Mary the Disciple July 22, 2001

Amos 8: 1-12, Colossians 1: 24-28, Luke 10; 38-42

Jesus often had to deal with challenging matters of right and wrong, serious issues in which life and death were hanging in the balance. A woman was caught in adultery: should she be stoned to death as the law prescribed, or should she receive mercy? People demanded Jesus' opinion....... On a Sabbath day a paralyzed man appealed for help. Should Jesus honor the law, which forbade all Sabbath work, including healing, or should he move beyond the law to do what love required?...... A cross loomed ahead. Should Jesus seek to save his own life, or give it up to humiliation, torture and agonizing death? Jesus often had life and death decisions thrust upon him - but the issue raised in today's gospel lesson is not one them.

"Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to come and help me!" A squabble in the kitchen is not exactly high drama, and it doesn't seem to be a deeply spiritual concern. Why would the gospel writer bother to include such a trivial dispute? My sister and I probably argued about who was going to do the dishes, but nobody ever wrote about it, or saved it in the family history. Why should this squabble make its way into the gospel?

It's there because the Holy Spirit inspired Luke to put it there, and because of what it can teach us - but we need to look at it carefully, and in connection with the whole message of scripture.

Mary and Martha were sisters, and according to John's gospel their brother was Lazarus, the man whom Jesus raised from the dead. John also reports that Mary was the woman who anointed Jesus with costly perfume, just a week or so before his death, though when Matthew and Mark write of it they simply refer to "a woman," not naming Mary as the one. Luke doesn't mention either of these significant events, so we assume that he must have been unaware of them, and his only reference to Mary and Martha is found in the 4 verses we read this morning.

Jesus was a guest in Martha's house, and she was bustling around in the kitchen and doing what a proper hostess should do, but all the while her sister was sitting at Jesus' feet and listening to his teaching. The phrasing is significant, for to "sit at the feet" of a teacher means to take the role of a disciple, a learner, a dedicated student. In other words, Luke isn't saying "Martha was cooking while Jesus and Mary were 'shooting the breeze.'" There's something significant going on - a disciple sitting at a master's feet and learning.

But Martha comes in and she's pretty upset. "Jesus," she says, "Don't you care that I'm being stuck with all this work while my sister is doing nothing? Tell her to give me a hand!" It seems to be an issue of fairness to Martha. Jesus' reply has sometimes been understood as a rebuke, but there's really no reason to imply any harshness or criticism. He simply says "Martha, Martha, you're worried and troubled about so many things but just one is needed," which is probably a statement that has multiple meanings. At a very basic level Jesus could have been saying "You're trying to serve a five course meal, but one thing is needed - i.e. one dish would be plenty," but there's probably a symbolic meaning behind it too. It's easy to get caught up in a lot of frantic religious activity when one thing is needed, one simple spiritual reality is all that really matters. Jesus goes on to say "Mary has chosen the right thing and it will not be taken away from her....." What is the one necessary thing? What has Mary chosen? Jesus doesn't say, but I will eventually hazard a guess, after exploring the story a bit more.

What does the story mean for us? People have sometimes interpreted it in a way that is pretty hard on Martha, and those who are like her. They will say "If you think you can get your salvation by work, as if you could earn it, you're mistaken. Old pots and pans Martha thought she was doing right by Jesus, but all that really matters is the spiritual task of sitting and listening and learning from our Lord........ It's not activity and work that get you to heaven. You need communion with our savior, as Mary shows us......." Which is a wonderful half truth.

Do you remember the teaching found in the verses immediately prior to this story in Luke's gospel? We read them last week - the story of the Good Samaritan, which poses the question of how you gain eternal life. How do you live in a way that is pleasing to God? According to that story it's by doing. A teacher of the law was in a dialogue with Jesus, and he was great at talk and giving the right answers, but when it seemed like he didn't really want to do anything more than have a lot of holy discussions, Jesus told that story of the Samaritan. That Samaritan showed he was a loving neighbor by active deeds of compassion. The message there is "Do, do, do.... Don't just talk about loving God and loving your neighbor, but express it in the actions that make it real," which is just what Martha, in her own way, has been trying to do. She's trying to put love into practice through hospitality - just as the Bible, and her tradition had taught her.

I think it's significant that the gospel has these two stories - the Good Samaritan and Mary and Martha - back to back. We have to hold them together, for each gives a partial picture of the Christian life, finding its completion in the other. If I gave you a pair of scissors and asked you which blade was the most important, how could you answer? Both blades need to be sharp, both blades need to work together, or the scissors are useless. In Christian life we have two major themes, and like the scissors blades they are both needed. We have moral action and spiritual contemplation...... work and study.... mission and prayer....... doing and being...... serving and being filled..... caring for others and caring for ourselves...... Christian faith is expressed in feeding the poor at the Lunch Box, and in sitting quietly in periods of contemplative prayer. It's expressed in painting a poor person's house at Camp Hope, and in reading spiritual books that fill our minds....... in teaching the Bible to others, as all these Vacation Bible School volunteers are going to do this week, but also in personal study of scripture....... in healing the sick, but also in caring for one's own spiritual, emotional and physical health......

In Mary and Martha we see two poles of experience - Martha the doer and Mary the one who sits at the feet of Jesus to learn. When Jesus says "One thing is necessary," I'm sure he can't be saying "There's no need for actions, no reas0on for concern about how you live - quiet contemplation is all that matters." He can't be saying "Forget what I just told you in the story of the Good Samaritan.... Forget about putting faith into action......."

