Active and Contemplative Lives

6 Pentecost, C p 11, July 20, 2025
Amos 8:1-12  Psalm 52
Colossians 1:15-28 Luke 10:38-42 
 

Lectionary Link

Falling in love is usually more of a contemplative event rather than an active event. To come under the sublime effects of someone activates emotional magnetism and the sense of not being in complete control, a sense of being drawn to someone in a mysterious way without knowing all the reasons for such a serendipitous event. To make sense of the event of sublime love, one often resorts to poetry, the language of the heart with license to make gushing exaggerations to impart the fact that the experience is truly out of this world, out of the normal kinds of attachments that one has with things in every day life.

St. Paul did not see Jesus when he lived on earth, neither did many of his companions who inherited and kept his epistolary tradition alive. We can read the well known Christological hymns which are found in the Pauline letter tradition, some of which are attributed to him and others to those who developed the Pauline tradition.

For Paul and for many in his community, the historical event of Jesus was not an eye-witness reality; they had mystical events which came to their interpretive language as encounters with the Risen Christ. They had interior events which occurred within their bodily lives in their own personal histories. The interior events, perhaps like Paul, were unsought encounters. Paul wrote that Christ was revealed "in him," in such a way that he claim to have a "Gospel." Paul referred to "his" Gospel which derived from these contemplative apparitional encounters. One of the over-arching goals of the collection of the writings in the New Testament is to weld Paul's Gospel based upon apparitional and contemplative experiences, with the traditions which derived from the followers of Jesus who actually walked with Jesus as pupils who followed him as their teacher.

As Paul discovered, the contemplative event disrupts the everyday normal activities of life, even the seeming trajectory of one's life. The contemplative events requires that one stops and put other competing activities on hold so that one can attend to the event of insight which is going to bring creative advance into one's life.

The Gospel story of Mary and Martha of Bethany instantiates the competition which arises between the active and contemplative lives. Why is the contemplative life the better part? It is like the dessert within the ordinary meals of life. It is demands a pause, a savoring because serendipity of falling in love cannot be planned. It just happens when it happens and it interrupts the regular life, even the practical requirements of hospitality of fixing the meals and doing the dishes, which was a valid concern of Martha. People have to eat, and it was right for sister Martha to want Mary to share some of the communal and family tasks; it was only fair. But the truth is that we don't all fall in the love at the same time on the same schedule. And when the falling happens, one has to respond to the in-breaking feelings which are going to change one's life; so the practical tasks often have to be put on hold. This story is not a Mary against Martha story or of a preference that Jesus had for Mary over Martha; it is about the individual timing of the contemplative event and taking advantage of the event when it happens.

In the Pauline tradition the contemplative event of encounters with the Risen Christ made recipients like Paul and others into Christ poets. They extolled his uniqueness because for them there was none like Christ who had risen within their consciousness to the point of inspiring poetry about his excellence. The Pauline writer the Colossians letter poetically wrote: "Christ Jesus 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."

Love's language is poetic and inspires the use of the superlative. How does one speak and write about the one who is ultimate? Indeed the contemplative event invites our selves of wonder to use the poetry of praise.

However, if we think that following Christ or the way of Torah is just about the exalted events of contemplation, we would be naively wrong. One of the results of the exalted events of contemplation of the highest, is that one is called to represent that highest standard before people who have become accustomed to highly inferior ways of truth and justice. In short, the one who knows the contemplative call, will surely have to actively speak truth to the powerful, even the powerful who are evil and revengeful. Amos, the prophet, knew the contemplation of a call from God and after being shocked from his normal life as a humble shepherd and fig farmer, he had to speak the hard words against those who had the appearance of religion but who had lost the true practice of the laws of God.

Today, let us remember that life is not about being a Mary or a Martha; but accepting that contemplation and actions have their special times for each person. Sometimes our timings may not be coordinated with the timings of others as to when and how we experience events of contemplation and action.

Surely, we are called to both, and one action might be the prophetic speaking of truth to the powerful. We should be prepared for the fullness of life on the contemplation and action continuum; be ready for all, even if readiness means the willingness to be surprised by the call to be in love with God, and the call to speak our highest insights to those who need it. Amen.