Sermons for the Month
The Mary Way, or the Martha Way?
DATE: July 22nd, 2007
SERVICE: 8th Sunday after Pentecost
TEXT: Luke 10:38-42“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN
In Jesus the fullness of God is pleased to dwell. God is comfortably settled in this man, Jesus. If you've seen Jesus, you have seen God. So…he comes to visit. You welcome into your home the one in whom the fullness of God is pleased to dwell. In such a situation, what do you do? Do you fuss about the food and the furnishings? The one in whom God dwells is in the front room and you are putting out guest towels? Oh…no…we say…not us! Well, to tell the truth, yes, me, and probably many of us would be fussing about the food and the furnishings. And, to tell the truth again, we get just a bit defensive when today's Gospel lesson is read and the Martha's, the doers of the world, are put on the spot. We might observe, as Joy Douglas Strome does in her article "Kitchen Relief" that not everyone can study. The dishes will pile up. Not everyone can be confined to the kitchen. The rage will pile up. People may come from east and west and north and south to sit at table with God, but someone will have to set the table. (1) As we defend ourselves, or if we are more like Mary bask in the moment of positive acclaim, we forget that this story is not about us. It's about Jesus, the guest of honor. It's about loving God with our whole selves. You may recall that in last Sunday's Gospel lesson a lawyer posed a question about acquiring eternal life. In response Jesus asked him what is written in the law about this subject and he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." Then, when the lawyer wants to put limitations on who he is required to view as a neighbor, Jesus tells a parable to illustrate what it means to love one's neighbor; in it a man shows radical mercy to a stranger. Then, the next thing that occurs is his visit to the home of Martha and Mary and the focus is on how to love God with heart, soul, strength and mind. The account begs the question, "If God came and stood in your living room, what would you do?" There is the Mary way, and the Martha way. Now, before we go any further, let me note what the situation was on that day when Jesus visited Mary and Martha. He has told his disciples that he will be betrayed, suffer, be rejected and killed. He is on his way to Jerusalem to accomplish his purpose for coming and soon he will die. So, Mary is fully present to him during one of the last times they will be together, and Martha is not. Listen carefully; the purpose of this story is not to teach us that it is better to sit than to do. Instead, it teaches us to discern - to set priorities carefully - to seek the better thing, the good portion, whatever that might be in the situation in which we find ourselves. (2) Often the better thing has to do with acknowledging the presence of the Divine who not only was pleased to dwell in Jesus, but was pleased - note that word pleased - to reconcile himself through Jesus to all things, especially us. That's an unconditional, undeserved love that is worth noticing. But, do we ever struggle to notice it. Listen again to Joy Douglas Strome: "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things. Step forward and listen. We know this chastisement. We understand Martha's predicament. Today's Martha could be working at a computer, checking her Blackberry or talking on her cell phone while driving and eating lunch. She could be on a treadmill while making appointments for the next day. She could be grading papers, her phone held between cheek and shoulder, checking in with family about coming home late. She could be trying to have a business meeting in the middle of a crowded airplane while juggling a watery cup of Coke. She could have a baby on one hip and a textbook for night class on the other. She could be receiving chemotherapy on her lunch hour and trying like crazy to save her job. She could be overscheduled, overbooked and overwhelmed. The pace could make her snap. The urgent demands of life collide with the urgent demands of the gospel - and anyone's trigger could be tripped. Martha, dear Martha, we know you well. Distractions and worries abound. Jesus calls us to stop. Stop what we are doing and listen. There is need of only one thing. This good news is for you." (3) There is no way around it, to stop what we are doing and to listen takes effort. There are always tasks to be done. There's something real, something concrete, about doing the dishes and mowing the lawn; it's clear what one is to do and when the task is done. We receive compliments when we do things well. But stopping to listen to God, seeking the better thing, sorting out how we are being guided, well, we are less confident about that. And besides, sometimes we are not sure that we want to hear what the one in whom God dwells has to say; it seems easier not to listen. Being a disciple, which is exactly what Mary was doing, requires more of us. Mary and Martha would face huge challenges in the days that followed today's account. They grappled with doubt when Jesus did not come in time to save their brother Lazarus from death, and with despair when he did not save himself from crucifixion. There were times of great joy when the power of God restored life, of sadness when their resurrected Lord was with them no more and of challenge as they became the ones who proclaimed the Good News about him. Each time they struggled they must have drawn on their relationship with him for strength and hope, and Mary particularly remembered the time spent at his feet, absorbing all he offered. Is it so different for us? We too grapple with doubt, with despair, with joy, with sadness and are challenged to live out our faith wherever we find ourselves. What do we have to draw on? Have we sought the better thing? Have we stopped to listen to our Lord? It's true that we each find our own way to do what Mary did. I cannot tell you how you should sit at the feet of Jesus, all I can do is echo what I quoted earlier, when we stop and listen Jesus has something to say. And, the good news is this, as we chose the better way, the way of discipleship, the promise Jesus made in today's Gospel lesson continues, it - that is the benefits of it - cannot be taken from us. (1) The Christian Century, "Kitchen Relief" by Joy Douglas Strome, pg. 18, July 10, 2007.
(2) SermonWriter, Proper 11C (July 22, 2007), pg. 5, www.sermonwriter.com
(3) Same as #1
AMEN