Fire all the Martha's!

16^th Sunday OT: Genesis 18.1-10; Colossians 1.24-28; Luke 10.38-42
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Paul’s Hospital, Dallas, TX

Listen to this homily here!

I don’t want to point fingers! You all know this already, of course: there are Martha’s among us and Mary’s. You’ve heard this homily a hundred times: in the church there are workers and contemplatives. Those busy about many things and those who sit at the feet of the Lord. Workers in the church get short shifted b/c Jesus holds Mary up as the example of correct attitude and behavior. What does it mean to be a Martha and what does it mean to be a Mary? To be a Martha one must be either industrious and responsible OR anxious and controlling. To be a Mary one must be either humble and dedicated OR lazy and inhospitable. So, we are usually told, we should choose which “model of service” we want to imitate: the Martha model or the Mary model. Here’s a hint about the conclusion of that tried and true homily: we are called upon to be both b/c the Church needs both her Martha’s and her Mary’s to survive and flourish. Everyone is happy that his or her favorite sister is still safe and no one barks at the preacher on the way out the door for picking one sister over the other. Well, sorry, folks but this preacher is taking sides!

When I want to learn something, I first think to teach it to someone else. I really don’t mind the messy work of jumping into an intellectual project w/o a perfectly clear plan of attack. We don’t have to know every text, every authority, every footnote. Living is mostly about introductions, anyway: pieces, snapshots, collections. To make sense of all of our snapshots in the album, we will look to all sorts of larger stories, bigger introductions, trying to fit My Story into The Story, so that My Story doesn’t end up as a knock-knock joke or sidewalk graffiti or a mumbled curse against fate. But if we are smart, we will sit at the feet of the Teacher who is himself the Big Story, the Grand Script, and let him coach us through our ignorance, our rebellion, and pride.

There’s one small gift we must bring to The Teacher in order to be properly taught. We must bring the bright red apple of humility! To be taught is to be changed, converted, turned around and upside down, made new. Can you feel the tingling of anxiety! Change?! Made new?! The dark fingers of worry are closing into a fist. Humility is kept caged by worry and anxious need. You cannot submit yourself to the Teacher for proper instruction if you will not unclench that fretting fist, those busy, busy, busy fingers that seem to believe that hard work earns salvation. Why does Jesus say to Martha that Mary has chosen the better way? B/c Mary is lazy and wants to avoid work? No. B/c Martha is trapped in an oppressive gender role that makes her a servant to men? No. Jesus says to Martha that Mary has chosen the better path b/c she, Martha, is “anxious and worried about many things.” Martha, where is your humility, sister?!

Let’s ask Martha another question: “Martha, does your worrying about many things proclaim the Christ in you? Are you presenting yourself as perfect in Christ when you vibrate around the room throwing off angst like clothes set on fire?” Martha might answer, “I am showing our Lord honor by serving him. And Mary is lazing about his feet doing nothing!” So, maybe the question we need to ask here is: what is it to serve the Lord and how is that service an honor to him? Martha argues that being up and moving, doing something productive, serves the Lord. Manual labor honors the Lord b/c it shows a willingness to work for his sake. Mary seems to be arguing that sitting at the Lord’s feet, listening to him teach, serves him. And he is honored best by allowing him to serve her as her Teacher. The Lord says to all this, “Mary has chosen the better part…” Yes, she has.

Beyond the Martha/Mary contest, do we find this idea of honoring Jesus by allowing him to serve us and then serving others in his name, do we find this idea anywhere else in scripture? Yes, of course. Conveniently enough, right here in today’s reading from Colossians! Paul writes to the Colossians, “Brothers and sisters: Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the Church…” Paul is teaching us here that he is taking on, in his own person, the sufferings of the Church, the pains and trials that Christ’s Body still suffers, and that he makes this sacrifice gladly so that Christ’s Body, the Church, doesn’t have to suffer unduly. Paul eagerly shares in the sufferings of Christ through grace, thus, allowing Christ to serve him personally. This shows Christ great honor. Paul then removes these sufferings from the Church, thus serving the members of the Body, and honoring, once again, the person of Christ. If we, the Church, pay careful attention to Paul’s suffering for us, we see a Great Lesson taught by a Great Teacher: the mystery once hidden from the ages is now revealed to us. How is the Word of God completed for us? That’s the mystery. Paul answers, “…it is Christ in you, the hope for glory.” God’s Word is completed for us as Christ in us!

How do Paul and Mary manage to teach us all of this? Through humility. Paul eagerly accepts the Church’s sufferings into his own body and Mary submits herself to instruction in a subject normally forbidden to Jewish women. Both submit themselves to the Word—to listen to the Word, to be instructed by the Word, and to go out and do the Word once sent. And in submitting to the Word, each takes on the Word and speaks with the power of Truth that is Christ Jesus. Essentially, each becomes the Word they teach and each lives out a life totally dependent on God, acknowledging with breath and hands and feet their absolute reliance on the Father for absolutely everything they need. They can teach us about God with the clarity of one who looks to God for his very existence. This is not the clarity of calculated logic, or computer science, or astrophysics. It is the kind of clarity that sharpens in trust our first commitment to love. And calls us back over and over again to the promise we made to honor God by preaching His Word with vigor and vim.

Paul and Mary have made the better parts of sacrifice for us. Paul suffers. Mary contemplates. Paul evangelizes and Mary exemplifies. Both show us how to make the Big Story of Christ’s life, the smaller story of our own lives; how to take that Grand Script of Jesus and compress it into our own dramas, comedies, and tragedies and find eternal life among the pages remaining.

Martha didn’t choose a bad part when she choose to honor the Lord by serving him a meal. It’s just that Mary chose the better part when she chose to honor him by allowing him to serve her as her teacher! So, this means then the Church doesn’t need workers like Martha? That’s precisely what it means! The Church needs workers but not workers who are “anxious and worried about many things.” Jesus is not criticizing Martha for her work in his honor but for the fretting about that is driving her to despair and jealousy. Who, between the sisters, is being inhospitable? Mary who is seeking wisdom at our Lord’s feet? Or Martha who’s nagging at him about a sisterly fuss? Mary has chosen the better part.

If you will learn from the Teacher of the Ages, you must: unclench your jaw; free your heart and mind from worry; unwring your hands, settle your voice, soothe over the turmoil of second-guessing and what-if’ing; reach deeply for the flower of humility, that small bloom of total dependency on God you hide so well; and, sit down! Sit at the feet of the Word and listen. Listen! B/c what you hear and what you do once you have heard will not be taken from you.

Pic Credit: Matthew Jacobs: PANIC