Living in the Moment
Gospel lesson (Luke 10:38-42) for the sixth Sunday after Pentecost – Year C – common lectionary
Living in the moment is a refrain from ancient schools of thought and behavior that has gained renewed traction in the today’s hyper-stimulated environment. While not necessarily an organizing principle of Christianity, the concept is nevertheless frequently evident in both Old and New Testaments [1], and indeed in Jesus’s explicit teachings, exampled in today’s Gospel lesson.
38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at Jesus’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her, then, to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things, 42 but few things are needed—indeed only one. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10:38-42 NRSVUE
Here the teaching concerns living in this moment through identifying the essential thing distinct from the distractions of busy-ness and lesser endeavors. How to know the essential thing? In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed — Mark 1:35
Elsewhere, Jesus’s teachings on Living in the Moment come in the form of not worrying about the future. Recall the teaching in the Sermon on the Mount concerning the lilies of the field, culminating with “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”— Matthew 6:43.
A memorable lesson in Living in the Present was delivered at Edenton St. UMC by Bishop Marion Edwards (1929-2011) using Psalm 118:35 as his text – This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. We allow our narratives of the past to become idyllic, bearing little resemblance to what really happened. We fret about the future to the point that we miss the day that is given us. But emphasizing each element of the verse, he drove home the message that This Is the Day.
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[1] see Isaiah 43:18-19; Ephesians 5:15-16; James 4:14; also Matthew 24:42-44;
