A Student of the Kingdom
[The Story of Martha and Mary]
July 21, 2013
Barry W. Szymanski
Minister of Pastoral Care
First Congregational Church of Wauwatosa

Luke 10:38-42

“Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But 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.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’”

SERMON

In one episode in the TV show “Everybody Loves Raymond,” Ray’s father, Frank, wants to eat a piece of the cake which Marie just finished decorating. She tries to tell him the cake is for the company who are coming to the party. Frank, Raymond’s father, complains. He reminds Marie the party is for his own birthday and he wants to have his cake now! When my own wife is preparing for a party at our house I am barred from the kitchen because I am a poacher! It is a party in my house, isn’t it? I agree with Frank.

I remember my grandmother, whose name was Mary. When we had a party she was always busy in the kitchen, and we never saw her until it was time to eat. Even then, she never sat at the table with the family but continued to work hard to serve us.

When I went away to college I was told that my grandmother could not wait until I returned home for the holidays and short summer breaks. But instead of sitting down with me, she busied herself in the kitchen. So I never really had a chance to be with her. She was so very full of love! Her love was shown by cooking and serving us.

In today’s story, we have two women – sisters – who may not have gotten along very well with each other. In Luke’s Gospel we find many stories about women – and they are unique in literature of that time. For that reason some scripture scholars feel that the author of that Gospel may have been a woman.

Other academics hold the opinion that the author of Luke’s Gospel was a physician who cared for women, and therefore had a privileged insight of women and women’s issues, and women’s place in society at that time.

Luke’s Gospel is singular in its mention of the women in the story of the birth of Jesus. We also read of women in many other passages in Luke: - Jesus cured Simon Peter’s mother-in-law; - Jesus raised the son of a widow; - He forgave the sins of the woman who washed his feet with her hair; - He cured Jairus’ daughter; - He told the story of the persistent widow; - And the story of the widow who gave all she owned to the synagogue’ - And of the women who went to the tomb on the morning of the Resurrection while the men hid in fear. Luke tells us Jesus traveled with Mary Magdalene, Joanna, the wife of Chuz, who was Herod’s household manager, and Susanna, and many others.

It is generally accepted that Luke’s Gospel and the Book of Acts are really volumes one and two of one book. The Book of Acts, like Luke’s Gospel, also mentions many women and their roles in the early church. In the passage we reflect on today, Martha was the homeowner. There was no male homeowner. Scripture scholars tell us the village where her home was located was probably Bethany. We are told Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus. A teaching Rabbi would sit in a chair, and it was the common practice of learners, the students, the disciples, to sit at the feet of the Teacher. The disciples would learn by listening and then by discussing the subject with the Teacher.

In this passage we learn that Mary sat, apparently in silence. By the way, it was not uncommon for both women and men together to gather around a Rabbi, to listen and discuss, when there were small gatherings. In large gatherings, I have learned, it was not a common practice. Martha’s house was a poorer home, because there was no mention of servants, and, evidently, no separate women’s quarters.

The word used in the Greek translation for ‘providing’ is close to the root of the word deacon: which is the role of a person who serves and provides. Martha was providing and serving as a deacon. We are told that Martha and Mary are sisters.

What I find curious is that Martha, the homeowner, does not go to Mary, her sister, to complain but instead goes directly to Jesus and asks Jesus if he at all cares that she, Martha, is doing all the work by herself? There is some familial ill feeling between these sisters. They do not have the same personalities, nor attitudes toward life. Martha does not ask Mary to help her! Martha goes directly to Jesus, and orders Jesus to: “Tell her to help me.”

Luke tells us Jesus is very direct with Martha. He tells her she is “worried” about ‘many tasks’ and she is “distracted”. Martha wasn’t just busy, she is anxious, absorbed with entertaining Jesus and providing a meal to Him and to all his followers. After all, Jesus traveled with 12 apostles, and with other disciples, both men and women. Martha had a lot of people to feed! Perhaps between 13 and 25 or more! All Martha felt was Mary, her sister, was engrossed in doing nothing - other than listening to Jesus talk.