As most of you know, I recently marked my 25th year in ministry - and the church was so kind in surprising me and helping me to celebrate that milestone. For several months I have had fanciful thoughts about some grandiose sermon entitled "What I've learned in a quarter century of ministry," and I've created some vague outlines in my head, but I always abandon the idea. Sometimes the sermon I imagine is self-serving and pretentious - a pompous claiming of wisdom that would make me look like a combination of Billy Graham and the Pope and I don't have the gall to try that one. At other times, when I've been discouraged, I think two minutes would be enough to state everything I've learned, and I'd be embarrassed to give that talk. So I'm not going to attempt that quarter century synopsis, but today I'll share one thing I've learned - something related to Mary and Martha. I probably knew it 25 years ago, and I know it with certainty today. I know that my good intentions are important; that my hard work matters; that my determination to do my best - as a minister, as a father, as a husband, as a friend - that these are all important. But I've learned that good intentions and hard work can get you only so far, and the words of Jesus (found at John 15:5) speak to me again and again: "I am the vine, and you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for apart from me you can do nothing......."

In ministry - of the ordained version that I am trying to fulfill, but also the ministry that every one of you has as a bother or sister of Jesus - this is true. The quality of our spiritual connection to God is what matters, and if it's no good everything else is jeopardized. We need to take care of our spiritual roots, but that kind of concern is seldom honored in this culture, neither in the church nor in the wider community. This is a culture that honors action and results. We honor the "Marthas," the doers, the activists, the ones who are accomplishing things. What is a faithful church? One with lots of activity - whether that's feeding the hungry or saving lots of souls. What's a good minister? One who is good at doing things - preaching great sermons, attracting large congregations, building new buildings, creating innovative new programs. That's the sort of thing people are talking about when they say "We've got a good pastor......" It's action that gets noticed. A writer named Henri Nouwen has commented that people are not surprised or troubled if they call and ask to speak to the pastor and are told "I'm sorry he's out visiting the sick." That's "doing his job." But would they be as understanding if they were told "I'm sorry, he is unavailable. He's reading, or She's praying or he's taking his morning walk in the woods...."? We honor the workers, the doers - and of course there is a great need for people who can do, and who work hard.

But there comes a time when human energy is insufficient, when human wisdom bogs down, when good intentions wear out, and in discouragement the whole enterprise sags. Or by contrast there are times when everything is going great - and the church, or the person, begins to think that they are the author of all this success, so that a subtle corruption and poisoning of the enterprise occurs. Pride, self-congratulations, selfish ends and motivations - all these creep in in the midst of "successful doing," and this doing begins to become something that is not useful, not pleasing to God, not a blessing...... It may not be literally true that apart from Christ we can't do anything at all, but in terms of ultimate values, of doing things that will last, on our own we are lost.

I find that being like Martha happens naturally for me, in part because the inclinations of my personality, but also because that's what the culture expects. But as a preacher I know once said, "You export what you don't have." You can't pump water indefinitely from a cistern that's never re-filled. You can't keep doing good work if you aren't drawing on a sustaining relationship with God...... This is true for me, and for every Christian: Without some times of emulating Mary - some times of doing nothing but sitting at the feet of Jesus - all the doing comes to naught.

By Martha's standards Mary was wasting time. She wasn't getting anything done. But if we want to have a truly useful life, we who are inclined to be doers - to be "Marthas" - need to find some intentional and creative ways of "wasting time with God." We need to find some practices of prayer that sustain us, move us, feed us - but a year ago, when many of us were studying The Workbook of Living Prayer, I heard many people, say "I just can't find twenty minutes a day for my prayer time......." My guess is that if their boss required them to come to work twenty minutes early they'd somehow manage it, but many of us we find it hard to do something so "wasteful" and non-productive, something that produces no tangible results....... If we want to be sustained by God we need to study scripture - not so that we can give a lesson next week, or write a paper for a class, or preach a sermon, or do anything "useful," - but simply for its own sake, simply for the spiritual filling it can give..... On a personal level everyone needs to establish something like a "Sabbath," since even our Church-going Sundays can be hectic times of doing, not times of rest and renewal in God's presence...... We need to find, in the midst of the busyness the world thrusts upon us, and the very good busyness that we would take on for God, some ways of sitting at the feet of Jesus, so that we can be taught, fed, and empowered. What feeds you may be quite different from that which feeds others - which means that you need to search for it, and prioritize it.

I freely admit that I have not mastered this art. I consider myself having a long ways to go in such things, but one of the truths I learned early and keep learning is that. without the spiritual resources to sustain me I can't do ministry that's worth anything. I'm sure it's true of your Christian life as well - without some places of filling your well you will eventually run dry. And so I want to keep trying to be like Mary. I need to be like Mary.

So, to bring this conclusion, what's the teaching of this passage, and what is the "one thing" Mary has chosen? The story shouldn't be used as a way of creating an artificial division between faithful actions and faithful learning, as if piety is good and the work is pointless. I don't think Jesus would have let Mary sit there forever - day after day, year after year, just learning and communing and cultivating a spiritual aura. The time would have come when he would have to say "OK Mary, it's time to put it into practice. You need to get to work."

It's not an either/or - but Mary knows what Martha has seemingly forgotten, what we so easily forget. She knows she needs to be connected, to be fed. The one thing she has chosen, and for which she is commended, is that she is keeping her eyes on her Lord. She knows her need for a connection with God. May God bless us, as we seek to follow her example.