of her hymns in worship. This particular text is based on the story of Mary and Martha. The third and fourth verses sum up beautifully the challenge of The Journey Inward:

God, we see in her distraction – Martha lost sight of her goal;

In her grumbling and complaining, she forgot food for the soul.

For there’s always something pressing – something urgent we must do,

Yet for us there’s also blessing in the time we spend with you.

Were there days when Mary labored, helping others, serving well?

Were there times when Martha savored stories Jesus loved to tell?

May we worship, pray and study; May we serve you well today!

All are needed on the journey as we travel Jesus’ way. 3

Friends, my prayer for you this morning is just as Paul prayed for the people in the church at Ephesus, in our first lesson today:

“I ask [the Father] to strengthen you by his Spirit… a glorious inner strength—

that Christ will live in you

as you open the door

and invite Him in.” Amen.