July 21, 2013
I had an aunt Marion who was my great aunt
In her house, everything was covered in plastic.
The couch the rug, the toaster, the blender. Everything.
She had her clothing organized in her drawers into
different colors: blues and pinks and greens.
And each drawer was covered in a piece of plastic
with a color coordinated tissue paper and flower on top of that.
We knew this because she would take all of her guests
on the “Tour of the Drawers”,
And she didn’t remember who had seen it and who hadn’t
so we would end up taking it over and over.
Whenever we came over for dinner on a Sunday,
she would prepare food all day
and as you were sitting there eating, almost done
she would take your plate right out from under you
before you were even finished.
No seconds at her house, she had to do the dishes.
And she never sat with us and ate.
She bouncing up and down working in the kitchen.
To her death, I don’t think anyone in my family
ever had a full conversation with her.
Whenever I hear this story about Martha
I always think of my Aunt Marion.
Now, maybe my aunt Marion had some serious issues
that should have been diagnosed by a therapist.
But there’s not quite that much wrong with Martha
 |
| Mary & Martha, Maud Sumner |
In Martha’s time, women were not expected
to sit and talk to guests.
They were expected to be up and doing stuff,
making the meal, getting what guests needed, cleaning up
so that the men could take the time and sit and talk.
Martha is a do-er.
Maybe you know someone like her.
Maybe you are someone like her.
Maybe it’s not kitchen work, but maybe it’s other
types of work that you spend your time doing.
We live in a world of tasks
These days we have automatic washing machines
and dishwashers and we buy our food
from a store instead of farming it, or raising the animals.
And all these automations were supposed to give us more
leisure time, but we have filled the space of those tasks
with other tasks.
I know of no better feeling than scratching
something off of my “to do” list.
Deep inside me, I kind of feel if I don’t do one thing,
that the whole infrastructure will crumble on me.
I think we have this notion, that what we do
or have accomplished is what defines us.
We are what we do. We have to keep going to have any worth.
There is some of Martha in most of us.
And then we have Mary, who has decided to
spend Jesus visit just sitting at his feet listening to him
instead of picking up dishes he’s not done with
or bringing out fruit plates, or putting plastic covers on things.
And Martha gets huffy about it.
Why isn’t she doing all the stuff that I’m doing?
But Jesus tells Martha that Mary has chosen the better way.
And I thank Jesus for reminding Martha and us
that sitting and listening is an important part of hospitality.
That giving people our full, uninturrupted presence is as
good as an extravagant meal or a spotlessly clean house.
And I thank Jesus for reminding us that we need to
understand why we do what we do,
so listening to God, and learning about God,
and praying and being with God are things
we shouldn’t forget to spend time on.
And I especially thank Jesus, for encouraging women
to sit and learn and pray and hear and talk to Jesus
rather than just be relegated to just doing the church housework.
It has taken us a couple of mellinium to catch on
but thank you, Jesus for pointing us in that direction.
But we need to beware of a couple of things:
This short story has often been used to pit one
kind of work in the church against another.
People have used it to say that prayer and study
and worship are a better calling or more worthy
than works of service or doing the day to day
necessities of running church.
And I don’t think that was Jesus point.
We don’t believe that being on the facilities committee
or feeding people are better than prayer and worship
and we don’t think that study and learning are better
than volunteering in the food pantry
or making a casserole for someone.
They both go hand in hand.
And we also need to watch
one other very important thing:
That we don’t make Mary’s choice into
yet another task on our long to do list.
That we don’t make prayer and learning and being with Jesus
another drudgery that we need to do
in order to make ourselves worthy.
I don’t think Jesus was adding more to our to do list.
Because I think that in choosing the better part,
it was less what Mary was doing, and more as how she was doing it.
While Martha was running around, anxious
and trying to impress Jesus,
Mary knew that sitting at Jesus feet was enough.
She was enough, just being there listening
without preparing a full dinner, without setting the table
without making the house spic and span for him
without completing a giant to-do list.
She was enough.
Whatever we do in life, in the church,
we always remember that God doesn’t love us for what we do.
I will stretch that and say that God doesn’t love us who we are.
God loves us because that’s the way that God is.
The preacher Fred Craddock said that if
Jesus was asked which we should follow,
the service oriented Martha
OR the contemplative Mary,
Jesus would have said, “Yes”.
Mary and Martha are sisters.
Jesus visits the both of them.
They are part of one household,
they are two parts of the full Christian experience and life.
Sitting at Jesus feet, and hearing the word of God --
the word that says that we are loved
not for what we do, but for who we are – That is what truly fills us up.
That is what inspires us to continue to do God's work in the world.
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