Sermon: The Eighth Sunday after Trinity

Preacher:

Date:

Sunday 21st July 2013

Service:

Cathedral Eucharist

Readings:

Luke 10: 38-42

Sisters, sisters,
There were never such devoted sisters,
Never had to have a chaperone, no sir,
I’m there to keep my eye on her.
Caring, sharing
Every little thing that we are wearing.
When a certain gentleman arrived from Rome
She wore the dress, and I stayed home.
All kinds of weather, we stick together
The same in the rain and sun,
Two different faces, but in tight places
We think and we act as one.
Those who’ve seen us
Know that not a thing could come between us.
Many men have tried to split us up, but no one can.
Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister,
And Lord help the sister, who comes between me and my man.

Those lyrics of Irving Berlin don’t capture everything about Mary and Martha, two famous biblical siblings, but they do raise the spectre of a man coming between them, or one of them ‘coming between me and my man’.

In the gospel reading Jesus arrives at Mary and Martha’s house and Martha welcomes him in. He arrives immediately after having told the parable of the Good Samaritan, and there’s a connection there that I’ll come back to.

We often think of Mary and Martha as opposites. Martha the extravert, Mary the introvert; Martha doing, Mary being; Martha anxious, Mary ‘chilled out’; Martha self-consumed, Mary caring for others. When we think like that we are making them opposites, and then it looks like Jesus is in the business of picking a favourite: he becomes, in the words of the song, the ‘mister who comes between me and my sister’.

If anything it is quite the contrary, Jesus draws together the activist and the contemplative. And that’s where the Good Samaritan comes in. That parable is one of dynamic and generous service, an overabundant response to the service of neighbour. It is a parable of active service of neighbour, which in turn serves Jesus.

So let’s just explore a little of what is at stake with Mary and Martha. It would seem that in the days before this incident is recorded preparations are being made for the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, so presumably Martha is engaged in that preparation. Jesus then arrives and, note, it’s Martha who welcomes him in. So it’s little wonder that, being sisters, Martha’s a bit miffed that Mary isn’t helping, and, quite the contrary, she’s sitting at his feet listening to him. We should also be aware that it was very irregular, forbidden in fact, for a woman to sit at the feet of a Rabbi; that sort of discipleship was for men alone.

So there are a number of things going on. Martha is engaged in proper service, active, generous and hospitable, she is waiting on Jesus as a guest, and is commended for such. She is being a ‘Good Samaritan’ you could say. Mary is waiting on Jesus in another sense. She is waiting on his every word. And, Jesus says, she has chosen the ‘good part’, not in Greek the better part. Both Mary and Jesus have subverted what discipleship looks like; Mary has stepped over a boundary, just like the Samaritan. He stepped over the boundary of Jews and Samaritans caring for one another, and Mary steps over the boundary of assumed and ingrained patterns of discipleship distinguishing women from men.

St Augustine commenting on this passage says that Mary has chosen the good part which suggests that she has chosen a better meal than the one Martha was furiously working on. Her choice is to feast on the Bread of Life.

As human beings we often go for the either, or not the both, and: either active, muscular service of the Gospel, or quiet prayer and contemplation. And often we in the Church need to be reminded of our call to be Marys as much as Marthas. And this doesn’t conflict with being active Good Samaritans.

In a world where activism over reflection and style over content seem to be the only measures, we need to hear that a fundamental element to being a Christian is active attention to God in adoration, contemplation and silence. If we succumb to the heresy of activism and indispensability we have put our own activity above that of God.

With Martha we can all get distracted by tasks, but when tasks become an end in themselves we get consumed in them and fail to see the bigger picture. Jesus is telling Martha, and us, not to be consumed by her busy-ness and tasks in hand, don’t let tasks dominate you.

So in each of our personalities there is a Mary and Martha. Perhaps we are more inclined to one or the other, a bit like being left handed or right handed. I may have a preference to one but it doesn’t mean I can’t do the other, indeed in discipleship terms I really should do both. If I’m a doer, then I need to hear the message delivered to Martha and meditate on the words of the psalm, ‘On you alone, Lord, my soul in stillness waits’. If I am a contemplative type, then I need to hear the call to active service of my neighbour and ask how I am a good neighbour showing mercy like the Samaritan.

Both Mary and Martha relate to Jesus - it’s not a case of ‘Lord, help the sister who comes between me and my mister’ - but they relate to him in very different ways. In that way they are a model of the Church. We all personally relate to Jesus, and we do so in only the way that we can. That is the nature of a personal relationship. I cannot relate to each person in an identical way; I have to be me and the other person has to be him or herself and there is no space in a healthy relationship for envy and jealousy.

So our gospel encounter with Mary and Martha this morning takes us to the heart of being attentive disciples of Jesus: attentive in prayer and adoration, attentive in acts of loving service. May this Eucharist take us to active contemplation of the feast of the Bread of Life and out into the world in contemplative service of his coming Kingdom.