The Balance of Being and Doing

by Pastor Gina Johnson

I want to start off by painting a picture. And I bet everyone has been there in their own way. You have guests coming over for dinner and you actually already have some guests at the house, and there are things you didn’t finish. You guys have some of those? Like, I have some that can come before everything is ready, and then the rest it's like, “No,” it's a very hard “see you at 5:30.” With someone else it might be, “You could come at 5:15 because I could use your help,” you know?

But the funny thing is, as people show up, they start mixing and mingling and doing their thing. And you'd have the dishes from the food you cooked, and you really wanted to get those washed, because after everyone's done eating, it's just gonna pile up—and you only have two sinks, even though they're big and they're deep, you know? And then it's like, “Gosh, this isn't set up the way I wanted to.” And you're looking for someone to help you.

Well, in the midst of all of this, one of your guests just happens to be none other than Jesus. What a beautiful feeling, right? No—way more pressure. Okay, Jesus is sitting out in my living room with people, and I've got a lot to get done. What did he think when he saw that there was a coat on the floor that fell off the coat rack? I mean, what do we got going on there?

And you know, it’s funny, ’cause then you're in that place where maybe it's your sister, like the Bible story, or maybe it's your spouse, or maybe it's one of your six children. And it's like, “What are you guys doing? There’s so much to do. Nobody is helping me.” And that’s what we have. We have that story of Martha and Mary, right? One that we've all heard a number of times. And sometimes, depending on what day of the week it is, I'm Martha and I'm like, “Yeah, Mary, get off your keister and help out,” right? And then other times, I’m so Mary. I’m like, “Martha, Jesus is here right now. All we need to do is just be.” He’s not worried about the dishes in the sink. He’s probably gonna get up and help wash them—or actually just be like, “poof,” and they're all clean. You know? So hey, no big deal, right?

But it's funny, because although these two sisters are there in this one house with this one master teacher in this one holy moment, they have two very different perspectives. One of them is very much about the doing, while one of them is very much about the being. And I'm not here to actually go towards one or the other, because I've done that message multiple times. Instead, I want to just take a look at the story with you.

So, let's start off by giving Martha some credit—some really good credit—okay? Because she opened her home to Jesus. She was cooking, she was cleaning, she was preparing a place for Him. And I bet her motive was the L-word: love, love, love. And she was doing it. And let’s be honest, a lot of us would be the same way. We would cook and we would clean, and we’d prepare, and it’d come from a place of love. But in the process of it all, we might get a little bit flustered. We might feel a little tired.

How many of you have cooked a big meal, and by the time you’ve got everyone served, you either got a little plate the size of a dessert plate, and someone is like, “Aren’t you gonna eat?” And they’re like, “Oh, you’ve been tasting along the way.” No, that’s usually not the truth. It’s just, by the time you serve everyone, you’re just happy to see everyone else eat. You're just happy to not have to move for that whole five minutes before you’re gonna get up and get someone a drink or whatever else you're gonna do.

It's interesting because we start these places with the greatest motives. But somewhere in there, there's a pressure that comes up. There's a pressure that is telling us, everything has to be just right. And suddenly your loving act of service, your loving act of giving, has tension around it. “I'm so glad all the grandkids are here. I'm so glad that my children are here that I've seen. Well, I'm so glad that we decided to invite everyone over from your show choir group or from your sports team. I'm so glad we're having eight people sleep over for the slumber party.” And as it starts to get to you. Maybe you don't realize it, but your eye is starting to twitch a little bit, and you're doing things a little more rushed, and you grab your hair and put it up in a scrunchie, and you're just going at it, right? And your tone shifts. "Is there anything I can help with?" "No, I got it, just—just go. You're fine," right? And it starts to change.

Then eventually, though, Martha, she caves. And she goes over and she's just like, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do all this work by myself? Tell her to help me." Can you hear it? Can you feel it? How many times is there like, "Well, Travis, the kids aren't helping me, so can you please help me," right? How many times is it, "You know, on second thought, if you don't mind, could you please do this for me because I have to do this over here"?

