Luke 10:38-42
Proper 11 (16) - Year C
We are often setting up one person or group against another. Here is an interesting article about Shifting Spirituality? What Newcomers Are Looking For that demonstrates some of the tension within the household of faith and how differing gifts can bring dissension, not the common good. Using this model, do we get a picture of Jesus choosing current church members over newcomers?
As you reflect on Martha and Mary it would be helpful to move it out of the "head" or "servant" duality. The model here fits all manner of disputes.
A question to be asked regards Jesus' seeming choice one gift over another or one expression of a gift. Is this really all about Jesus who was at that moment ready to teach rather than ready to eat? If Martha could have held her tongue for another half-hour would Jesus have been ready to say, "You're right, Martha. Mary, its time to help out as I'm getting hungry."
What else do we know about life that we can bring to this scene?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/july2004.html
We elected two new women bishops in the North Central Jurisdiction. I don't know that either of them is the Martha model or the Mary model. They embody both qualities. My experience of them is that they are able to pull out Martha when she is needed and Mary when she is needed.
The story of Martha and Mary is about them both, not one over or under the other. The Storytellers Companion to the Bible: New Testament Women (Vol 13) reminds us that the stories in the Bible are connected to questions and issues of their day. What might we guess about a woman's issue that would have led to Jesus affirming Mary's attention to listening and learning? Might it be that there were those who were trying to relegate women to the bedroom and kitchen? If so, Luke affirms a new relationship between women and the world, one filled with choices to be made, and gives it the authority of Jesus. It seems this issue is still with us and needs to constantly be reaffirmed. Many were amazed that we were able to elect two women. The theory being that the system could only handle one or the other. (And then there are feelings of betrayal going on in the South Central Jurisdiction where not a woman was elected with several excellent candidates.)
The need for vigilance is constant when it comes to power issues within the human family. Racial issues, Women issues, and Sexual Orientation issues are still the "canaries in the mine" that first catch the air being poisoned with separation and entitlement behaviors from the power brokers of this and every day.
Let's hear a good word for Martha and Mary - sisters to one another and to you and me.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/july2004.html
A fine example of family systems at work. Here Martha, past her usual coping skills, cries out, "Ma, Mary ain't helpin'!"
The response reported by Jesus could have been more helpful with a bit more specificity, but at least he didn't play all of the triangling game here.
We've been able to put all manner of content into his "one needful thing" phrase. Unfortunately all of them pit Martha against Mary, as though Martha hadn't also participated in a needful thing.
Surely, with his emphasis upon service, Jesus didn't mean to disparage offering one's life to serve others as Martha was participating in that. Though when specific service is too narrowly defined it is something to avoid as it has lost its life.
Surely, with his emphasis upon service, Jesus didn't mean to focus everything on basking the in the glory of a master teacher such as himself or even G*D, whom he focused on. When no service is required, life has been lost.
It is difficult for us to get into a seasonal flow about his response. Shawna R. B. Atteberry has a sermon about this that is helpful.
It may be that Jesus' response still lies in that fuzzy arena of what we are not yet ready to hear. Thus we still need some help from a Spirit.
For the moment: good for Martha, good for Mary, good for Jesus. Their better parts will not be taken from them. Good for you and good for me.
= = = = = = =
Cathye Wehr puts another twist on this:
"Jesus came with the disciples to Martin and Harry's garage to get ready for a road trip. Martin is working on the minivan getting it ready while Harry is over in one of the chairs gathered around the Mr. Coffee listening to Jesus. Martin comes over wiping his greasy hands on a rag, asking Jesus to tell Harry to go put his coveralls on and work on the van with him. Jesus says, 'Martin, Martin, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Harry has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from him.'"
= = =
Martha's details
Martin's need
require someone else
to pull things off
to their satisfaction
Harry's listening
Mary's sitting
are all wrapped up
in unitive behavior
needing nothing else
Martha tugs at Harry
Martin at Mary
Harry calls to Martha
Mary to Martin
each deaf to the other
eventually Mary gets hungry
Martin gets hungry
two different hungers
growing out of their hunger
of the moment
tomorrow Mary tugs
and Martin calls
as we lose track
of needful things
and better parts
so mutuality
appreciation of differences
recognition of seasons
gentleness with each other
is once again revealed
- - - - - - -
Bonus: The word "wrapped" above began as "rapt" until this tidbit surfaced [MISSING URL] to change the choice of language:
One might be surprised to learn that rapt, a word used in describing states of deep delight or absorption, has a relative with an entirely different emotive force--rape. Now most often used to mean "to force someone to submit to sexual acts," rape once had a much broader application, as it meant "to seize, carry off." In fact, it was often used in positive and nonviolent contexts. From the Middle English period, we have examples of its being used to mean "to carry off to heaven from earth," as in "the visions of seynt poul wan [when] he was rapt in to paradys." As this quotation shows, rapt started out as the past participle of rape. As time went on, rapt became restricted to mental or emotional states, while rape developed a new past participle, raped, and became limited to criminal or violent acts.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html
Last night we had a brief skirmish between atmospheric sisters of differing pressures - high and low, cold and hot, dry and wet. Less noticeable were the tectonic plates tussling beneath our feet (daily earthquakes). We are at another frontal conflict with Martha and Mary.
We've been hearing about the importance, high value, of hospitality and welcome. Here the tables are reversed. The one providing hospitality is reproved while the one acting as non-Samaritan Priest and Levite is commended.
I appreciate Richard W. Swanson's comment in Provoking the Gospel of Luke, "Many scenes in the gospels make better sense when you begin by surrendering the notion that Jesus is always right, no matter what. I am increasing convinced that the gospels do this intentionally, but ideological Christian reading simply refuses to go along."
Are there limits on hospitality? If so, what might they be?
A friend recently reminded me, "I would suggest that the huge irony of being irenic [endlessly hospitable/welcoming] is that 'tolerance' applied to intolerance is like pouring gasoline by the 55-gallon drum on an already raging bonfire."
Where do we need to pause in the never-ending work of welcoming to regain perspective? For instance, congregations often get into trouble when they claim they are "friendly". That may indeed be their intention, but they have no way of evaluating how their "friendliness" is being perceived by others [and, truth be told, have no interest in finding out, as it would lead to change]. Let's pretend that Jesus was holding a seminar on the effectiveness of current hospitality. Martha's very continuing to do what she has done is getting in the way of her doing hospitality well - it has become expected activity and folks better like the way she is friendly to them - or else.
If your congregation hasn't done it lately, it would be instructive to borrow a couple of lay members from another congregation to do two things for you: 1) drop by at a time of worship or fund-raiser and later report on their experience of actual hospitality received, and 2) to do a quick survey of people on the street, in the grocery store, at the gas station, and people such as a banker, police officer, school principal, regarding their perception of the congregation in question. You can even offer to return the favor. This Mary moment might affect Martha and widen the scope of hospitality for her and others.
With our usual behaviors being reviewed, we are also ready to review how deep are our spiritual disciplines undergirding our hospitality. This sets us up for next week's gospel lesson - not prayer as religious activity, but prayer as an evaluative tool for our behavior.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/07/luke-1038-42.html