Luke tells us Martha was the person who invited Jesus to her home. This is where the confusion of motivations arises. I think Jesus felt his reason for going to Martha’s home was to informally preach and teach – o have a conversation with Martha and her sister, Mary, and all the others invited to the home. Mary, on the other hand, was looking forward to meeting Jesus and listening to him, and engaging in discussion with him and his followers.

Yet, I think that Martha was honored that this well-known Rabbi was a guest at her home: so she was serving drinks, and hors d’oeuvres, and preparing the dinner, and desserts. At that time, in that land, kitchens were not always a part of the living quarters. At certain times of the year it was just too hot to cook inside. So food was either cooked outside away from the house, or, in more congested villages, on the roof of the home.

Martha may not have been near Jesus to hear was he was saying; and she was much to preoccupied in what she considered to be her host duties to be involved in any discussion anyway. I think Jesus felt it was ok for her to be away, even though she invited him. I say that only because of the way my grandmother was. We just could not bring her to sit down. My mother was the same way. They were always hovering over us at table, even though there were chairs for them. Nothing any of us could say or do would make any difference; their chairs were mostly empty.

In this Gospel story, now that Martha called Jesus’ attention to the fact that she was doing all of the work by herself, he called her on it. I am not making a leap here for what I am going to say next, because many theologians who have interpreted this short passage, have noted the use of the word ‘work’ which, as I previously mentioned, is the root of the word ‘deacon’.

What is paralleled is that when Jesus responds to Martha’s demand, he is also responding to church members, deacons, boards, committee members, ministers, church employees, and others: Jesus is telling us, all of us who are so very busy: ‘Don’t be worried; don’t be distracted by many, many things.’ The real need is of only one thing. This one thing is what Mary was doing: listening to what Jesus was teaching.

Some can look at Mary and hold the opinion that she is just sitting passively. I don’t think so. I think Mary was actively listening to Jesus preach. I think she was so engrossed that nothing else mattered. Active listening takes effort. It takes work. Mary was grounding herself in Jesus’ message. Mary was riveted in Jesus’ descriptions of the Kingdom of God. I have to believe Jesus was telling them what we now call the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ and explaining the beatitudes, and telling his parables. Mary was hungrily receiving Jesus’ spirituality to give her the energy to do God’s work. Jesus responds to the anxiously busy Martha. What Jesus tells Martha is once she hears what Jesus is teaching; everything else will properly fall into place. I repeat: everything else will fall properly into place.

When we sit at the feet of Jesus willing to learn from him, and carefully listen to him, then all will be in proper order. After that will come the time to work, and to serve, and minister, and feed, and be fed, and do all we are to do as Jesus asks of us.

However, if we are diverted from the teaching of Jesus because we feel that we are too busy to read scripture, and to learn what the Kingdom of God is to be, through the Gospels, the beatitudes, the Lord’s Prayer, the parables, then how can we possibly do what we think we should do without truly trying to comprehend ‘the mind of Jesus’?

Jesus refers to this in other teachings. In the parable of the sower who was throwing seed, in Luke 8, Jesus states that some of the seed, which represents the word of God, was choked by thorn bushes. Jesus explains that these seeds of the word of God were overcome by the cares of the world. Jesus explains that the fruitful seeds of the word of God are those that fell on “. . .the good soil, / these are the [people] who,when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance.”

Luke places today’s interesting story between two major passages. Just before this account of what happened at Martha’s house with Mary is Jesus’ telling of the parable of the good Samaritan. [Luke 10.] That’s the story of the guy who was beaten, robbed, and left naked by the side of the road. Then two important religious authorities passed him by. Actually, they just didn’t just walk past him, they moved far away from him and walked to the other side of the road in order to avoid him. A Samaritan, a rejected ‘foreigner’ by the Jews of Judea and Galilee, was the only person to help the severely injured guy.

