This sermon was delivered at the Our Lady of Providence Chapel at Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage, AK, as part of a Sunday afternoon worship service I led during my CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education).
This afternoon, we heard the story of Mary and Martha. Women in the church often encounter this passage in Sunday School classes or women’s retreats in which we are asked to reflect on whether we are “a Martha” or “a Mary” – which is church code language for asking whether you are a “Type A” personality, organized and task-oriented, or a “Type B” personality, more carefree and process-oriented. The assumption is generally that both are equally valid ways of being, just different, and your task for the retreat is to find which type of woman you are.
But I don’t think that’s what’s going on in this passage at all. It seems pretty clear to me that Jesus is not saying that both Mary and Martha’s ways of being in this passage are equally valid. He says, “Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42).
The “better part” that Mary has chosen is to sit at Jesus’s feet (which was the position of a disciple) and to listen to his teachings. Martha, in contrast, is busily rushing about the house getting things done. She was probably doing all the appropriate things a woman would be supposed to do in that culture to prepare for a house guest. In the passage from Genesis, we get a glimpse into ancient Mediterranean hospitality traditions – preparing a meal, washing the guest’s feet, offering the guest a place to stay. There is a lot of work to be done to offer proper hospitality to a guest.
So is it bad that Martha wanted to do these things? Not at all. Jesus critiques Martha not because she is task-oriented, but because she is “worried and distracted by many things.” We have no way of knowing from this passage whether Mary was really a “Type B” kind of person; maybe she was just as task-oriented and organized as Martha at times. The point here is that Mary – whatever her habits or personality type – has not lost sight of the forest for the trees, so to speak. She has not gotten so caught up in preparing for Jesus’s visit that she forgets to actually enjoy Jesus’s visit and spend time with him – as her sister Martha has done.
Can you relate to this story? Have you ever found yourself so caught up in the details of what you are doing that you lose sight of the big picture? Are you so “worried and distracted by many things” that you forget to take time for God in your daily life?
The good news for us as Christians is that the spirit of Christ dwells in us and works through us – so we no longer have to carry the burden of feeling like we have to do all the work! As the apostle Paul writes in his Letter to the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:19-20). Paul is describing what happened to him at his baptism, when he died to sin and was born to new life in Christ and the indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit. Being a Christian is about allowing Christ to live in us. We don’t have to do all the work! Christ in us will do the work, if we simply allow him to. If we give to Christ those things that worry and distract us and allow him to work on them instead of us, we will be freed to worship and learn from him as Mary did in our Scripture reading today.
What things are you “worried and distracted by” today? I invite you into a time of silence to reflect on that question. During this time of silence, I invite you to write down things that are distracting you from spending time in God’s presence. After this time of silence, we will sing the words of Psalm 46:10 – “Be still and know that I am God.” As we sing, I invite you to bring your pieces of paper forward and put them in this bowl of water, symbolizing your giving them over to God. As you watch the water begin to dissolve the strips of paper, imagine your worries dissolving in the abundant waters of God’s love.
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