“Martha and Mary: We Need Them Both”
Luke 10:38-42
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
10/17/16
In Luke’s
gospel, Jesus tears through the countryside and through both social and religious
traditions like the storm that tore through northeast Tennessee nine days ago.
Everything he says and does clears the treetops of deadwood, topples anything
without deep, nurturing roots, and scatters all the comfortable lawn furniture
from here to kingdom come. Jesus is a straight-line wind of Resurrection.
I feel for his followers. Surely,
some are thinking, Lighten up, Jesus! You’re
tearing things down quicker than anyone can rebuild them!
Then, Jesus
offends pretty much everyone with what we hear as a happy, Sunday school parable
about being good neighbors, but what amounts to a Samaritan Lives Matter speech. After that, finally, he sits down in
Martha’s home to rest. Martha’s sister, Mary, is there, too.
Martha and
Mary. We not only distinguish between these two women; we judge them. We
dismiss Marthas as score-keepers, busy-bodies who fuss about pots and pans,
table decorations, and Robert’s Rules of
Order. We like Mary, though. Mary sits quietly, attentively at Jesus’ feet,
hungering and thirsting for the wisdom of the Christ.
I’m hardly the
first to suggest this, but of course we
need both Martha and Mary. Of course we
need pragmatic action and prayerful reflection.
One could even read this story as a kind of parable Jesus tells to himself,
with Martha and Mary representing very strong and vital aspects of his own
personality. At least in part, Jesus is the Christ by virtue of both a Servant
Heart and a Contemplative Spirit. So, while Martha embodies the neighborly initiative
of the Good Samaritan, the “one thing” Jesus calls needful is the one thing he
and his inner Mary need right now. As
a human being, Jesus needs to nurture his relationship with the universal
Oneness that is God. And right now he can find that only in stillness, and in the spectacular ordinariness of
one-to-one relationship with another human being.
To follow Jesus, we need both
Martha and Mary.
Last Sunday I
shared some of my constantly breaking heart with you. Afterward, I heard from a
number of you who feel similarly grief-stricken, anxious, and mystified about
how to move forward. As I begin to contemplate next steps, I have to accept one
thing as immutable reality: The world has changed. Forever. We will not
“return” to anything. As disturbing as that can sound, it does not mean that we
have no hope for peace, cooperation, and harmony. Not at all. It is to say that before us lies a new peace, a new harmony. And to embrace this as blessing requires new vision –
a new vision not just for ourselves but for one another and for all creation.
In his book A
New Harmony, Philip Newell, contemporary spokesman for Celtic Christianity,
speaks of the ancient Greek concept of kosmos
as a “‘harmony of parts.’”1 All things in the creation live, move,
and have their being “in relation to everything else.”2 Because of
this, says Newell, “any new vision of reality must also be a cosmology, a way
of relating the parts to the whole.”3
Throughout
Luke, Jesus has been revealing his new cosmology:
“I must
proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities, for I was
sent for this purpose.” (4:43)
“Love your
enemies, do good to those who hate you…pray for those who abuse you.” (6:27-28)
“Whoever
welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes
the one who sent me.” (9:48)
“Martha, you
are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.” (10:41-32a)
Jesus teaches
and lives his vision for God’s new harmony. John of Patmos calls that new
harmony “a new heaven and a new earth.” And John’s caveat to that newness has
the power to unsettle us and to energize us: “for the first heaven and the
first earth,” John says, “had passed away.” (Rev. 21:1)
Paul agrees. “In Christ there is a
new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2Cor. 5:17)
The passing
away of the first heaven and the first earth is not an event, but an ongoing process that began “in the beginning.” It
seems, however, that we are experiencing a season of acute transformation in
the creation, specifically in the progression of the one and only human race.
In the midst
of all that is happening within and around us, right now is a time for contemplation and prayer, a time for
sitting with Mary at Jesus’ feet. And this is real work. It is the exhausting
responsibility of the Body of Christ to gain strength for inhabiting the new
heaven and earth while scratching and clawing, struggling to let go of the old.
We also have
urgent Martha-business in the world. In 2009, Rowan Williams, then the
Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote that the work of the church is to speak and act,
here and now so that we “make God credible” in the world.4 It takes both Martha and Mary to do that. And the
church has only itself to blame for its lack of credibility when it looks more
like a business protecting its bottom line and sounds more like a government fearing
for its existence than a fellowship of Love and gratitude following Jesus.
I don’t know
exactly what to expect, but in the days ahead, I will try to seek new awareness
of God’s vision, to seek new oneness and harmony in the world by living into
new relationships with my here-and-now neighbors, regardless of the amount of
pigment in their skin, regardless of how they worship, if they even do. And
this search necessarily involves both action and contemplation – Martha’s bold
witness in and for the creation, and Mary’s prayerful vulnerability before God.
The events of
two weeks ago gave us a rapturously beautiful image of Martha and Mary, embodied
as one, choosing the “one thing” that matters. In the midst of the protests in
Baton Rouge after the killing of Alton Sterling, a 35-year-old mother, nurse,
and first-time protestor named Ieshia Evans strode into a street in front of a
phalanx of police wearing full riot gear. Clad in a flowing sundress and armed
with nothing but grief, Love, and hope, Ieshia Evans took a silent, peaceful stand
in a place where people had been told not to stand – in between the police and
the protesters.
When asked what she wanted her
silence to say, Evans responded: “I’m human. I’m a woman. I’m a mom. I’m a
nurse. I could be your nurse. I could be taking care of you…We all matter. We
don’t have to beg to matter.”5
Having felt chosen by God “to make
a difference,” Ieshia Evans said, “It is more than me. It is more than myself.”6
Some may argue that Ms. Evans’
actions accomplished little, and maybe even added to the tension. But I think
such arguments miss the point of her prayerful action, which fearlessly proclaims
– to all with eyes to see and ears to hear – the new harmony, the new cosmology
of Jesus.
We are all one, called and equipped to make a difference.
Right here. Where we are.
Right now.
1John Philip Newell, A New Harmony, Josey-Bass,
2011. P. vii.
2Ibid.
3Ibid.
6Ibid.
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