This sermon was originally preached at Redeemer Episcopal Church on July 21, 2019. To listen to the sermon (with infusions from the Spirit), click this link.
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| Photo by Leio McLaren (@leiomclaren) on Unsplash |
38Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40But 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.” 41But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things;42there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
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Grace and peace from our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus who invites us to sit at his feet to listen and learn so that we might have purpose to our actions.
I spent this past week with my parents in Ohio. Most of the week was spent preparing for our son’s first birthday party. There was a lot of cooking, cleaning, and hosting happening. Even my aunt came into town, my grandmother came to the house they could have an assembly line of food preparation.
When my mom asked what I was preaching on this week, I told her it was the story of Mary and Martha, when Martha fusses at Jesus to make Mary help with the cooking and cleaning and hosting. My mom, unsurprisingly, said, “I’m obviously a Martha. And I totally understand why she was upset with Jesus and Mary! Mary should have gotten up and helped! Couldn’t she see her sister was overwhelmed?”
This is a common reaction to Bible stories like this. We usually identify with one or the other in this story. We either feel more like a Martha or more like a Mary. How many of us did that as I read the gospel text?
I think there is a misconception about this text that we must choose one or the other. That Mary and Martha are mutually exclusive to one another’s way of living life. I often hear this story told and preached when a priest wants to tell her people to be less busy. I’m not going to do that because, for one— I have no business telling you all to do something that I myself am terrible at doing. My middle name is busy.
I was recently talking to my therapist and I told her that I felt really great in many aspects of my life, but that my spiritual life seemed lacking. I felt like I was wandering without a clear path forward. I feel like I can’t slow down, that I’m always in high gear, running from one thing to the next. And it is making me lose direction in other parts of my life because I feel ungrounded. It’s a hard sensation to describe. And she doesn’t speak the spiritual language that we speak in church, but she said, “Are you resting? Are you giving your spirit rest?”
And it immediately made me think of this story.
This gospel story falls in the lectionary between the story of the Good Samaritan— which seems all about action— this last Sunday. And Jesus teaching about the Lord’s Prayer, which we will hear about next Sunday.
As a church, we are called to action like the Good Samaritan. We are called to faithful, difficult work in dismantling systems of oppression and powers that harm the most vulnerable in our society. We must do these things, because faith without works is dead and we are called to bear good fruit in our lives.
But we are also called to faithfulness, to prayer and centering. If you go full speed in the direction of these works, without being rooted in prayer, without being grounded by listening, then we can run into real trouble.
I don’t believe we have to choose between being Mary or being Martha. It’s not about one or the other. It’s about balance. We must sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to his teaching so that we may know the clear path forward. Otherwise, we will just be wandering— without any idea of where we are supposed to be going.
Radical hospitality is so important, and providing for others, and welcoming strangers. This about how much Jesus says about doing the right thing for our neighbors, providing for the sick, poor, needy, refugees, and most vulnerable. Jesus knows the importance of being a good host to strangers and teaches on it and demonstrates it regularly throughout the gospels. So I don’t think he’s condemning Martha for being a good and faithful host. But he is inviting her into the learning, the listening, the stillness as well.
We have to learn how to do both, because without both, neither will have direction or meaning. They cannot be contradictory or mutually exclusive.
In the first reading this morning, we heard about the story of Sarah and Abraham when they were receiving God as a guest in their home.
Sarah got to work hosting the mysterious visitor when he showed up. But Sarah also listened to him. Even though she didn’t believe him and laughed at his declaration, she stopped to listen because she knew that what God said was important and had the ability to give her and her life direction.
I invite you to continue the hustle and bustle of your life, but not at the cost of your life at the feet of Christ. When you’re feeling that tug, the pull, like the one I have been feeling lately— that feeling like you’re wandering and directionless. When you look up one day and realize that you haven’t listened to God in a while, I invite you to stop. Really, truly stop. What grace is that. How radical is that, in the face of a society that tells us we can’t and shouldn’t stop— I invite you to stop. Jesus invites you to stop. And sit at the feet of Jesus to listen and learn.
I don’t know what stopping looks like. Maybe it is less busyness. Maybe it is busyness with a purpose. Maybe it is more time in prayer or reading the Bible, but maybe for some us it is action rooted in our faith in Christ.
I’m not sure what listening and sitting at the feet of Jesus means for each of us, and I haven’t mastered it myself yet. But I think both Mary and Martha have something to teach us in that what looks like laziness or even rest could be listening. And what could look like busyness and bustling around, could actually be listening as well.
A friend of mine puts it this way: It’s not about how we serve, but remembering who we serve. When we work, we work for God, when we listen, we listen for God.
I’m going to say that again, because I think it is the core of what Jesus is trying to teach us in this story: It’s not about how we serve, but remembering who we serve. When we work, we work for God, when we listen, we listen for God.
Life is a balance of action and prayer, movement and rest. We must be conscious of this balance, we must attend to it. And when we feel restless and drained, bustling around with no purpose, we are able to come back to this place, this congregation, to be nourished by this word and meal, to be reminded of our baptism in these waters, and be renewed with the prayers for one another.
We do this because God’s grace is the better part that Jesus speaks about, and despite the ways of this world saying otherwise, God’s grace cannot be taken from us. Amen.
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