Text: Luke 10:38-42 Revised Standard Version (RSV)
Jesus visits Martha and Mary
38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a village; and a woman named Martha received him into her house. 39 And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. 40 But Martha was distracted with much serving; and she went to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; 42 one thing is needful.[a] Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.”
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
Every sermon I have ever heard about this passage, as well as all the ones I have preached over the years, treat this as an example of a clear choice between doing the right thing – listening to Jesus – and the not-so-right thing – getting all wrapped around the axle with things that aren’t (ultimately) important. Mary is the one who “has chosen the good portion,” while Martha, for all her good intentions, has not. And the conclusion, generally, is that we need to focus our priorities on choosing the good portion. Certainly, that’s good advice, and a worthwhile lesson. We do very often put the wrong things at the top of our list of priorities. We do very often fail to put God in the driver’s seat of our lives – and then we wonder why we’ve taken a wrong turn or gone off the road entirely.
But I don’t think that it’s as clear-cut or as simple as we might want to make it. Putting Martha and Mary into two neat, tidy little pigeon holes should immediately make us suspicious.
Because the fact is that Martha was doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing that day. She was showing Jesus respect in the time-honored way that her people treated special guests. Throughout the Bible, in both the Old Testament and the New, we find example after example of people offering hospitality to strangers and friends alike. Abraham offered a meal and shade to the three angels who visited him and Sarai; in Leviticus 19:33-34, we read “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” This is not a suggestion; it’s a commandment from God. And Job, when he protested his sickness, made the point: “The sojourner has not lodged in the street; I have opened my doors to the wayfarer.”(Job 31:32)
So, for Martha to do anything less would have gone against thousands of years of her culture, been an insult to Jesus and would have brought dishonor to her and her entire household. The Greek noun used to describe what Martha is doing, διακονίαν – is derived from the same word (διακονία) from which we get our term “deacon” – Martha was performing what we have come to regard as a ministry of service. So, in the eyes of her culture, she had also most definitely “chosen the good portion.”
And, of course, making the preparations for a special guest wasn’t just a job for one person – the entire household was involved – a close reading of the text indicates that Mary, in fact, had been helping Martha until Jesus arrived, when she decided to sit at his feet and listen, instead of assisting Martha. So Martha’s annoyance with her sister is not just understandable, but justified; under normal circumstances, her appeal “tell her then to help me” would have caused whoever was head of the household – father, brother, uncle, whoever – to order Mary to go help her sister.
But these were far from normal circumstances. We know, first, that Mary and Martha knew Jesus very well. Secondly, even though he’s not mentioned in this passage, their brother, Lazarus, who was possibly Jesus’ best friend, and the one whom he had raised from the dead, was probably also there that day. So, it’s probable that Jesus had spent many happy hours under that roof. This was, to all intents and purposes, a family gathering – which goes a long way toward explaining why Martha would commit the faux pas of asking Jesus, their guest, to intervene. And, finally, it’s equally likely that everybody in that house knew what Jesus was doing, what his intention was, and where he was going – to Jerusalem and die.
Given, then, that this was going to be the last time Jesus would ever have dinner with them, it’s no wonder that Martha was working in high gear and got a little frazzled.
So we really can’t make this a choice between getting too caught up in “busyness” on the one hand, and doing the needful thing, on the other. It’s not an “either/or” scenario.
So what are we to make of it, then?
What it all boils down to is simply this: “The problem with Martha is not her serving, but rather that she is worried and distracted. The word translated ‘distracted’ in verse 40, periespato (περιεσπᾶτο) , has the connotation of being pulled or dragged in different directions,”[1] as Professor Elisabeth Johnson, of the Lutheran Institute of Theology, in Meiganga, Cameroon, tells us.
Distraction. Being pulled in different directions. If this isn’t the definition of modern life, I don’t know what is.
Nowadays, even when we “get away from it all,” we really don’t go very far, because we often still have our electronic devices with us. When we were up at our friends’ cabin over the 4th of July weekend a few years ago, every one of us there – except Katie – had a smartphone or iPad or laptop, and we all spent a lot of time – too much time – glued to those glowing little screens. I am the guiltiest of guilty parties in that regard, too.
I saw a graphic some time ago on Facebook showing a bunch of teenagers in six different settings. The first was “having coffee with frens [sic].” The second was “A day in [sic] the beach.” The third was “Cheering your team.” The fourth one was “Out on an intimate date.” Number five was “Enjoying the sights.” The final one was “Having dinner.” And in each of the pictures, the kids were absorbed with their smartphones or whatever the devices were – they were absolutely, totally oblivious to their surroundings and the people they were supposedly spending time with. At the bottom of the picture montage is Albert Einstein with one of his quotes: “I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”
I shudder to think what Einstein would say were he to suddenly come back and see what we’re up to today.
James 2:17 tells us flat out that “faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead;” but the opposite is also true – doing works without remembering why you’re doing them, allowing works to become the end rather than the means to the end, which is living your faith – is also dead.