And it's not just in having people over. It's in all kinds of things. It's in projects, in our workspaces. It's in some of the hobbies that we do that engage with other people. It's in some of our engagements throughout the week where someone says, "Hey, is there anything I can take off your plate for you?" Like, "No, no, I got it." And you know, question your motive there: do you got it because you're "I want to make sure it gets done perfectly"? Do you got it because your heart is genuinely saying, "No, I want to do this, I want to do this"? Or do you got it because you're afraid if you don't got it just right, then you're not living up to that standard that you set for yourself?

"For yourself" is the key words. You know, Jesus responds to Martha and he's saying, "You know, you're so worried and you're so upset about these things, but really, there is only a little bit that's needed here in this moment." He doesn't shame her, but he directs her. He guides her. He points her in the decision. He doesn't tell her she's doing anything bad, but he says to her, "You're getting pulled in all these directions. You're getting stretched, you're getting twisted, and you're listening more to worry and anxiousness and busyness and checking all the boxes on the list you made, meeting all the expectations that you put out for yourself, that you've lost sight of just being. Of just being in the stillness, being in the center."

See, the story isn't about choosing, "Do I need to serve and serve and do all these chores over here?" or "Am I allowed to be still and centered over here?" Because when you master the stillness and the centering over here—it's really hard to do. I haven't mastered it. Anyone who's mastered it, please come and share tips because it's like a lifelong goal to master the stillness—and this is the part that's hard: take it with you over there.

How many of us have woken up in the morning feeling full of love and life and vigor and we are ready to take on the world and you feel still, you feel whole, you did your meditation, and the moment you walk through the door, whatever that next place is, the chaos in that environment or the chaos that your mind is projecting into that environment has already taken this and turned it into that. It happens so easily.

Jesus was never saying to Martha, "You have it all wrong. I don't want you to care about me, whether the food tastes good, whether the house is clean." But he's saying, "Where is that caring coming from?" He's inviting her to stop for a moment and allow the room to stop spinning around. Allow her to-do list to stop spinning. Allow her head to stop spinning. And allow her heart to stop spinning.

It's crazy, but sometimes we don't let our souls get settled. And then when we don't let our souls get settled, that which was once sacred service is no longer sacred because it comes with all this additional noise. How many times have you started something with a good heart, whether it was taking care of a loved one, whether it was helping out with a certain group or a certain task, and you really do, you begin with joy and you begin with love and you have that inner quiet that prompted you to say yes and to put your heart and soul into it and you're like, "Hey, this is awesome because this is who I am. This is part of the purpose I feel called to do,” but you don't take breaks. And you don't rest. And you don't accept the help that's given to you. So then later, when you're all tangled from all that spinning, you feel abandoned. You feel angry. You feel frustrated. You feel like you've bitten off more than you can chew. But "I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do it well. But then I'm not gonna do it again." How often do we end up there?

It doesn't always happen all at once. The pressure will build slowly. And that's where Martha is. She didn't rest. She stopped listening to the inner voice and more to all the noise that was around her. There's a story that I stumbled upon about this woman who would bake bread. And she loved baking bread. She learned it from her mother, who learned it from her grandmother, so it was a family tradition. They would bake bread and they would give it to all their friends and neighbors. I bet some of us know someone like this. I was in a church where there was a lady very much like this. Well, people loved when she would bring them bread and they would share it with their friends, and more and more people wanted her to bake bread.

She didn't want to say no because she knew it brought her joy. She knew it brought them joy. But slowly, as more and more people were asking her to bake bread, she would wake up even earlier than she would normally bake to a certain point in the day. But she was baking even later, and sometimes late into the night when she would normally rest and prepare for the next morning. She would say, “Oh, I have some time. I'm gonna do that here and now.” And eventually, there came a day when she had a tray and she dropped it, and as all of the bread went on the ground, she didn't even feel it. She didn't even care. She just mindlessly picked it up and went back to making more.

Later, as she was cleaning, it hit her: there's something missing. Something was lost. She realized that more than people loved her bread, what they loved was the spirit and the love that she put into the bread. And as she started thinking about when she used to go and knock and stay for a while and talk and smile and share a loaf of bread, it became a “Here you go. I'll have to catch up with you later,” as she rushed off to the next place. It was never about the bread. It was about the love in the bread.

