I preached for the first time today. I can’t describe the honor of being invited to share my thoughts, so I’m not going to try. Here’s the sermon (and sermon audio), instead:
I must confess that I used to hate the Gospel reading from today. For many women, especially if you grew up in an evangelical setting like me, the names “Mary and Martha” may stoke a plethora of emotional responses in you, depending upon how you’ve heard the story told in the past.
For me, the passage had only been taught as a Biblical personality test of sorts, and it was one I could never seem to pass. Without fail, the story was boiled down to something akin to this retelling: Martha invites Jesus over, and he brings his whole crew. She gets stressed out as she’s working in the kitchen, but when she asks Jesus if he’s going to insist that Mary lend a helping hand, Jesus tells Martha that Mary has chosen the better option.
Preachers in my past would visibly sweat when trying to make sense of this passage–which I’m assuming is because no one wants all the cooking to stop. But the passage is clear, is it not? We can’t get too wrapped up in works–we must have time with Jesus. So how do we tell that in a way that won’t stop delicious bread baking in the kitchen…?
I felt their pain in preparation for today, and it’s the same ache I’ve felt as I’ve read this passage many times over throughout my life as a follower of Christ. I’ve found myself asking the following questions into what felt like a vacant silence:
- If everyone just sits at your feet, who will do the work? Is the work really the lesser part?
- Why did you have to pit two sisters against one another? It took guts for Martha to approach you, and you seemingly shamed her by saying her sister was better? This can’t help with envy and comparison…
- Mary seems really lazy… and it’s hard to make a meal for a huge crowd all by yourself. Is there really only need for ONE thing when you have a crowd of hungry men?
I heard twinges of these same questions leak through the sermons of my prior preachers, but they pushed them down with simplistic–and potentially dangerous–conclusions: So, church, as you go out into your week, ask yourself: Are you a Mary or a Martha?
A personality test. But, one that ends with the fact that there is “a better option.”
Well, that would send me into a tailspin every time I needed to clean-up or prepare a meal. Or any time I tried to “sit at Jesus’s feet” (whatever that means) and found my brain drifting to more adventurous activities or even household to-do lists. Hearing a sermon about Mary and Martha resulted in a predictable cycle. I’d feel shame, I’d ask a ton of questions that seemed to go unanswered, I’d try so hard to be like Mary, I’d fail, and then I’d feel shame again. To avoid the cycle, I chose to avoid the story.
Until Cathy asked if I’d like to preach in her absence, and this passage jumped off the pages of the lectionary like a cruel joke from the universe. I had to face the story I’d grown very skilled at avoiding.
As I started reading through the passage in preparation for this sermon, I felt that old, familiar shame swell like an incoming tide. But what if the cycle I was experiencing said more about how I see myself rather than what is true of God? Scripture promises us that God is love. Scripture also asserts that love is patient, kind, humble, honorable, protecting, trusting, hopeful, and persevering. If these things are true, there is no space for love to be the catalyst for a shame cycle. If I’m walking away from this text feeling humiliated, then there is something wrong with my interpretation. So I took the text back to the drawing board.
First, the notion that Jesus would be condemning Martha for her dedication to hospitality falls flat when we look at the Old Testament reading from today. Clearly, God delights in the faithful hands of any man or woman’s work in the kitchen. The passage seems to celebrate this natural way for humanity to show love and appreciation and honor for another. The act of inviting the three strangers (who were God?) into your home and creating a lavish meal while they wait seems to be the same scene that plays out in Martha’s house. So why did Sarah get the blessing of a child and Martha gets told she’s to be more like her lazy sister? Did Sarah cook a better cake? Did Martha’s cooking repulse everyone, and Jesus was trying to hint at such? Of course not. These questions feel foolish when the stories are held up against one another.
But it does feel like Jesus rebukes Martha, does it not? So if he’s not critiquing her dedication to tasks, then what is he trying to correct in her?
If we think about the cultural norms of the time, the scene is quite scandalous. Jesus is talking with the men, a place where Mary had no business being. This is no modern coffee-shop scene from the popular television show FRIENDS; this is a culture where the strictest of gender roles were upheld. Mary belonged with Martha–separate from the men (especially if the men were learning). Mary’s assuming the posture of reclining with the men was audacious, and it probably made everyone in her company receive judging eyes from onlooking outsiders.
It is quite possible that Martha’s question to Jesus was one of concern about their reputations. Jesus had the authority to remind Mary of her place in the culture, and Martha was potentially nudging him to use that authority and save them all from intense cultural reprimand.
It’s as if they are having a double-layered conversation, much like adults do when eavesdropping children are within reach. Though with her words, she says, “”Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” What she subtly communicates is, “Umm… Jesus… Mary has no business sitting with you. Don’t you want to tell her to leave the man party? It’s not proper… it’s not safe for any of us for these roles to be blurred like this. I want people to think well of my sister and of you. Please send her to work with me, where she belongs.”
If this is true, then it’s possible that Jesus’s response was veiled as well. He responds, telling her she’s worried and distracted by many things. From my eavesdropping, childish ears, I have always quickly assumed he meant cooking and cleaning and envy. But when we examine the layered conversation, we can hear him communicating the following, “Oh, Martha, I’m not concerned with what others think. You are too worried about their perceptions of us and it’s distracting you from what really matters: what I think of you. You have freedom to be fully loved and welcomed in me no matter what anyone else says.”
And Mary chose that. She chose to lean into the freeing identity of being fully, unashamedly loved. A love that broke down barriers between men and women, Jews and Gentiles, kings and slaves.
The reading from Colossians reminds us:
“For in Christ Jesus all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”
This is a promise of a new identity for creation–for the creator is pleased to dwell and reconcile and make peace. He has not been coerced nor has he acquiesced in his decision to dwell among us and break down barriers. It is his pleasure.
So how does this shift our role in things? Well, Colossians continues:
“And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him.”
Irreproachable? The word sounds so official and lacks sentimentality to me. So let’s take a second to hear some synonyms for this word, but hold tight to the context by remembering that these words are meant to describe God’s view of us. To God, you are…
Impeccable, exceptional, honorable, admirable, faultless, ideal
And these adjectives do not come from a deceived mind–blind to our faults. God has a very realistic view of our existence. Before we are dubbed as “irreproachable,” the author of Colossians acknowledges estrangement, hostility, and evil in each of us.
But love has reconciled all things.
And this is the promise to every creature under heaven.
When we choose to work and commune and rest from this space, we ignite our lives with purposeful peace. Jesus wasn’t kidding when he said there is need of Martha to be consumed with only one thing. When we are consumed by this spiritual reality, it transforms all of our experiences here on this earth. Life surges into our cooking, cleaning, gardening, conversing, driving, sleeping, drawing, horseback-riding, singing… all of it. There is no shame in living distracted from this truth of being loved–it doesn’t make the tasks of life evil. Jesus was not critiquing Martha’s dedication to meal preparation. But he was pointing out that she was experiencing less freedom–not by his choice, but by her own.
So maybe this Mary and Martha passage is a personality test, but the question is not whether you’re task or relationally oriented. The question is: are you living distracted by the opinions of onlookers or living unabashedly in the reality that you are loved by your creator?
Mary chose the better part, and it will not be taken away from her. Not by anything she does or does not do. And we are invited to choose the same.
this wordy world 