Sermon for the 20th of July - Fifth Sunday after Trinity
I imagine most of us are familiar with the story of Mary and Martha. Still, I often forget who’s the one doing and who’s the one being.
Martha is the one cleaning, organising, cooking, and serving. She’s attentive to every detail of hospitality. And her sister Mary? Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening intently—seemingly oblivious to her harried, hardworking sister.
That’s the heart of the story. And for centuries, it has sparked deep questions: What matters more—being or doing? Or is that even the right question?
Who we resonate with in this story can reveal something about who we are, what we value, and how we understand our worth.
In our modern world, the focus is often on efficiency, control, productivity, speed, and profitability. These aren’t inherently bad things. But they do beg the deeper question: what does it mean to be truly human? Does our worth depend on what we can produce? On how useful or successful we are? These questions even lie at the heart of today’s ethical debates—like the one surrounding assisted dying. Are we only of value if we contribute something measurable? What makes a soul lovable, valuable, honourable... holy?
In a performance-driven culture, our identity and value are often tied to our output. Which makes Jesus’s invitation in this story both radical and deeply countercultural.
When Martha complains to Jesus—frustrated that Mary isn’t helping—he responds with compassion, not condemnation. His words aren’t a rebuke. They’re an invitation:
“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.”
Mary has chosen it: to sit, to listen, to be.
The Christian mystic Evelyn Underhill once wrote:
“We mostly spend our lives conjugating three verbs: to Want, to Have, and to Do... forgetting that none of these verbs have any ultimate significance, except so far as they are transcended by and included in the fundamental verb: to Be.”
“To be.” That’s the core invitation. To sit at Jesus’ feet. To rest in his presence. To live from that centre. This doesn’t mean we abandon service or stop working for justice—far from it. But it means our activity must be rooted in prayer. Our service must flow from love. Our doing must be grounded in being.
If you forget everything else from this sermon, please remember this:
You are already loved. You are already enough. Achievements, qualifications, titles, productivity…. All of these things won’t make God love you more or less… because God simply loves.
One of the key priorities in our Mission Action Plan—and something we affirm right on the homepage of our website—is that we want to be a sanctuary in the city. A place of refuge, nurture, rest, encouragement, and prayer amid the frantic pace of London life.
And this is where ritual becomes essential.
Rituals are more than habits. They are sacred practices that help us return to ourselves and to God. They shape us—not just our thoughts, but our bodies, our desires, our pace of life.
Whether it’s morning prayer, coming to the Eucharist on Sunday, practicing silent meditation, or even attending a yoga class—rituals ground us. They help us move from distraction to attention, from noise to stillness, from scattered busyness to centred presence. And through repetition, they form us—training our minds and hearts to dwell more deeply in love, peace, and hope.
This is vital, because in today’s overstimulated world, we are at risk of losing the ability to truly attend—to pause, to linger, to be fully present with God, with one another, and with the world around us.
As the artist Georgia O’Keeffe once said:
“To see takes time.”
“To see takes time.” This kind of seeing—deep, contemplative, patient—is itself a form of meditation. And it's something ritual can cultivate.
Think of how we engage with art: to stand before a painting, to let it speak to us slowly, to stay with it long enough for it to reveal something hidden. That is a sort of ritual.
Or take poetry: poems aren't meant to be skimmed. They’re invitations to linger. To read and re-read. To savour each image and phrase. Poetry calls us to slow down—to let language work on us.
So too with our rituals of faith. They stretch our attention spans. They push back against a culture of scrolling and swiping and skimming. They root us in our tradition—three thousand years of prayers, stories, songs, and silence. They help us remember who we are and whose we are.
And they speak of hope. Hope that even in turbulent political times, even amid climate anxiety, even when life feels fragile or overwhelming, we are not alone. God is with us. We are held by something deeper than the chaos.
So as we reflect on Mary and Martha, and as we rediscover the importance of being in a world obsessed with doing, let me leave you with a question:
What practices sustain you?
What rhythms—daily, weekly, or seasonal—help you gain a clearer sense of sight, of self, and of God?
Let us seek those spaces. Let us honour those rituals. Let us learn again to sit, to listen, to be.
Amen.
References
ENUMA OKORO THE ART OF LIFE, Financial Times, 12 July 2025
Only One Thing, Debie Thomas. Posted 14 July 2019.