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Proper 11C Luke 10: 38-42 Mary and MarthaToday we encounter the beloved story of two sisters, Martha and Mary, that only the writer of Luke records. It is a simple story on the surface, but one abundant with meaning the more one swims in its ocean depths.
Jesus has been teaching on his way to Jerusalem, and passing through a small village he is welcomed into the home of Martha where she lives with her sister Mary. It is a simple act of hospitality. These unmarried sisters welcome Jesus and presumably some of his other followers into their home. We are not told all of the details. Two sisters are present, Martha the hostess-with-the-mostest type and Mary the more thoughtful one. The scene is easy to envision, Martha bustling around the kitchen busy with preparations while Mary sits at the feet of Jesus in rapt attention, hanging on his every word (we preachers like people who do that.) It is no small matter that Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus. She has just broken into the all-male enclave of Torah study. While Martha busily cooks up a storm in the kitchen, Mary is breaking the cultural norms of the day by engaging in theological talk with this innovative, egalitarian rabbi, Jesus.
Hospitality is an important word in the Christian faith. Throughout the scriptures hospitality is encouraged and admonished. Israel was commanded to show hospitality, not only to fellow Jews, but to the “sojourner, the stranger in your gates.” Deuteronomy 10 reminds the people of Israel, “Remember, you were a stranger and a sojourner and God took you in.” You do the same. St. Paul encourages his churches to “practice hospitality.” And here are two women doing just that – hospitality – receiving the guest, the stranger into their home.
Hospitality always includes some measure of risk just as it did for Martha and Mary. Opening one’s home to a stranger or a guest means exposure. It can be a difficult thing to open one’s home, one’s inner everyday life. Many of us entertain only our closest friends and family in our homes. There is a kind of risk to intimacy about hospitality. We risk being known more fully, being examined, or being discovered. What kind of books do they read? What magazines do they receive? Are they tidy or organizationally challenged, simple or extravagant? What kind of music do they listen to? How many CDs do they actually own? What are their tastes? What kind of food is in the refrigerator?
I have heard many sermons on the story of Martha and Mary that focus on the conflict that emerges between the sisters. Martha, the active one, complains to Jesus “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” I’m sure that doesn’t sound like anyone you or I actually know. Martha wants Jesus to reinforce the cultural norms of the day but Jesus won’t play. He speaks to her warmly, affirming her hard work but at the same time challenging her priorities. Jesus answers, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
For one ancient commentator, Bruno of Segni what Martha and Mary both symbolize together makes up the entire church. Martha is often understood as symbolizing the active life while Mary symbolizes the contemplative life. These two poles of the life shape an ancient and vital tension within each person’s spirituality.
Yet it is still tempting to pit one sister against the other in our interpretation of this story, making of it a sort of theological catfight with Jesus as the referee. “Quit your complaining, Martha, Mary has chosen the better part.” Is the contemplative side somehow better? Are we to read this story as a clear message about the superiority of the contemplative life over against the active life? No, I do not believe that that is what is intended here. That would mean trampling on the hospitality of both sisters. Both sisters engage Jesus in their own particular ways. Neither woman’s approach should be dismissed. At work in this story there are ways of knowing that we dare not set over-against one another. We would do better to look for the wisdom within each.
Remember what our ancient commentator said, in Mary and Martha the whole church is contained. The active and the contemplative life are blessed antinomies. Both are important. One cannot exist without the other.
We dare not criticize Martha too harshly lest she stop serving altogether. Yet, action without contemplation is dangerous because it inevitably lacks spiritual depth and direction from God’s Holy Spirit. Listening, sitting at the feet of Jesus is what allows action to be divinely inspired, spirit led. Christian action finds its life first in patient listening and prayerful reflection and then in passionate ministry.
We dare not commend Mary to strongly, or she may decide to sit there forever. Contemplation without action lacks the ability to bring to life the work of the Spirit in concrete ways in the everyday world. If the incarnation of Jesus is about anything it is about God doing something, and his followers the church must also do something. We cannot always sit at the feet of Jesus. Yet if our doing is not flowing out of our sitting at the feet of Jesus, we are in danger of wasting our efforts.
As you listen to this story of Martha and Mary, each of you know which sister you more easily identify with. Some of you have a very active disposition while some of you have a more contemplative temperament. Both of these dispositions are gifts from God. But what I believe the story is telling us is that we need both if we are to be mature Christians whose lives are led by the Spirit. Martha and Mary offer us two types of hospitality. One that welcomes Jesus and works hard to meet his physical needs for comfort and sustenance and one that honors Jesus by listening to him and entering into relationship and deep conversation.
Each of us has a weak hand to strengthen. Each of us needs to be stretched into action or contemplation or perhaps both. Jesus says that only one thing is necessary. What is that one thing? I take it to be hospitality of heart, openness to an ever-deepening experience of Christ that moves us into action.
I take great encouragement in this journey into hospitality of heart from a friend and colleague Gordon Cosby who is the founding pastor of Church of the Savior in Washington D.C. and one of the most profoundly Christian men I have ever met. He and his wife have lived and worked in the inner city of Washington DC doing extraordinary work in social justice and community building since the end of World War II. He said this recently in an interview:
If one longs for depth in one’s life we must focus on a very few things. There is so little time in one’s brief lifetime. And what is that one thing? We are saying that it is Jesus. I choose to go deep-sea diving in that ocean. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Is that true or false? By faith I say that it is true, I give my entire life to that deep exploration. I want to know him in depth and to be transformed into his likeness. It is that likeness, the likeness of Christ that I want to have when I embark on a journey to the Land beyond death. There are infinite depths in Christ to explore. Our task is to be so deeply and intimately connected with Christ as a community that the world will experience the resurrected Christ – the newness God intends – whenever it touches our corporate life.
The Rev. Gordon Cosby – Church of the Savior
Only one thing is necessary, knowing Christ in depth, being transformed into his likeness, that is the “better part” and from it all action worth taking flows.
Amen.
End Document — St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church