“Martha,
Martha.” What do you think when you hear this Gospel this morning? Do you hear
Jesus shaming Martha? Do you hear Jesus praising Mary? Do you hear frustration
or gentleness, or both?
This Gospel is
one of those puzzling Gospel stories. No matter how simple we try to make it,
things aren’t as simple as we think. Since packing is on my mind at the moment,
I’ll use something most of us experience when we go on a trip. We put stuff in
our suitcase and the minute we try to close the suitcase, what happens? Yes,
something always seems to poke out, not matter how carefully we thought we
packed. Unless you’re one of those people I admire. The kind of person who
always knows just what to pack and it all fits neatly in the suitcase with room
to spare.
If we were
packing today’s Gospel into a suitcase, we might think we have all the pieces
in the suitcase because it seems pretty obvious. Mary is sitting quietly
listening to Jesus. Meanwhile, conscious of the people that need to be fed,
Martha is stirring pots in the kitchen, sweeping up the crumbs from the bread
she just sliced, straightening the tablecloth in the dining room, and shooing
the dogs outside before the meal starts.
Maybe she’s even yelling for Lazarus to forget those last few vegetables in the
garden and come uncork the wine. No wonder Martha said to Jesus, “Tell my lazy
sister to get off her duff and help me. How am I ever going to get this meal on
the table?”
It’s so easy to hear Jesus telling
Martha to stop worrying about everything and listen to him. And it’s easy to
hear Mary being praised for choosing “the better part” by listening to Jesus.
But is that all there is? IS it really
that simple? Might this story be yet another parable of Jesus, one acted out by
two sisters and their relationships to Jesus? Remember, hospitality was a
necessity in a desert culture; a climate and a culture that required offering
hospitality to someone who was thirsty or hungry or the person would likely
die.
Like most parables, this one has many
layers and multiple meanings. And the one we usually hear is a good one. We can
all get worried and distracted by many things. And Jesus reminds Martha Mary
has chosen that thing which is the most needful: focusing on his words.
Another meaning in this Gospel could be
an invitation to Martha rather than a scolding. Perhaps when Jesus reminds
Martha Mary has chosen the better part, he means the better part that is open
to women who listen to him.
After all, in Jesus’ time, women were
meant to be in the kitchen, or serving, or taking care of children, or anything
else that what considered woman’s work. Women were certainly not, as a rule,
found at the feet of a teacher, listening to what the teacher is saying.
Perhaps Jesus is inviting Martha to
choose the better part for herself by listening eagerly to his invitation where
women and men become people, neither divided artificially by gender, nor
assigned roles by gender. Might that be the better part Jesus is inviting
Martha to consider. And might that better part open up a whole world of
possibilities both to women and to all others who have been considered less
than or unskilled, or dumb, or the wrong color, or the wrong race, or not well
educated?
Not long ago I read a story about a
young man who was diagnosed with autism as a child. His particular form of
autism caused him to lose the ability to speak when he was about 4 or 5 years
old. Yet his mother was convinced he could still communicate, that there were
possibilities for speech, perhaps in a form no one had discovered yet. Through
hard work, through listening, through research on her own, and through the
blessing of an inventive occupational therapist and teacher, the son began to
learn to communicate. Today he communicates by using cards with picture and
words. And yes, he still cannot talk, but he can read and so can use the cards
with words and pictures to express himself. The joy in all this is that he
turned out to be an inspired painter. His bright and colorful paintings grace
the walls of his parents’ home.
The mother of this young man could have
decided to be worried and distracted about a great many things. Would he ever
speak again? What about his physical health? How would he learn to behave in
public? Who would be his friends? Instead, she chose to focus on his
possibilities, rather than his limitations. And in so doing, a talent came into
being that might otherwise never have surfaced and never have been seen.
Jesus invites us to change our ways. He
invites us to move from being worried and distracted by many thing and instead to
focus on the possibilities Jesus holds out to us. To be curious, to be loving,
and to be listening for Jesus in this hungry world. It’s a world full of people hungry to be noticed.
It’s a world full of people waiting to be loved. And it’s a world full of
people in dire need of someone to listen. AMEN.
The Rev Nicolette
Papanek
©2016
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