Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, rcl yr c, 2022
AMOS 8:1-12; PSALM 52; COLOSSIANS 1:15-28; LUKE 10:38-42
Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet
Reading this story from Luke’s Gospel about Mary and Martha seems to really make one thing very clear: the way of Mary is superior to the way of Martha. “Mary … sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying,” we read. While “Martha was distracted by her many tasks.” And when Martha says to Jesus, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me,” Jesus responds,
“Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part.”
It seems pretty clear, doesn’t it. Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening, has done the right thing, the “better part.” And Martha, in her busyness and complaining, has done the “lesser part,” and the less important thing.
And so, we are to conclude too, that to pray, to do our devotions, to read Scripture as we wait upon the Lord, to simply come and worship, is a better thing, and a more important thing to do, than it is to do the more practical things in life.
And no greater lights in the church than Augustine, and Ambrose, many contemplatives and monastics would say the same or something similar. There is the “Way of Mary,” the way of contemplation, and there is the “Way of Martha,” the way of action. And the Way of Mary is the better way.
If we were to look backward, though, and to what’s just been said in chapter 10 of Luke’s Gospel, we might begin to wonder if things were so simple. We’ve heard these stories in the past few weeks, and they are stories about active work and ministry. In the mission of the 70 evangelists, the 70 are told to do very active work: to go ahead of Jesus and to enter towns and to seek out opportunities for ministries of prayer and healing. And when the 70 are welcomed into the houses of strangers, they can expect to be ministered to, in the form of food, drink, and hospitality. And then Jesus tells the story of the Samaritan who gives aid to the man who fell into the hands of robbers. And we hear in this story that the Samaritan brings the injured man to an inn, and that he makes sure that the injured man would be ministered to in the form of healing care, as well as food, drink, and hospitality.
In both these stories we hear of exactly the sorts of things that Martha does: not only of active ministry like the 70 who go out ahead of Jesus, but that it is very good for them to be provided food and drink; and similarly for the Samaritan, it’s considered very good that he would work with the innkeeper to make sure that the injured man was cared for much the way Martha is caring for Mary and Jesus.
So it must be that the ministry of serving others is a very good thing.
In fact, we should hear, when we hear that Martha is busy with her tasks, that this is about serving the church; Martha’s work is diakonia, from where we get the word deacon; and the work of the deacon in the church is exactly the sort of thing that Martha is doing: preparing the table at which others are to be fed. And so in Mary and Martha we two “activities” of the church. We have Mary at worship, at prayer, listening closely to her Lord. And we have Martha, at work, serving the table at which the poor and the needy would be fed.
(That and doing such things as being part of the coffee hour rota! I’m sure Eleanor would be happy to hear that you’d rather be a Martha and do the work of the Lord after church on Sundays …and I’m sure Glady too would be happy to hear that you’d be willing to be a Martha and to serve in Altar Guild … in fact this is precisely the sort of work that is considered good and holy in Luke chapter 10.)
Can we so easily say, considering what we know, especially of Martha’s work as the holy work of the deacon, of serving others in and outside of the church, is truly such a lesser sort of work than Mary sitting at the feet of the Lord? Can the way of Martha really be the lesser way?
Well …. yes. It is, but perhaps not the way you might think. Martha’s way of service is exactly what Jesus expects of us as Christians. The rest of the chapter makes this clear. Active service like that of the 70, sent out to preach and share the gospel and offer a ministry of prayer and healing, and the ministry of the Samaritan, whose ministry we are to emulate, is the way of Jesus. Just as Jesus comes to serve, so would we serve others. (Like at coffee hour.)
But what makes Mary’s way the better way, what makes the way of prayer and contemplation in that moment the better way, is that if you are to be a person of service, at least Christian service, prayer and worship is absolutely necessary. That is, if you aren’t spending time at the feet of the Lord, waiting upon his word for you? Active service is going to wear you out, maybe even make you complain about others, maybe even make you say something like “if only those other people would pull their weight ….” and most certainly will make you forgetful why you are engaged in service in the first place. To sit at the feet of the Lord is to know whom it is you serve and why.
And so do not neglect this better way of Mary. Sit at the feet of the one who is the fount of grace. Indeed, though, do stay in his church to serve, and go out to serve as well.
But first revel in wonder and praise that this one has come for your sake, to redeem you, to snatch you from the mouth of death in order to put you in the heavenly places with him and with all the company of heaven; that we might join in all that company in the worship of him, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
The Revd Dr Preston Parsons