Sermon July 22, 2007
So which is it that I should be like? Mary or Martha? Which is it? For the past nine years of being a Pastor here at Living Waters, I’ve never preached on this lesson. It comes up every three years, but with vacations, I just haven’t had the chance to preach on it. Now, I’ve heard women often describe themselves as an either/or, as if one was the best over the other. It’s better to be Meticulous Martha verses Messy Mary (www.homileticsonline.com) or the other way around. Sure, we will have over 160 elementary kids for Vacation Bible School and 26 teenagers for the Teens servant week these next five days, but who is going to do all the organizing? So many people preparing for VBS and so many others lollygagging and not helping! Sure, people from all over may eat at the table of God’s living waters, but someone has to set the table and prepare!
So, which is it? Well if you are the eldest in your family, you are usually very responsible, compared to the youngest siblings who don’t pull their weight. Perhaps you can’t handle the chaos and need such order in your life that you need to go to the website www.flylady.com and learn that Chaos means, people who “Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome”.
It was probably Mary's idea to invite Jesus. But it is appropriate that Martha does the inviting and welcomes Jesus in for a rest on his way to Jerusalem, probably in Bethany (John 11:18). Martha is probably frantically getting things in order. There is no mention of Lazarus, the man of the house. Martha is in charge. Martha has prepared a meal and is getting everything ready. Mary is slacking off and sitting at the feet of Jesus, like a disciple. Martha is busy with her "many tasks", and this world is diakonia, which is a word for service and the program in the Northern Illinois Synod that helps train servant leaders (http://www.nisynod.org/ministries/diakonia.htm), as we’ve had people from Living Waters go through this two year training.
Is service less important than what Mary is doing? Is the value on Bible study, devotion and prayer more important than service? Do we have the luxury of time for our spiritual development? Religious people can sometime err on the side of that aspect of discipleship and forget that service is important too. The passage just before this in Luke is about the Good Samaritan and it ends with the words, “Go and do likewise”. The Samaritan serves while the religious type ignores the need. The religious folks err on the other side of devotion to God and ignore the neighbor. Does Jesus mean to put one against the other or are both valued?
So which is it? Perhaps we must struggle with whether the service we render is focused on getting attention instead of a response to the freedom we receive as we are called to be children of God? Martha’s words express a frustration that Jesus doesn’t care about her. Martha perhaps is service to get love. Is it that Mary has her priorities straight while Martha’s service less important? Martha is doing the work of a host, not with joy of love but with the regret of responsibility. “Do you not care that MY sister has left ME to do all the work by MYSELF? Tell her then to help ME.” In other words, “Would you please tell my sister to help me in the kitchen or don’t you care?”
Perhaps we forget that the first century role of women was the kitchen. Perhaps we forget that we still have this cultural thing going on where women feel that domestic roles are more important and that men still want to see there role not as servants who can serve in the kitchen too.
This summer while at seminary for Doctoral classes in preaching, some classmates hosted a fajita night. This Presbyterian Pastor and I picked up all the food, we did all the cooking and we had to tell anther classmate who was female that she didn’t have to help much as she was trying to slide into a role in the kitchen she seemed to like. We told her to enjoy! We cooked, we ate, we drank Corona’s and celebrated our three weeks of interdenominational friendship that evening over a meal that had many tasks, focused on the common gospel that brought us together. We are all disciples, men and women.
Yet here is a women sitting at the feet of Jesus. First century Middle Eastern roles were very patriarchal. It’s not just that Mary has her priorities straight but that Jesus has created a scandal that he is allowing women to be his disciples. Women are disciples! Women are servants! Jesus opened the way for women to be disciples. Jesus did this not at the expense of Martha who is busy working but for Mary to be an example for Martha, “for Martha’s benefit and not at her expense”.[i]
Jesus said to Martha, “You are worried and distracted by many things. There is need for only one thing.” We all need to be reminded of that one thing in the midst of our many tasks, to just sit here today and find our rest at the feet of Jesus. Which is it? Perhaps it’s not one or the other. Perhaps it is one for the other to occur. We sit at the feet in order to sit at the feet of others and to wash there feet.
When Lu Bettisch began her ministry among us four years ago; she was mostly Martha-like. She understood that tasks need to be done. She also grew up being told in essence that women’s ministry was in the kitchen; not at feet of Jesus. She has since been called to ministry, as we all are called to be disciples. Lu will begin full time seminary this fall at the Lutheran School of Theology. She will be done here on September 2nd, and we will miss her as she follows the feet of Jesus to her own Jerusalem.
There is yet another meal that Jesus will prepare the night of his betrayal. Jesus will prepare his own last meal and will wash the disciple’s feet. Jesus will be prepared to serve us by suffering on the cross, this last task, this last diakonia, so that we are served and know we are not alone in our suffering. We must always remember that the guest of honor is at the center of this gathering inviting us all to the feet that call us forward to follow.
So which is it? Perhaps it’s both… sitting here in order that we may serve there!
[i] The Christian Century, page 18; July 10, 2007; Joy Douglass Strome; “Living by the Word”
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