But this is such a common thing that it even has a name: Works Righteousness. It’s the idea that we can earn spiritual green stamps by doing good things. We figure that, if we rack up enough of these green stamps, we’re a shoe-in for eternal salvation when we finally cash in.
In the Middle Ages, for example, members of the “nobility” who had basically spent their entire lives bashing in the heads of their neighbors to gain wealth and power, would give large sums of money to a monastery, or would underwrite the building of a church, so that maybe God would turn a blind eye to their failings. The landscape of Europe is covered with such examples, and we’re certainly grateful. But did it expunge their crimes in the eyes of God? Doubtful.
But there are other, more recent, examples, too.
John D. Rockefeller was known during his lifetime as a man who was not averse to making what we would call unfair and unethical business arrangements that benefitted him. He was known to buy out competitors when he could or simply intimidate them into cooperation when he couldn’t. He was the among the first of the 19th-Century “robber barons.” Yet, from his very first paycheck, he tithed 10% to his church. Did this secure him a seat close to the Throne of Grace? Probably not.
Andrew Carnegie, the immigrant from Scotland who became the driving force in U.S. steel production, not to mention the richest man in the world, was also not known as a particularly affable person, at least as business matters were concerned. When Carnegie tried once to reconcile with a former business partner, that man replied, “You can say to Andrew Carnegie that I will meet him in hell (where we are both going) but not before.”[2] Yet Carnegie, toward the end of his life, began what he called the “infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution” of his wealth.[3] Among other philanthropic acts, Carnegie established libraries all across the United States, including the one in my home town of Clintonville, in which I spent many happy hours as a kid. But did even this great contribution to the well-being if his fellow citizens earn him entry through the Pearly Gates? I don’t think so.
It simply doesn’t work that way.
Christianity, unlike every other religion, does not say that people are saved by good works. Even though there is a red thread running through Christianity – one example being the letter of James I just quoted from – that seems to open the door to salvation by works, we affirm that God, and God alone, saves us, and that there is nothing we can do to earn it. The theological name for this is “righteousness coram deo,” or “righteousness in the eyes of God.”
The other kind of righteousness we think of is called “righteousness coram mundo,” or “righteousness in the eyes of the world.” The Reformers also called it “active righteousness,” “civil righteousness,” or the “righteousness of reason or philosophy.” A person is righteous in this way when he or she is in a “right,” or harmonious, relationship with her or his neighbors, and with creation in general.
But, if we’re not careful, we can fall into that same trap Martha, those unnamed medieval nobles, and anyone who believed that beefing up their spiritual resume with all kinds of good deeds, did.
Elisabeth Johnson goes on to say, “It is true that much of our busyness and distraction stems from the noblest of intentions. We want to provide for our families, we want to give our children every opportunity to enrich their lives, we want to serve our neighbors, and yes, we want to serve the Lord. Indeed, where would the church be without its ‘Marthas,’ those faithful folk who perform the tasks of hospitality and service so vital to making the church a welcoming and well-functioning community?
And yet if all our activities leave us with no time to be still in the Lord’s presence and hear God’s word, we are likely to end up anxious and troubled. We are likely to end up with a kind of service that is devoid of love and joy and is resentful of others.
“Both listening and doing, receiving God’s Word and serving others, are vital to the Christian life, just as inhaling and exhaling are to breathing. Yet how often do we forget to breathe in deeply? Trying to serve without being nourished by God’s word is like expecting good fruit to grow from a tree that has been uprooted.”[4] But we must stop to listen.
Those medieval nobles often bequeathed their endowments on their deathbeds, not out of faith, but out of fear. They wanted to hedge their bets. I suspect, too, that something like that might have been lurking in the backs of the minds of both Rockefeller and Carnegie.
Serving others in the name of Christ, which we are all called to do, is to be done as a response to the grace of God, not as a way to earn that grace. When we think of service in that way, the joy of it is restored; our frazzled, distracted “Martha moments” become fewer and are replaced by “Mary moments.”
William Alfred Quayle was a Bishop in the Methodist Church. “Quayle was a worrier. He used to sit up half the night worrying. Then one night an amazing thing happened. He said that he ‘heard God’s voice as clearly as if it had been someone sitting in the same room.’ God said, ‘Quayle, go to bed. I’ll sit up for the rest of the night.’ The impact of the experience on the bishop was transforming…’And thereafter there was in Quayle a wonderful serenity, for he had learned to cast his burden on the Lord.’”[5]
Sisters and Brothers, when we serve, let us serve not out of distraction or worry, but out of joy and gratitude!
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
[1] Johnson, Elisabeth, “Commentary on Luke 10:38-42,” Working Preacher, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1723
[2] http://www.history.co.uk/biographies/andrew-carnegie
[3] Ibid.
[4] Johnson, Elisabeth, “Commentary on Luke 10:38-42,” Working Preacher, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1723
[5] Link, Mark, S.J., Jesus: A Contemporary Walk with Jesus, Allen, Texas, Resources for Christian Living, 1997, p. 353