July 18, 2010 Des Moines

Luke 10:38-42

Choosing Well

Have you ever noticed that siblings don’t fare too well in scripture? The first ones to whom we are introduced are Cain and Abel, and if you haven’t heard their story, I hate to break it to you this way, but it doesn’t end well. Ditto with Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers, James and John, and the fictional brothers in Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son. Biblical siblings seem always to be bickering, jealous of each other, fighting over the inheritance, and occasionally worse. Just like siblings in our own experience. At least Martha, in this morning’s story, slamming drawers in the kitchen and rattling noisily the pots and pans in aggravation, doesn’t pull out a chef’s knife and head for sweet, adoring Mary’s throat!

We certainly wouldn’t approve of such methods, but we surely can sympathize with her frustration. Who hasn’t found themselves in one kind of a kitchen or another – be it an office or a workshop or the flower beds during the weedy season – stuck with all the dirty work and details while those who ought to be shouldering their fair share are busy staying cool and “making face”? Maybe you are the one hosting the extended family gathering at Thanksgiving, who gets stuck in the kitchen while everybody else is out in the living room catching up, laughing at remembered stories, enjoying the punch, and wondering aloud when dinner is going to be ready. Haven’t you ever wanted to break a dish just to see if anyone would notice?

“Jesus, would you please tell my sister to get off her ottoman and get in here and help? Or doesn’t she want to risk messing up her nail polish?”

We can sympathize. And we can be forgiven for feeling some confusion about how we are supposed to live, given what immediately precedes this story in Luke’s gospel. Last week, you may remember, we listened in on the conversation between Jesus and a lawyer who had asked about the path to eternal life. After some perfunctory back and forth, Jesus told the story of a fictional traveler who was beaten and robbed and left for dead, and ultimately tended to by the one Christians have ever since referred to as the “Good Samaritan.”

And then Jesus told his questioner to “Go and do likewise.”

At the crux of the story was not the Samaritan’s immigration status or his political affiliation, neither his church membership nor whether or not his pledge was up to date. Rather, it was the notice that he paid, the action that he took, and the mercy that he showed. The point of the story was sharpened not on what the Samaritan believed, but on what the Samaritan did.

“Go and do likewise,” Jesus said.

And now, in this very next story, instead of saying “go and do,” Jesus says, “sit and listen.”

“Martha, Martha, Martha,” Jesus responds. 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.”

Italian poet Giuseppe G. Belli, channeling the voice of the beleaguered sister, writes:

Listen, if I sat around on my salvation the way she does, who'd keep this house together?"

Exactly! That’s what I’m talking about.

So, “go and do” or “sit and listen.” Which is it going to be?

Now, some have tried to angle their way around the difficulties by suggesting that the problem wasn’t really the busy details of providing hospitality – the necessary mechanics of offering food and drink to a guest – but rather Martha’s excessive menu development on her visitor’s behalf. “We don’t need a 10-course meal -- just one thing is adequate.” But that seems a bit superficial.

Others have argued that the story is really a socio-political statement on the role of women, and that Jesus was liberating Mary from the shackles of domesticity by welcoming her into the otherwise masculine circle of disciples. Well, aside from the fact that, the older I get, the more I am drawn into the kitchen rather than out of it, that interpretation seems a bit like trying to retrofit a modern sensibility into an ancient story. Besides, if Jesus were trying iconoclastically to call attention to such a dynamic cultural shift, I rather think he would have been a bit more straight-forward about it. So I think we will need to look for an explanation beyond Martha’s burdensome menu planning in the kitchen and Mary’s bra-burning in the living room.

It could, I suppose, be that Jesus really is voicing a preference for contemplation over action, as so many have believed. More than one monastic movement through the years has interpreted it that way – much to the chagrin of others who view such sequestered passivity as wasted opportunity. And it’s tempting for a guy like me to read the story that way. As far as I am concerned, it is way-more fun to sit in a Bible Study group intellectualizing or the Centering Prayer room in silence than in the Resources Committee meeting where the conversation is all about the broken drain pipe that necessitated the tearing out of the ceiling and dry wall in the vestibule; upkeep of the boiler and anticipating major repairs on the elevators. Now, you could say that the members of this committee are “distracted with many things” while those studying and praying have “chosen the better part,” but I would hate to think where we would be without their distraction.

From a political standpoint, this is a “no win” kind of story. All the “Martha's” who read it have the same reaction. “Fine, then we just won't HAVE refreshments at the coffee time; we'll just chat.” “Very well,” the church trustees might respond, “we just won't get the air conditioner repaired or the hole in the ceiling patched or replace the burned out light bulbs. We'll just all sit here together in the dark, in the heat, under the leaky roof and pray.” Which then just leaves all the “Mary's” in the room rolling their eyes, responding under their breath, “over-reacting.”

It’s hard to believe that Jesus would have made either disposition the enemy of the other. And ultimately, those who had been closest to Jesus recognized the importance of both priorities when later (according to the 6^th chapter of the book of Acts) they appointed several to manage the mechanical dimensions of hospitality and service so that they could focus on the missional and homiletical. Neither careful service nor prayerful preaching, they concluded, could be neglected.

So if the point really isn’t that sitting in the living room is better than working in the kitchen, what do you think Jesus was really trying to say?

There is another controversial story from Jesus’ ministry that might shed some helpful light on this one. Matthew, Mark and Luke all three record the story of a woman who breaks open an expensive jar of oil and pours it on Jesus as an act of reverence and a kind of symbolic anointing. When Jesus is criticized for not stopping the woman on the grounds that the oil could have been sold for a lot of money that could have helped the poor, Jesus responded, “You will always have the poor with you. But you will not always have me.” There certainly are those who hear in Jesus’ retort justification for ignoring the poor, just as some hear in this morning’s story justification for ignoring the kind of activism that actually gets things done.

But I would argue that Jesus was no more dismissing the poor than he was counseling disregard for the details and tasks at hand. In both stories, it was the distraction that was the issue, not the activity. What he was saying in both situations, I believe, was “pay attention to the priorities of this moment. Because this moment will pass.”

I can’t think of a more contemporary issue, for we, too, are “distracted by many things.” How many times are you in a restaurant where the people around the table near you are talking on the phone, sending text messages or responding to emails, doing almost anything but paying attention to and interacting with the person sitting within breathing distance. It isn't that the people on the other end of that phone call or text message or email aren’t important; the point is that the person in whose presence you are sitting is also important and has the virtue of actually being present. In the same way, no family gathering is finally about the food; it’s about the gathering. Yes, everyone will eventually want to eat, but if mashing the potatoes prevents you from enjoying the grandkids, then something is out of kilter. Because shortly after dessert, the crowd will likely disperse, and all you will have to show for the day is a sink full of dirty dishes, those leftover potatoes, and the memory of a missed opportunity.

The point is not “either/or”, but rather “which one right now.” If I am doing “that,” it necessarily means I’m not doing “this;” and the opportunity to do “this” will pass. Call it the “sweetcorn syndrome”: right now, on seemingly every streetcorner, there is a pickup truck piled high with a load of freshly picked sweetcorn; morning, noon and evening. One could begin to take it for granted. “Oh, I don’t have time to stop right now; I’ll get some tomorrow.” But one of these mornings, those trucks will disappear. In just a few weeks, the moment will pass and we will be stuck with Del Monte in a can.

Maybe the question we ought to be asking, then, is not, “is this important?” but rather, “where is Jesus right now?” That’s what I want to know: where is Jesus right now? And dropping whatever else we might be doing and choosing to be there, too.