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Pentecost, Cp11, July 21, 2013
Gen.
18:1-14 Ps.15
Col. 1:21-29 Luke 10:38-42
What if
you gave a dinner party and invited a special guest and a report of that dinner
party become written down. And what if the
written report of that dinner party became a part of Holy Scriptures and came
to be regarded as God’s word. When there
are only a few vignettes that are recorded in the life of Jesus, each vignettes
or narrative become metaphors and theology.
This is what has happened to the Mary and
Martha story. The Mary and Martha story
has become typology for religious personalities, or for that matter it models
lots family or community disputes. One
could see a parish dispute along this line.
One person thinks that church is only for contemplation, communion and
prayer. Don’t ask me to work in the
kitchen or do clean up on my “spiritual” time.
One can see every flustered parish worker who is upset that people
benefit from the practical work without feeling any obligation to help out.
And it does seem as though Jesus takes the
sides of those who are more interested in contemplation and devotion rather
than the practical work of hospitality.
To counter this apparent preference of Jesus
for those who practice contemplation over work, the church throughout history
has tried to rehabilitate the Martha tradition.
After all, the church that became a vast institution with lots of
property has had an incredible need for a vast division of labor. The church has needed “free labor.” The church has needed to valorize works of
hospitality as creative ministry.
The Mary and Martha religious personalities
have been perpetuated in a very conscious way by monastic orders. Some religious orders have defined themselves
as “Mary” orders, or committed to contemplative prayer and have very little or
no contact with the outside world. Other
orders have defined themselves as “Martha” orders or committed to works of
service, education and hospitality. And other orders have tried the balance the
two; work and contemplation.
One of the things that happens when we
generalize a narrative event into theologies and types, is that we steal its significance
as a singular event. If we generalized
we could say that Jesus prefers contemplation and devotion to him over the
works of hospitality. And we forget that
this is just one event in the life of Jesus, Mary and Martha. One event does not establish everlasting
character. One event with the exchange
of dialogue does not establish the final pronouncement upon anything.
I would like for us for our reflections today
to honor this event as a singular event in the lives of Mary, Martha and
Jesus. And in so doing, I think we could
make the following statements. This one
event does not mean that Jesus disapproves of the works of hospitality. It does not mean that Mary was a perpetual
space cadet who used contemplation to “get out of doing the work.” It does not mean that Martha was against
contemplation because she was just a nervous uptight obsessive compulsive hostess
with the mostest.
This story is just one event in the life of
Jesus, Mary and Martha. And you and I
may have unique, singular events of this kind at times in our lives when we are
confronted with three aspects of our personalities that conform to the behaviors,
decisions and words of the persons in our Gospel story. For short hand, we might say we have the Mary
aspect, the Martha aspect and the Christ aspect of our personalities.
Mary had arrived at a crucial time in her
life. She had discovered a friend and a
mentor who was getting through to her like no one had ever done before. What does one do when the invitation to have a
mentor friend and to have the possibility of creative advance and new insight
is set right before us? What does one do
when one’s heart has fallen in love with one who offers personal enlargement
and hope? When those events of
invitation are put before us, all of us have a very practical side; we have a
proverbial “Martha aspect of our personalities.” “You can’t take time off for the luxury of
contemplation; there’s too much work to do.
How can you justify taking time off to do this when there is so much
work to do?” And then we have the umpire
of our consciousness, the Christ aspect of our personality.
What does the Christ aspect of our
personality recommend? Whenever we have
the opportunity to be mentored into peace, wisdom, joy or further excellence of
any sort, we need to take the time. We
need to hear the Christ aspect of our personalities give us the permission to
attend to contemplation when a new opportunity is presented to us even though
the ordinary work of life might have to be delayed or restructured. It is so easy to let all of the ordinary
tasks that need to be done to keep us from taking the invitation to an
opportunity that may not come again. And
this is when we need the Christ-wisdom to choose contemplation insight over the
practical chores that need to be done.
Why would I refer to the Christ-aspect of
personality? In the writings in the
Pauline tradition we have the expression, “Christ in you the hope of glory.” The life of Jesus and the word of Jesus have
left the legacy of the Holy Spirit making the risen Christ as the guiding
presence of wisdom to which we have access.
And so we can know a Christ-aspect of our personalities to access the
guidance of wisdom with our lives to read the signs of our lives that
continually invite us to further excellence.
Mary took the opportunity which was offered
to her in a session of learning from Jesus.
She was affirmed for making the right decision even though it meant that
she neglected some of the ordinary duties.
There will always be meals to serve and dishes to wash, but there is not
always the unique invitation to advance one’s spiritual life forever. So Mary made the right decision.
We too need to make the right decision when
it comes to invitations to new breakthroughs for our spiritual, intellectual
and emotional lives. May God give us
grace to hear the Christ aspect of our personalities when we need to take new
steps of spiritual excellence. Amen.
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