July 22, 2007
8th After Pentecost
Luke 10:38-42
The Rev. Dr. G. Hermanson
This sunday we have one of those stories that has become part of our cultural reality. You hear it in the phrase “Oh she is just doing a Martha.” We tell it as a story that places two goods against one another. Our telling reflects how we honor certain roles in our society, and how we put down those who don’t fit with our definition of reality.
Our struggles with who we are as men and women, what are the limits to our gender, are part of Sunday supplements. Are we consigned to certain roles by gender or by societal attitudes? The way we have told the story of Mary and Martha reflects this struggle, for we take the phrase “she has made the better choice” and make it into a put down of some.
When we go to the social location of Luke’s telling we find that it is not a matter of either/or. There is, it is true, a question of value embedded. However, it is not about the role of women serving.
Think about it for the moment. Who are the actors? A woman is sitting in on the advanced seminar on the nature of the law. Now that is the first clue. Women did not sit in on such discussions. It was not socially acceptable. Yet there she is and Jesus approves of her presence.
This is a clue about the equalitarian nature of the Jesus community. Men and women are included. Further, we have hints in other texts that Mary was a leader of some community. Just as we find in Paul, women took leadership and that was considered how it should be.
It has taken some time for this insight to change our worldviews, But it has been and is happening. Sure there are some religious communities that still have not got the message, but they are in a deep struggle within their communities about this equalitarian idea of holy hospitality - that all are part of the body.
What about Martha? It does feel like a put down. Yet when we follow Luke’s theme we find he places the story in the complex of the commandments to love God and to love the neighbor. Mary becomes a symbolic figure as one who does not get easily distracted from the following of the two basic commandments. Martha is symbolic of those easily distracted. Thus the story is not a put down of homemaking. What it does is to raise the question of priorities. Mary gives her undivided attention to the teachings of Jesus: “You are to love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your energy, and with all your mind.”
This is demand that all of who we are, all of our aspects of our being are needed in the kingdom values. It is total immersion in the open space of God’s aim. Nothing is outside the experience of God. These are not half matters. Mary has in this sense made the right choice. She is committed, no half hearted involvement.
We all have our Mary and Martha experiences. I remember sitting around the dining room table as a child. The conversation was vivid and demanding. My mother sat there with the dishes not removed. She was not going to be distracted. Now, you could say someone else should cleared the table. No. The point was all were involved.
Since that time I have watched how we attend to the simple functions of clearing the table. Do we continue a good conversation or do we stop to clear, is often a question? There are times we distract ourselves by paying attention to the minor issues. Often we are people who are more concerned with the proper than the novelty of life. They worry about the small things and their energy is used up. They are left without resources to deal with the big issues.
If we stay with the metaphor of domestic duties and activity we will miss the point of the story. The issue is how do we distract ourselves by an over concern for those things that are tangential to our common life. We use distraction to move our eyes and hearts away from those issues that will destroy our common good.
This is made even more vivid by the comments of distraction. There was a book awhile ago called Distracting ourselves to Death. This was a criticism of how we run from hard issues, take on superficial activities so we don’t face reality. We see this daily on the news. Just this week there as a program on Victoria Beckham comes to Hollywood. As if we care. But there it is, distraction. Note how popular so called reality programs are: most are mean spirited and distracting. It is interesting how those reality programs are not as real as a fiction piece where complex issues are lifted up for us. We distract ourselves when issues seem to overwhelm us.
“As individuals and as a nation, we now suffer from social narcissism. .... We have fallen in love with our own image, with images of our making, which turn out to be images of ourselves."..Daniel J. Boorstin
There is an old saying that where your heart is there will be your action. If our heart is one of fear, nervousness, and distraction then that is how we encounter the world. Our minds are only half there, thus our love will be only half hearted. If we only focus on our concerns then the wider issues get forgotten. In the complexity of our reality it is tempting to be distracted - to worry about the small things. But the small things take of themselves. Our call is to join in the care of our world.
To be distracted is very tempting for the church these days. When we are not clear about our mission we worry about minor issues and debate them. You hear the words of distraction in “this is not how we used to do that” We feel the temptation to tailor our message to fill our pews.
This complex of sayings that Luke uses is to remind his community that the central task of the church is first to immerse oneself in the character of God, to let the aim of God fill ones soul. This leads to world care.
We learn to be who we are by mimicking- that is practicing ideas and actions of others. Here have the call to mimic the character of God. This is what it means to love God with all our hearts, minds, soul, and energy. We live out of the aim of God. And that aim is directed to enhanced experience. It is a move to compassion and justice. It is be in the image of God who loves all things into being, is the care of all reality.This is a call to show up. To be present. To tell the truth. And to let it go. This is not a burden because we are a community, sharing the task. It is not all up to us. It is to be attentive and speak the word of love to whatever context we find ourselves in. Nothing more is asked. The reality of God is that all the good we do is joined together with other acts of love - it grows.
Sure at times it is hard to see that love, but it is springing forth through the cracks in the cosmos. By being attentive to those outbreaks we can value them up. Our task is be attentive to the new life of the kingdom emerging in our time and space, and to work with those outbreaks, nurturing them into more beauty. By centering on God we can see those outbreaks more clearly. By centering on God we overcome despair and live in hope. This makes all the difference to the healing of our world. It is enough.
George Hermanson
