After Thoughts: Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 10:38-42

This week’s Gospel lesson is the story of two sisters:  Mary, who “sat at the Lord’s feet” while Martha “is distracted by her many tasks.” This story has so many possibilities.  Where shall we start?

Let’s start with a little context around the message of hospitality.  For the past few weeks, we’ve learned much about hospitality from the readings in Luke.  In Luke 7, Simon was admonished for his lack of hospitality when welcoming Jesus.  In Luke 9, Jesus warns his followers that hospitality will be in short supply:  the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. In Luke 10, Jesus sends out the 70 with instructions to take nothing and to put their faith and future in the power given them by God and the hospitality of strangers. In that same chapter, Jesus gives us the Good Samaritan, the epitome of hospitality which extends beyond our front door and into the vastness of all creation.

Within that context, let’s move into these passages.  First, Martha welcomes Jesus into her home – good hospitality, right?  Well, it started out that way.  And then Martha ignores Jesus, jumping into her to-do list.  Following the social conventions of her time, I’m sure Martha is preparing things in a way that would make Martha Stewart proud.  Best foods, finest pottery, oldest wine, richest linens.  Martha is busy, busy, busy. 

Are we the same?  Busy, busy, busy with the ‘social conventions’ of serving Jesus - church attendance, personal devotions, nitpicking rites and rituals, splitting hairs over creeds and theology – that we fail to “be” at the feet of Jesus.  In all that pomp and circumstance of worship and following and doing our religion do we forget the Guest?  Is Jesus overlooked in all the activity?

As these routine never-ending tasks pile on, Martha becomes angrier, angrier, angrier.  Why is Mary not helping?  It happens.  When we get so caught up with the “doing,” and lose the “being,” it’s easy to get _________ (fill in the blank – angry, frustrated, disillusioned, ?).  So then what is it? Being is better than doing?  But somehow that doesn’t feel right.  Surely Jesus doesn’t want us just sitting around? Let’s dig a little deeper.

Jesus goes on to say that Mary has chosen the better part.  What has she chosen?  Maybe Jesus does mean “being” is more important than “doing.”  Or maybe not.  We know from the earthly life of Jesus that he is not a pure contemplative and does not exhort his followers to take on such a life.  Jesus is on the move, healing, teaching, connecting.  He is all about ‘doing.’  We run into a roadblock if we try to balance “being” and “doing.”  A little of this, a little of that.  Nope.  Then we end up in Martha’s shoes.  One always pushes out the other and we run in tiny, crazy, little circles.  It’s like seeing  the guy on the corner with the “Hot and Hungry – Please Help” sign and thinking about how we should stop and offer help and hope, but if we do, we’ll be late to the Community Outreach and Feed the Hungry committee meeting. So we’ll just pray for him later.  Trying to separate “being” and “doing” just doesn’t hold up.

So forget balance.  Rather, our “being” and “doing” are sequential AND simultaneous. Sequential AND simultaneous?  Crazy, hey?  Kind of like Jesus being fully human AND fully divine.  Like us being sinners AND saints.  Sequential in that the “being” comes first – that’s the best part that Mary chose.  Know our place.  We are at the feet of Jesus.  Everything has been done for us.  Then, from that joyous place of overflowing gratitude, our “doing” pours forth in our hospitality toward our family, friends, neighbors, and strangers. Being comes before doing, and being comes through doing, and doing comes through being.

I think Martha has chosen that better part as well.  She’s just temporarily forgotten.  Don’t we all?  So Jesus gets our attention, calls us back, to sit at his feet, to be nurtured, to be reminded that we don’t have to DO anything for him.  He has done it all for us.  From that place of being, our “doing” becomes not a way to impress or please or placate God.  Then when the ‘doing’ begins, and the hospitality is offered, Jesus will be right there at the heart of it, his love and grace the foundation upon which all “doing” is sacred, a pleasant offering to the Lord, an acknowledgement that all we have is a gift that has been given to be shared.

 
As our dear Martin writes, “God doesn’t need your good works, but your neighbor does.” May our “doing” of those good works be light duty as our “being” rests at the feet of Jesus.