Sermon on 17th July, Mary and Martha, Trinity 5
Lectionary Readings for the Fifth Sunday of Trinity
Colossians 1: 15-28
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him— provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a
servant of this gospel.
I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. I became its servant according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. It is he whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.
Luke 10: 38–42
Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’
Sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Trinity
It seems to me that distraction is one of the most difficult obstacles in our way, as we try to live the Christian life from day to day. There is so much to distract us! If you are like me, you awaken each day full of energy and enthusiasm, ready to tackle that list you have in mind of various things that are important, that are waiting to be done. And here is an entire day in which to accomplish them. But then, distraction after distraction comes up—-you realise that you haven’t paid the phone bill, so that takes ten minutes to attend to, and then you need to thank your neighbour for asking you to tea yesterday, so you get that little message off, and then you are completely out of dishwashing soap, so you take a quick walk to the store and are back in just a half hour. And then you see those e-mails that have come in since yesterday. You need to answer them. So the surprising realisation is that, out of all the important things, the things you had hoped to accomplish in the course of the morning, only one has been done. Where did the morning go?
How do we keep our minds focussed on the most important thing? How do we stay on the main track, you might say, without wandering off to one side or the other? Because in the end, we won’t even remember what all those distractions even were —-we will only regret what they distracted us from.
Jesus seemed never to be distracted. He knew what was important, and he had a keen sense of how quickly the time was passing. I picture him with other people, looking them straight in the eye and saying the most important thing that he had to say to them, delivering that word with love and concern for them but also with great intensity. He knew he probably had only a single chance—-to be with that person in that moment. And I imagine that he never let that chance slip.
Our passage for today is one of the most well-known of all the Biblical accounts of Jesus’s ministry. It is found in Luke’s Gospel, and also in John, where we have a fuller version of the same encounter. Jesus has come to the town where two sisters and their brother live, Bethany. He has looked forward to seeing them again, because they are not only people he has met before in his criss-crossing of the countryside; they have become friends. Close friends. He has been welcomed to their home more than once, and has enjoyed their hospitality and friendship more than once. He knows them well. But crowds always come when Jesus shows up in a village, and so the family is probably accustomed to offering food and drink to as many others as they can—-people who have come from a long way, and who, like Jesus, are hot and thirsty and tired, but who want, above all, to hear what this extraordinary Teacher has to say.
As many of you are aware, offering hospitality to others takes work. You have to think of the needs of others, buy food, prepare it, serve it, wash the dishes afterward. If you are the only one always doing this, it is easy to feel frustration and resentment, that you have been “left with it.” Where are the others who could have helped you? So, in this story, I sympathise with Martha.
In Jesus’s day, it was always the women who served the food—it was their expected role. But Martha would also have liked to sit at Jesus’s feet and just listen to him. So in her exasperation and disappointment that someone has to do this job, and it is only
her, her by herself, there in the kitchen, working hard and missing everything, she confronts Jesus directly and asks him, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me! This is a very personal interaction to have with Jesus—-I can’t think of any other like it. And I think that Jesus understood her frustration and anger, and that he deeply appreciated her desire to care for her guests by her work in the kitchen. But he gently reminded her that the serving, in this case, was only a distraction.
The Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.
It is in John’s Gospel that this answer is made even more explicit: The poor you have always with you; but you do not always have me.
Distraction is inevitable; distraction is part of what it means to be human. We will come up against distraction every day. It is just part of life. But as Christians, we are not to allow distraction to determine our course. We are to think about these words of Jesus to Martha.
What is the most important thing? The most important thing to train our eyes on, to drop everything for?
Life is short; life is passing quickly by; it is the relationships that we have with people that are the most important thing, relationships shaped and formed by the love Jesus showed us how to give. Martha had lost sight of the most important thing—-to simply be with Jesus—- because the distraction of serving, a very good thing in itself, made her forget the most important thing.
And I think that Jesus was trying to say to Martha: serving is not a bad thing—- indeed, it is a necessary thing, because it flows out of love. But when you have a person with you who requires your full attention, be with them. Be with them fully. Don’t be distracted! Remember me—-because I came to be with you and to show you this.
I saw the play King Lear again, at the Globe, yesterday, with my son Sam. I have seen this play many times. Of the four great tragedies, it speaks to me most deeply, because of the beautiful and true words, and the pathos of the human condition that it so movingly presents. And now that I am ageing, I identify with this ageing king, played by a frail older woman yesterday, the great actress Kathryn Hunter. I urge you to go see it!
King Lear is a play about true love. About a king who does not know himself, and who does not know what the most important thing is. Set in pre-Christian Britain, it is a play about a parent who does not know himself, and therefore cannot know his own children, but who can only come to this knowledge through suffering.
In the transformation of the suffering he undergoes, accompanied by a few persons who love him and are faithful to him, he comes to a realisation of the most important thing, the true love that his daughter Cordelia has always had for him, and the possibility that he has, at last, to tell her that he now knows that love and can respond to that love. So, at the very end of the play, in the prison where they are together, he holds her close and focusses only on her, on her love for him and on his love for her and his gratitude for her love. He is not distracted by anything else. So, to me, the tragedy of her death is not the terrible dark ending that many have characterised, because he has had that chance.
King Lear was perpetually distracted by the cares of kingship, the worries of his office, the need to exercise power. We don’t have those distractions. But ours are no less real! I am distracted every day, turned away from the important thing—-which is to embrace life as fully as Jesus did, loving those who are given to me with all my heart and soul and mind, as Jesus did.
I think we don’t often stop to read and ponder these words of Jesus—not just the passage we are given for today, but all the words of the faith we hold. We are distracted by many things! But I think that the challenge of our Christian faith is to get this balance right—to create time each day to read the actual words of Scripture, to ponder the meaning of the holy words that are handed down to us, to pray over them. I think that it is essential that we take this time, each day. Find a place of quiet, away from the distractions you know you will face in the day, a place where you can be alone. Go there every day, for the same amount of time, at the same time. It will become a discipline that will shape your life.
We don’t have Jesus with us, as Mary and Martha did. We cannot choose to sit at his feet, to listen to his words. But we have the words he spoke and the life he lived, to ponder. We can make the words he spoke more deeply part of our lives, so that we know what the most important thing is. And that will help us keep every distraction at bay.
Keep the model of Jesus before you: the most important thing is to be with him in the words that he spoke, these words that speak to us, still.
In the example of both Mary and Martha let us both listen and serve, focussing always on the main thing, the love of Jesus that we show to all whom we meet.
It is in the name of this same Jesus that we ask this,
Amen.
The Revd Dana English
The Church of St. James Norlands
The Church of St. Clement, Notting Dale
London
July 17, 2022