July 21, 2019        The Better Part                                               

Our gospel lesson, about the story of Martha and Mary, seems pretty simple. Martha, invites Jesus to come to her home to preach the gospel. I suppose that she probably worked for hours in the kitchen to prepare a nice meal, and when Jesus and the guests arrive, she welcomes them, and prepares for service. As Jesus speaks about the kingdom of heaven, she is pouring wine, getting food, clearing dishes, all the stuff that women are supposed to do, when they invite a guest speaker and host a party in their home.

But there is one thing that rankles Martha. It is her sister Mary. Instead of helper her with all the work, as her sister should, Mary sits at Jesus feet, listening to him preach. So at a break in the proceedings, I imagine that she pulls Jesus aside and says, “Hey Jesus, tell Mary to get off her duff and help me out here.” And that’s where the story stops being simple.

If it were simple, Jesus might motion Mary over to him, and then say, “Gee Mary, you really could help your sister Martha out in the kitchen.” But that’s not what he says, instead we get this, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and busy with so many things, only one thing is necessary, and your sister Mary has chosen what is best, and it shall not be taken from her.”

Now I’ve heard sermons that see this as Jesus striking a blow for women’s liberation, but in the first century, I don’t think that was his point. Wouldn’t you, if you were hosting a party, expect your family members to help out? No, something more is going on here, but what?

One of the traditional understandings of this text is that Martha represents the Jewish religion, which has become all about doing the works of the law. Mary on the other hand, represents Christianity, who has found in Jesus Christ, God’s Word. Martha’s coming to Jesus and demanding that he tell Mary to help her in her work, is like the followers of Judaism demanding that Christians do the works of the law as well. In other words, the Jewish religion of that time, had reduced religion to busy work, that had missed the reason for all their busy work.

One of the sermons I read this week said it this way. A group of chaplains were asked by a member of their advisory board, about the moral character of college students these days. One of them responded, that while they were ambitious about their careers, they also found time to tutor students, and work in a homeless shelter, and a soup kitchen, and they gathered to discuss and demonstrate against injustice in the world, and etc.

“So what your saying,” the advisory board member said,  “is that they are good people doing good things, but what I was wondering is, do they know why they are doing these good things, do they have a vision of God’s salvation, that gives them the strength to do these things, and continue to do these things for a lifetime. Because after a while, just doing good things, can wear you down, if you don’t have a vision of why you are doing them.”

In our story this morning, it isn’t that Martha isn’t doing good things. She invited Jesus to her house, she is preparing the food and taking care of her guests, all good stuff, all necessary stuff. But what Mary has chosen to do, is to sit at Jesus feet, and hear about the kingdom of heaven, of God’s love for us and what it can mean for our lives. What Mary has chosen is to hear about why we should love our neighbor as ourselves, why we should love God with all our heart and soul and strength and mind, and why we should seek to do all the good works that God calls us to do.  Mary has chosen to listen to the Word of Jesus Christ, because that Word is the foundation of all that we do.

So I think, the story of Martha and Mary, is a reminder to the church about it’s foundation being found in Jesus Word, rather than in the things that we do. Churches can get caught up in doing lots of good things in their service to their members, and in their service to the community, but sometimes they can get lost in all that work, and forget why they are doing that work in the first place.

And the same holds true for us in our lives, we can get so busy, in our work life, in our family lives, in our hobbies and interests, in our successes and our failures. We can get so wrapped up in doing things, that they lose their meaning, and we become discouraged or even lost in the living of our lives. We need to remember the reason for our being, and the source of our strength for living

That’s where Mary comes in, she is reminder to us that Jesus Word to us, the vision of God’s kingdom of earth, and of God’s great love for us, is the foundation of who we are as Christians, and the source of strength for the living of our lives, and for our work together as Christ’s church. It’s the better part! And that’s the good news of Jesus Christ. Amen.