Sermon by Fr Peter Wolton, Sunday 17th July 2016, Trinity 8, United Benefice of Holland Park

Sermon by Fr Peter Wolton, Sunday 17th July 2016, Trinity 8, United Benefice of Holland Park

Today as golfers will know is the final day of the British Open. The golfer Gary Player famously said: It’s a funny thing, the more I practice, the luckier I get.

What has this to do with today’s gospel story of Mary and Martha who are known for many things – but not perhaps for their golfing prowess?

Palmer’s wisdom reminds me of one of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s sayings: “The busier I am, the more I need to pray for not less than two hours a day.”

It sounds paradoxical, but this may be the secret of his achievements and his ministry of reconciliation. It also gets to the heart of the tension between the different ministries of Mary and Martha. The busier we become, the more we need to pray.

The example of Mary and Martha compels us to explore how we can tilt the balance of our lives away from “distractions and worries” to the more contemplative. Let’s consider their story and I will then finish with some suggestions of how this might be done.

So why did Luke tell us this story? The story of the two sisters Martha and Mary, the latter sitting at the Lord’s feet in the public room while the other is undertaking the domestic duties. Martha asks Jesus “whether He cares that she has been left to do all the work by herself” – how often have we felt that?!- only to receive the seemingly harsh retort “Mary has chosen the better part.”

The biblical scholar Tom Wright (former Bishop of Durham) highlights the radical nature of Mary’s behaviour. Mary was flouting social convention in two ways. Homes at that time were strictly divided into “male space” which included the public room and “female space” of which the kitchen was the main one. By going into the public room, Mary had entered “male space.” She  had also entered the teaching circle of a Rabbi. “To sit at the feet of” means to become a student of. You only did that if you wished to be a teacher yourself to spread his word. Women did not do that either.

In a week that Britain has only its second female Prime Minister, the tale of Mary and Martha may seem especially timely.

But the scholar Wright stresses that this story which directly follows the parable of the Good Samaritan does so for a purpose. Jesus is heralding arrival of the Kingdom. The Kingdom is a place where no one is typecast and all should be heard and able to exercise their gifts. In the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan whose people have been arch enemies of the Jews for years, is shown by his compassion to be radically different from the typecast. In the story of Mary and Martha, Mary understands that she has been called to proclaim the word of Jesus and is prepared to break social convention to do. Luke tells us that women, as well as Samaritans, are regarded in a different and elevated light.

Jesus said to Martha:

“Mary has chosen the better part.”

What, I wonder, might Jesus also have said to Martha to console her? I expect that most of us identify more with Martha “worried and distracted by many things.” I certainly place myself in that camp. And if you are like me, you probably want to have more of Mary in your life, the contemplative, feasting on the gift of God’s love and salvation. And here we find ourselves talking about the need for prayer. And this is the magic of the construction of St. Luke’s gospel, for the very next verses after this story, are about the teaching of the Lord’s Prayer: “Lord teach us to pray.”

How do we pray?

Many of us believe others are better at praying than we are. So we buy books on prayer, hoping they will improve our prayer life, and they stay on our bookshelves unread.

A wise teacher of prayer said “Pray as you can, not as you can’t.”

As children, our prayers were petitionary, not that we knew that word. But as we grow older, as Rowan Williams has advised, our prayer should not be what we want from God but what God wants from us.

We can’t always, like Archbishop Tutu, pray for two hours. But we can pray short prayers. Short is also good.

There is no substitute for just doing it. There is the Lord’s Prayer and there is the short Jesus prayer: “Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner” which can be repeated constantly, or the even shorter prayer “Maranatha” – “Lord Come.”

This past week, seven members of the United Benefice have made a pilgrimage to Walsingham. A pilgrimage might be considered a direct response to the tension manifested in the story of the sacred (Mary) and the secular (Martha).

A pilgrimage brings together activity (the journey and activities), prayer and services at the Shrine, and the building of community as pilgrims get to know each other, all in the setting of beautiful Norfolk countryside. On Monday we stopped for midday Mass at small church of St. Nicolas Feltwell followed by lunch at the adjoining pub. That afternoon we arrived at the Shrine, made our first visit to the Holy House; the next day we went on a boat trip on the Broads, followed by a pub lunch and going to the church of Ranworth which has the finest medieval pained screen in the country. That evening there was a service of healing at the shrine. The next two days saw us attending Mass in the Shrine and in the finest church in Norfolk at Salle, a visit to Felbrigg Hall and a walk to the Slipper chapel via the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches at Walsingham. At each of our parish Masses we had a homily on the teaching of St. Bonaventure, and each evening visits to the local pub. By Friday a disparate group had come to know each, encouraged by each other’s stories and faith, and tilted our lives away from the distractions and worries towards prayer and the joy of the gift of the knowledge of the love of God.

Tilting our lives more towards contemplation and away from distractions. Note this is about balance. It is not about the exclusion of one in favour of the other. Activity is important and the world needs our skills to be used.

We are urged to let more of God and the gift of the Trinity into our lives and the world. I will conclude with three suggestions of how we might do this:

First Try to pray more.

Our prayers should not be what we want from God but what God wants from us.

If you think prayer is difficult, just do it. Use short prayers such as the Jesus prayer, repeating: “Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner” or Maranatha – “Lord Come.”

Second Come occasionally to our short morning or evening prayer services, or if you are not in the parish, go to Communion once a week at a church near your pace of work. And, like Desmond Tutu, recognise that the busier you are, the more important it is and make time to do it.

And finally, think about coming on a pilgrimage when we do it next year.

In prayerful thanks for Mary and Martha, who both loved the Lord.

Amen