Luke 10:38-42
38Now as [Jesus and
his disciples] went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a
woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39She had a sister named
Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40But 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.” 41But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and
distracted by many things; 42there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better
part, which will not be taken away from her.”
We Americans are proud of how busy we are. Have you ever
noticed that? We tend to view life based upon how productive we are. American
children and teenagers are forced into this at a young age. Colleges,
especially the most ‘selective’ of colleges, are quite interested in how many
extracurricular activities a teenager has and how varied they are. Once they
get to college, the same expectations are laid upon them by potential
employers. And so forth, and so on, until one gets to retirement. Then you can
take it easy, right? Every retired person I’ve ever talked to says that she or
he is busier than when working. If it’s not chasing after grandchildren, or
doing this or that, it’s trying to fit in a thousand doctor’s appointments.
If being busy were the one thing necessary, the ‘better
part’ that Jesus talks about, Americans would be the most blessed people in the
world. But unfortunately for us, Jesus points to the still one, the listening
one, and proclaims her blessed, and says that this better part will not be
taken away from her.
Of course, I know better, but I can’t help feeling a
little angry at Jesus’ words. Doesn’t Jesus notice what Martha is doing for
him? To provide space for him, a meal for him, when he doesn’t have a place to
lay his head? To make sure that all is taken care of, put in the right place,
that he is comfortable?
And I also feel a little resentful towards Mary. I feel
like she isn’t working. And Americans don’t have a lot of sympathy for those
who aren’t working. One feels as if Mary is taking a little break, that she’s
somehow avoiding what she ought to be doing for something optional, a little
mini-vacation.
I feel this way because in my American-ness, I am
oriented toward productivity. And it’s a strange thing. We feel as if we have
to quantify everything. Even in the church and the congregation, we tend to
evaluate by how busy we are. How many activities do we have? How many
committees are running at the same time? How many people are in church? Pastors
view themselves more positively when they’re really busy than when they aren’t.
At the same time, they’re apt to complain when they feel too busy. You can’t
win.
So it is jarring to me when one woman plunks herself down
at Jesus’ feet and just sits there listening. It was jarring then and it’s
jarring today, not so much anymore because a woman is sitting where the men are
supposed to be, but because anyone is
sitting down and listening. I’m kind of ticked off that the men who aren’t
mentioned in the story aren’t up working too. Shouldn’t they be out finding
wounded people by the side of the road to minister to? I thought we heard about
that last week.
But it had to be a woman who was called out for sitting
down and listening because the men were supposed to do that. It had to be a
woman because in that world, and maybe in our world still too much, it’s
expected that the woman is constantly busy, for we define a woman by her
usefulness. Men have a different definition – the definition of a provider; but
men, too, are still distracted by many tasks. Yes, it’s socially acceptable for
men to grill, watch football and all that. But to sit still, to listen, to
think? One can be awfully busy, awfully distracted in one’s leisure time.
Jesus commends Mary, and invites Martha, not because they
are women in a male-dominated world but because they are distracted human
beings for whom only one thing is necessary.
When I was at Grove City College, that good Presbyterian
school, there was a $1,000 scholarship available to any person who memorized
the Westminster Shorter Catechism of 1648. I didn’t have to recite the whole
thing at once – I had to learn twenty questions and answers at a time. And I
remember just one of the one-hundred seven questions and answers: the first
one. The Catechism asks ‘What is the chief end of man?’ And the answer: ‘Man’s
chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy
him forever.’
To ‘enjoy’ God? You don’t enjoy God; you enjoy Coca-Cola.
You enjoy good music, or time with your friends. You enjoy a nice steak or a
pleasant walk. You enjoy all of these, but after work and as a reward for work.
But enjoy God? I think I remember that answer, not because it’s the first one,
but because it’s so different from what I expected. If it hadn’t so challenged my
preconceptions, then I would have forgotten it just like all of the other
questions and answers of the Westminster Catechism (although I learned most of
these in other places, and of course the better Lutheran answers 😇).
But isn’t this exactly what Mary of Bethany is doing in
this story – enjoying God? Is she not listening to Jesus, being filled with
God, being newly filled with insight, questions, understanding, faith, hope and
love? Doesn’t this sound great? For some of you, it may sound like work. If so,
perhaps you’re right in a sense, but it is the work we ought to be about. And
it is work that is not work, and yet is the one thing necessary. We need to
know the riches of God’s goodness toward us in Jesus Christ, because it brings
us joy.
Are we to assume that Mary never got up from Jesus’ feet?
That she never worked another day in her life? That all we have to do is let
our dishes pile up, our prescriptions go unfilled, our bills go unpaid, and
just sit and think? Of course not. But this is how Mary defined herself; not as
a busy person, but as a disciple, as a follower, as a listener. And so she made
time for this and time for that.
We do not have Jesus in person visiting our house; we
instead have Jesus in the Scriptures, in the preaching of the Gospel, and in
the Holy Communion. And yet many have come to view these as optional for
super-busy people. Many think that the Bible belongs to experts. Wouldn’t
Martin Luther be traumatized by that, who translated the Bible so the people
could read it in their own language? We have the liturgy in our own language,
we have Luther’s Catechism. We have prayer books. You pay for a pastor so that
I can preach the Gospel to you and maybe serve as a resource for your beginning
to study or continuing your explorations. We have the Holy Communion in which
we encounter Christ.
Perhaps there’s many reasons why we neglect these means
of grace. But perhaps the first reason it happens because we’ve forgotten what
the main point of life is. We’ve lost the understanding that the whole point of
life is to glorify God and to enjoy God – literally to take joy in him. We see
God as optional – and our busy-ness as non-optional.
I always like to say that the world always demands, but
God invites. He will always be inviting. Martha invited Jesus into her home and
expected that she knew what that meant. But it was actually Jesus inviting her
and her sister Mary to enjoy his presence, to take their fullest joy not in
what they could do for him but in who they were in his eyes. Let us see in this
story the same invitation to us. Amen