How many trays of bread have we dropped and no longer care because we have lost sight of why we were doing it to begin with? It happens to all of us. It can happen in ministry. It can happen in family. It can happen in service. What do we do when the way we're being led is no longer sacred, but instead it's just a constant doing? The beingness is gone. We are now feeling drained, and it steals our joy.

Well, let's take a look at Mary. So we have Mary. Martha is moving around doing all her things, and Mary is sitting where? At Jesus's feet. And she's listening to him. And she's not checking the time. And she doesn't have a list in her back pocket. And obviously, she's ignoring her sister. So, she is really just there, present at Jesus's feet. And to a lot of people, especially Martha and maybe some of Martha's close friends, are like, “Well, there's that Mary doing nothing. She's just sitting there relaxing, taking a load off, when she could be helping.”

But what they didn't recognize is the most important piece: she was receiving. You see, Mary may have looked like she was just being and relaxing, but I like to think that Mary was doing. She was doing what her beingness called her to do. And that's how it really works.

It's so important that we find a place of being, that we find a place to realign and get centered, that we start there each and every morning. You all have heard me say “stillness” time and time again, and what does that look like? Maybe it's gonna start with a cup of coffee. You don't have to be a monk. You don't have to run away for weeks and weeks of silence. Maybe it starts with just having a cup of coffee in the morning by yourself on your porch, on your deck, at your kitchen table, and just going through in your mind all that you are grateful for.

Or what about what’s going through your mind… nothing. Just sitting there and just really allowing yourself to be in that silence. Maybe it's a car ride. Maybe it's a walk. Maybe it's putting on that particular hymn that really just calls you into a place of quiet. Maybe it's like Barb Nelsen coming into the sanctuary on a Sunday morning and fertilizing the “soil” for what we get to do in there a little later. Whatever it is, when we start ourselves in that beingness, it only prepares us. It only gives us what we need—the strength, the compassion, and the endurance—for the doing.

But along with all those things that it gives us, it also gives us the doing. I guarantee you, when you start your day, when you start your afternoon, when you start your evening, when you lay down at night with stillness and beingness, the doing will come organically. The doing will come effortlessly.

When you think about ministries that pop up in this church, there was something within the beingness of an individual that prompted them into that doing. But could they have even heard the opportunity for that ministry if they didn't allow themselves to be in the silence of the being?

It’s so interesting to me how often we are told to be still. We are told to walk into the being. And this is where I talk about my message going all over the place. I thought to myself, wait a second, guys, did anyone raise you telling you how to be? I'm gonna come in here and I'm gonna tell you guys, “Hey, it's all about the being,” but how many of us were actually told about this beingness? How many of us were actually heard, “Hey, this is how you should do things in order to have a fuller, richer life”?

So, let's talk about that for a minute because we get taught how to perform. We get taught how to serve. We get taught how to condition ourselves. We get taught what is success and what is not. But do we ever get taught how to have real presence? How to really stop the thoughts in our minds and be present with God, present with ourselves, present with others?

It's like we always hear those people talk about: how many times are you preparing what you're about to say when someone else is talking to you? Well, how about if you were like me? There are so many times where I used to go to God with “Hey God, let me talk your ear off,” the same way I do with you all. “Let me go on and on and on. And because you don't have anywhere to be within an hour, God, I'm just gonna keep on going.”

It took me a little bit to recognize that not only is it important for me to share with God, even though God knows everything going on, it was more important for me just to be with God. And it wasn't about the where or the how or what was said or what I was wearing or who was there with me. It was just about finding that place to be present.

It's so easy to fall into a trap of thinking that our value comes from our work. If you're not doing this and that, if you don't look like this and that, if things aren't measuring up this way and that way, then you don't have value. But Jesus is trying to say your value is secure. Your value is sacred. Your value cannot be taken from you.

So, you can cook the greatest meal in the cleanest house and entertain 25 guests, and that's not gonna increase your value. Your value has been with you from the moment you came into this incarnation as a child of God. It's nothing that you can distort or take away or throw away. It's yours. And there's not a price on it.