The Gospel passage, which immediately follows the story of Martha and Mary, is Jesus teaching us disciples how to pray; Jesus teaches what we now call ‘The Lord’s Prayer’. This juxtaposition of the description of the interaction between Martha and Mary and Jesus is crucial to understanding what Jesus wants us to know – and how Luke gets his points across to us. The parable of the Samaritan shows who is neighbor; and what love of neighbor is. In this narrative, Mary demonstrates her love of Jesus and his teaching; while Martha expresses her love of Jesus through her hospitality, and Jesus asks us to consider what the proper order of life should be, with listening at the top of the order.

Then, when Jesus teaches us, his disciples, the Lord’s Prayer, he confirms his prayerful love of His Father, and asks us to confirm our prayer life. Through these three passages Jesus illustrates what it means to put all in right order: Everyone is our neighbor; love our neighbors. Listen to the word of God. Pray. Summarized another way: Love our God with all our heart, and all our mind, and all of our strength, and our soul; and love our neighbor, as we love our self. Particularly, Jesus’ parable shows our neighbors can be victims, even Samaritans!

Then in this passage we are witnesses to Jesus’ interaction with women. All of this, the parable of the good Samaritan, then the narrative story of Martha and Mary, was revolutionary to the people of that time. What are the revolutions for us in our time?

There is so much hate and intolerance for so many peoples and groups. We don’t have to wait for what Jesus would say. He already said it. And he gave us a parable, a story, and the best prayer of all time, to reflect on – and to practice.

What Mary did was to take the time to listen to Jesus. Part of my personal reflection on this passage brought me to consider the amount of time I take to actively listen to the word of Jesus: the divine word; and to consider the quality of my time.

There are numerous ways to listen to God: - we can study scripture, especially the Gospels; - we can read spiritual writers; - we can meditate; - we can discuss with others, including, but not only, in bible studies; - we can walk or sit quietly in nature; and - we can listen to sermons.

But the key is that we spend the moment that we are in IN THE MOMENT WE ARE IN. Too often we try to do two, three, or even four things at one time. If we go to some restaurants, whether a George Webb, a Denny’s, some Greek restaurants, or the upscale Mason Street Grill, we are able to observe the cooks as they prepare many meals at one time. I marvel at how they can prepare so many meals at one time. They are doing the work of Martha.

I cannot imagine how when they are so busy they could possibly be listening to Jesus as Mary did. The cooks, like Martha, are doing what she did very well. They and Martha serve superb meals. But they cannot actively listen; they must take another time to be ‘in the moment’ with the Lord.

“In a recent address to academics who study learning, Georgetown University’s Associate Provost for Institutional Renewal Randy Bass provided a challenge appropriate for both scholars and preachers. He described a visit to the Cape Cod ceramics studio of acclaimed potter Joan Lederman. Joan began decades ago to work with mud discarded from an oceanography institute in her Woods Hole, Massachusetts, community.

As Randy (carefully!) examined a piece of her pottery created with sediment from the floors of all seven oceans, he asked her to describe how she deepens her learning, continuing to grow as an artist. Working at her wheel, Joan described a moment-by-moment, heightened awareness of how the mud responds to her touch. That encounter inspired Bass to embrace a similar scrutiny for his work, and to declare that intense inspection of what we do as we do it is necessary for deep learning.” [From a 2013 newsletter from the Alban Institute.]

Martha cared. Mary cared. Each cared in her own way. Jesus said that listening was, in this case, more important. We cannot only sit and read scripture. Yet on the other hand, we cannot be busy just caring and doing. What this story tells us is there must be a balance.

If we are wondering which should be more prominent, then the answer is to listen is more significant. Your and my primary focus has to be in listening also. Otherwise we will lose our way, become distracted, anxious, worried, and perhaps, in this world, even jaded.

When the words of Jesus properly reside in our hearts and minds, all becomes clearer. Let us not be worried or distracted by many things. Let’s keep focusing on the better part. In my life I find that work, and play, photography, exercise, summer activities, my iPad, grandchildren, and family life, can all be distractions.

They are all good things, but I must put all in proper perspective. It takes focus to return to active listening to the word of God. May we all pray for the strength to do so, for then we will indeed be students of the Kingdom of God. Amen.