Mary and Martha [Proper 11C]

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Luke 10:38-42

Mary and Martha

When I was in college, my junior year, I was an RA, a Resident Assistant. It was the year that Gallup released their StrengthsFinder test. And every RA was required to take the test. The idea was that once we identified our strengths, we could then lead our fellow students from a place of strength. It was a nice test actually: everybody won because everyone had some strengths. Out of the however-many strengths Gallup identified, each person was given a list of their Top Five. Of course then, because it was a college, we had to talk about those strengths at length with our classmates; we were given exercises to accentuate our strengths; we wrote essays. We were probably even graded on how well we expressed our feelings about our results.

Anyway, I don't remember all of my strengths. But I do remember my number one strength: achiever. And while all strengths are special and equally valuable, I was pretty sure Achiever was the best.

And that is why, I suppose, I am a bit uncomfortable with today's Gospel. Martha has many tasks; she has a lot to do, a lot to accomplish in a short time. And no one is helping her. The other woman in the house is her sister Mary. And she is sitting around with the men. But things have to be done; items need to be checked off the list. And so of course, good old Martha, a woman after my own heart, a woman after my own StrengthsFinder results, takes care of business. And as a reward for all of her hard work, she is presented with a good old talkin'-to by Jesus. She is scolded.

And this, it should be noted, is the same Jesus who just ended his last parable, the Good Samaritan story, by saying, “Go and do.” Well, Martha is a doer and she is getting nothing but flak.

I suspect this is one of those Bible stories that really speaks to some members of the Church – let's say, those who attend the contemplative prayer group on Mondays – and probably less so to those members who add items to their to-do list just so that they can check them off. And it is true: there are plenty of folks who have used this story to “prove” that Jesus prefers quiet, sedentary Christians. And it is true: this text has been interpreted, at times, to support a false dichotomy between prayer and service, between action and contemplation. I say “false dichotomy” because I think the Gospel of Luke, a gospel that puts the parable of the Good Samaritan, a story about service and action, directly beside this story of Mary and Martha, clearly expects followers of Jesus to be both hearers and doers of the Word. Both prayer and service are necessary components of the Christian life; both action and contemplation are required if we are to keep the Great Commandment to Love God and to Love People.

And yet, the reality is: Martha still gets scolded. Now, she is not scolded for welcoming Jesus; that is a good thing. Jesus encourages his followers to show hospitality. And she is not scolded for preparing a meal for Jesus and his disciples; that is also a good thing. Jesus understands that. He is a feeder; he feeds the crowds; he feeds his own disciples; he offers himself as food.

Martha is scolded, however, for being distracted. Now I have no doubt it was possible, but I'm not sure we could even figure out how to be distracted in first century Palestine. The art of distraction had not yet been perfected. They did not have facebook, or Twitter, or Pintrest. There were no smartphones. No Netflix. No cable or Direct TV. No TV at all actually. Not even radio. Most folks couldn't even read. And if you can image, there weren't even Pokemon characters hanging out in front of the grocery store. I guess the best distractions were spending five hours washing clothes by hand or slaughtering a sheep for dinner; maybe refilling the oil lamps so that you could see in your own house.

Or in Martha's case, she was distracted by her many tasks. She was busy and it seems that being busy was perhaps her hobby. And I think that is what this text is truly about. It's not about prayer vs. service, contemplation vs. action; it is about discerning what is truly important, what is most precious in this life.

In the Good Samaritan text it was the person lying on the side of the road who was precious. And that demanded action; love meant seeing the man and picking him up and caring for him. Quiet contemplation in that circumstance was insufficient. In this text it is the words of Jesus that are precious. And that demanded a pause; love meant sitting at the feet of Jesus. Mary figured it out. Martha was too busy. It's not that what she was doing was inherently wrong; it wasn't evil to prepare a nice meal. It's just that she was too busy doing what she was supposed to do, to do what love demanded.

And Martha was doing what she was supposed to do. Mary was not doing what she was supposed to do. And in that culture such things were very clear. Mary was a woman; she was supposed to do what Martha was doing: cooking, cleaning, hosting. What Mary was doing, sitting at the feet of Jesus, being a disciple listening to her rabbi, was what the men did. Martha's complaint was appropriate, at least culturally appropriate.

And yet, the reality is: Martha still gets scolded. And we know it is for being too distracted, too focused on her tasks. That's fine; true enough. But maybe there is more to it than that. Maybe Jesus scolds her because he loves her enough to want more for her – more than a life of tasks, more than a life of busy-ness, more than a life of social conventions and rule following. Maybe Jesus wanted her to open her eyes to the precious moments she was missing. Maybe he wanted her to be open to the possibility that the Holy Spirit doesn't always follow a to-do list.

And maybe Jesus wants the same for us. We live in the midst of a world of distraction – not all of them bad, not many of them evil. But our tasks, the busy-ness, the overwhelming expectations and responsibilities of our lives always threaten to distract us from presence of Jesus. The flashing screens threaten to blind us to the precious, hurting people lying in our paths. The constant noise threatens to drown out the precious words of Jesus, the good news that gives us life and hope.

And so maybe more than anything, this little story in Luke's Gospel, the story of Mary and Martha, is a call to deeper discernment, a call to open eyes and open ears. A reminder that our tasks are only a distraction when we allow them to take priority. They trick us into thinking that are more urgent than they really are, more important than they really are, more essential to our lives and identities than they really are. Your one life in this big, dangerous world is too important. It is too important for you to miss the point. There is only one thing in this world we need and that is Jesus – the Jesus who sends us out to love and serve boldly, but always calls us back to sit at his feet.