But it's so amazing how we tend to lose ourselves in thinking we need to seek our value, find our value, and earn our value. Where, when we spend time in that beingness and then we respond in the doingness, it's so evident that the value that we need to do these things came from God.

When you look at people, for example the bell players in our service last Sunday, were they performing or were they sharing their gifts? Those are their gifts and their talents. And sure, it takes practice and commitment and all of those things. But there's something deeper: that they're willing to share that with us. And if they were just caught up in lives, if we're just caught up in the do-do-do-do, it doesn't give us an opportunity to truly use our gifts. It doesn't give us an opportunity to truly fulfill and serve our purpose the way that God has called us to.

So again, maybe it starts with a quiet cup of coffee. Maybe it starts when you take a breath. Just close your eyes for five minutes. Just find a quiet space for three minutes before you tackle all the emails, before you make all the phone calls, before you go to the exercise class or the club meeting you have. But whatever it takes, it just starts with asking those questions of: “God, what would you have me do today?” “God, where can I see you today?” “God, can you remind me of who I am?”

Because in all of the doing, we can easily forget the beingness of who we are. Jesus wasn't just asking Martha to slow down. He wanted her to learn something. And that's really important because Mary, as she sat at his feet, she was being a student. She was sitting there receiving from him. As she was learning in her receiving, she was feeling in her receiving. She was experiencing and receiving.

There's a question for you all as you're trying to cultivate beingness: Who are your teachers in this season? Are you moving out looking for the teacher that is seeking you? What are you carrying into your spaces each and every day? What are you bringing to Jesus? What are you asking the Spirit for?

And beingness isn't just spiritual either, it's physical. You know, beingness involves taking care of your body. If you notice you're in a pattern of being easily irritable, not wanting to do things, not feeling motivated, but you haven't slept well for the past several nights because you've been worrying and anxious and going and going and going—well, that's an alarm right there. That's your body telling you: slow down. It’s okay to tell someone, “I would love to see you, but I'm gonna go home and take a nap.” You know, “Yeah, I would love to sit up late and watch this movie with you, but I think I'm gonna go to bed.” It's okay to listen to your body. It's okay to care about you so then, in that beingness, you can care about others.

I have a tendency to fall into the Martha and Mary story all the time. I like to pretend that, you know, because I'm a minister, and even before I was a minister, that I know how to spend time with God. I know how to be still and be quiet. But I've told y’all many a times, I fall short in that. But I recognize that usually the reason that I fall short in that is because I'm making it another checkbox. I want to keep everything level, so I better schedule my beingness for three o’clock today.

But if you want to experience true beingness that cultivates into doingness and the motive of love stays true the entire way, then my encouragement to you would be start in that place. Start in the center. Start in the place where you don't hear any noise, and the only message that is moving in you is that message that says, “I'm so glad you're with me today. I'm so glad to see you, my child, my love. I'm so glad to look upon your face and see how amazing and awesome you are. I can't wait to see all the extraordinary things you do in this day. Thank you for stopping here first.”

Jesus modeled it for us. He didn't heal anyone because he had to. He didn't go speak to anyone because he was forced to. But he woke up every morning and retreated. He went and spent time with the Father. He saw the Father. He was with the Father. And his actions could then come from the Father.

So that is my challenge to you. That is my invitation to you all this week: take it or leave it. But can you? Can you take a moment and just recenter yourself? Just find that stillness and allow all of your actions today to come from that place, to come from that knowing and that being that there's absolutely nothing you have to do, but within your beingness the Spirit will reveal all the beautiful things that you get to do.

Please pray with me.

Our most gracious and loving God, we are so grateful for your Word. We are so grateful for the truth of who you are that reveals to us the truth of who we are. Help us to see the places where we can serve you more through our stillness, where we can serve you more through doing with the motive of love. God, we are so grateful for Christ Jesus and the example that he set before us. Help us to recognize that as he sets that example, that we can sit with him in that stillness and be. It’s in Jesus' name we pray. Amen