Proper 11 C Mary and Martha

Jesus told Martha that there is need of only one thing. What could that "one thing" be?

Proper 11 C

Transcribed from a sermon given on

July 18, 2010

At St Barnabas Episcopal Church by

Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

Luke 10:38-42

Let’s imagine what this story of the relationship of two sisters might have sounded like if it happened today. Let’s imagine that Jesus and his disciples and the women who were traveling with him were all in an old tour bus. They had gotten it from a tour company that was going out of business. They are on there way to Jerusalem, driving up from Jericho to Jerusalem. It is a very steep hill, and it is hot and their old bus has come almost to the top when it starts bellowing brown black smoke coming out of it. And it starts making this horrible thumping sound. James, who is driving it, is getting very upset and of course Jesus is asleep in the back of the bus totally ignoring all of this. They wake him up and Jesus says, “Don’t worry, why don’t you turn off and go into that town named Bethany. So with loud noises coming out of the old bus and not knowing when it is going to just stop working they get into Bethany. It makes one final loud horrible sound. The engine is dead and they manage to coast over to a nice parking place by the side of the road. Jesus gets out of the bus and knocks on the door of the house they happen to stop by and out comes Martha smiling and saying, “Oh, it is so good to see you again.” And all the disciples and women are so excited to see their old friend Martha that they all come bounding out of the bus. There is a wonderful celebration for everybody to see each other. They all go inside chattering and laughing and having a wonderful time. It didn’t take long for them to settle down in the courtyard. Jesus begins talking and everybody is listening to what Jesus has to say. It is a wonderful, peaceful time, and then all of a sudden in comes James, angry! “Where is that brother of mine?” he shouts. Everybody looks and James’ hands that are covered with engine oil and his clothes are all dirty and soiled from soot. “Where is that brother of mine? He should be helping me fix that bus,” he repeats. Jesus looks at him and asks, “James, why are you so upset?” “Well somebody’s got to fix that bus or we are never going to get to Jerusalem,” he responds, not knowing that Jesus has a donkey in the back yard. But that is another story.

Jesus says, “Don’t worry, it’s okay.” James responds, “Well my brother should be helping me with that blanking bus!” Just then, laughing and talking, John and Martha and Lazarus come out of the kitchen. They have all been working to get something to eat for everybody and they bring out large trays of food. They have had a wonderful time working together in the kitchen.

Now this is a switch of time and place and gender of the the people involved, but there is a similarity in that there is one person who is all upset and worried and who has an expectation for the behavior of another person. When you read commentary, even the ancient commentary, on this little piece of scripture about Mary and Martha they almost all conclude that Jesus values both the doer and the one who is the contemplative and they are both of equal value. But if you actually read the scripture you don’t find Jesus saying anything positive about Martha. So where did Martha miss the mark? What is wrong with Martha? Back then, and even now, in the Middle East one of the most important values is hospitality. It is your duty to take care of a person who comes to your home. It is your duty to give them coffee or food or whatever it is you have. So could Jesus be being critical of hospitality? Martha was doing the right thing. Also, in that time period, women were not supposed to be listening to rabbis. They were not supposed to be studying theology. Even today in extreme orthodox traditions there are different prayers for women then there are for men and that.

Now it might be because I grew up in a household where I had two older brothers, but I started to resent it when after dinner my father would look at me and say, “Go help your mother in the kitchen,” while my two brothers got to watch the game on TV or sit and talk or play games or whatever it was they were doing. It was always me that had to go help in the kitchen! Right? Some other women are nodding there. Or maybe there are some guys in here that had sisters and your dad always said to you, “Go out and mow the grass.” But he never asked the sisters to mow the grass. Any of those who ran into that?

I think there are two problems for Martha. Two ways in which Martha has missed the mark. First of all, she has expectations for her sister. She thinks her sister “ought” to be doing something. It is not based on what the sister’s gifts are or what the sister wants to be doing or what Jesus has told her sister should be doing. She has an image in her mind of what her sister ought to do, and it is based largely on the fact that herself she is feeling overwhelmed. There is a real danger when we have expectations for another person’s behavior. And the danger is that we will probably be let down. Whatever it is we expect from someone else they probably will not live up to it. Whether it is your sister or your son or your daughter or your spouse. When you have clear expectations of what they ought to be doing odds are they are going to let you down because that is not what they are doing. So I think that is the first problem with Martha is that sense of expectation.

But the second problem which is most clearly presented in the Gospels, is related to what Jesus says, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things.” Martha’s problem is that she is worried and distracted. She was the original multi-tasker who was trying to do too much. We all know what that is like. You are having people over for Thanksgiving dinner and your mind for weeks is worried about who is going to sit where? and do you have enough food? and how are we going to cook the turkey? and, and, and. By the time the dinner comes you can be so totally bent out of shape that you don’t even enjoy your guests. Maybe it is like that for the guys when they are having a Superbowl party and they are worried about getting it ready, I don’t know. But there is that sense of trying to do too much and worrying about it. Jesus says to Martha, “There is only one thing necessary.” Martha’s mind is going in a million different directions. She is probably thinking about straightening up the bedrooms, and worried about clean up and worried about whether there will be enough food left over for tomorrow. Her mind is just going in all different directions and Jesus says, “There is one thing, one thing necessary.” What is that one thing?

Now it is probably not about sitting at Jesus’s feet as the one thing. Because right before this story in the Gospel we read about the Good Samaritan. Here is someone who was going outside of role. The Good Samaritan was showing mercy and love. He was doing and caring. So it is not so much about what it is you are doing. The one thing, that one thing, is to not be distracted. To be listening. To listen to Jesus. To listen to what God is calling us to. To listen to the Holy Spirit. To listen for what is the one thing that I should be doing at this moment. Not what should I be doing later. Not what did I do before. Not what should someone else be doing, but what should I be doing right now. The Good Samaritan was walking down the road, and unlike the scribe and the Pharisee and the priest who were thinking about where they were going and what they had to do, the Samaritan was right there. He saw someone in need and he listened to the voice inside him and it said, “That’s what you need to do now. Put aside wherever you were planning to go and be with that person.” Mary heard the voice inside that said, “I need to sit and listen. Jesus is here at our house and I have this precious time to listen to him.” And she responded to that.

But we have to get quiet inside to be able to hear what the one thing is for us at any moment. If Martha had been quiet inside and not worried and distracted she may have heard God calling her to get some light refreshments for people, but she would have done it out of love, not out of a sense of “duty.” It is when we start doing things out of a sense of duty that we start wanting other people to have as much of a sense of duty as we do. But out of a sense of love. And she could have been joyous in the kitchen. Or she might have gotten the sense that “I need to listen to Jesus right now and I know he can take care of the food if that is an issue.” He fed 500 people, he certainly can feed twenty people here. She wasn’t listening to what was true for her at that moment. Because when we do that things always work well.

Some of you may have had a time in your life, perhaps you were at a party, and you just get this sense inside that that person sitting over in the corner needs someone to talk to. And you go over and you discovered they needed somebody to listen. Or you may be at a party and you are so distracted worrying about whether your hair looks right, and worried about whether the food has been put out, and so distracted in doing that your mind is too noisy to hear that whisper of the Holy Spirit to be attentive to someone else.

What is the one thing? There is one thing that is right for us at every moment, but in order to know what that one thing is we have to practice quieting our minds, not worrying so much, and being fully present right now so we can hear what God is calling us to.