Good And Better Not Good And Bad

July 22, 2007     Proper 11 C

Amos 8:1-12             Psalm 52

Colossians 1:15-28         St. Luke 10:38-42

The story of Mary and Martha has always irritated me a bit. You have these two sisters. One of them, Martha, takes the opportunity to welcome Jesus into their home. The other, Mary, as soon as Jesus comes in, sits down at his feet and seems to hang on his every word.

So what is Martha to do? Sit down too, and let the stew boil over? If she also rests at Jesus' feet, who is going to serve? How will they eat? What will they have? Nothing will get done.

Then Jesus gets on her case, telling her that she frets and bothers about many things and that Mary (of all people) has chosen the better part by just sitting there doing nothing.

I would like to have been a mouse in that house to hear what Martha might have answered. "O.K., you two make the dinner, set out the meal, and clean up the place. I'm tired of working and being unappreciated."

Perhaps she would even remind them who had invited Jesus in the first place. At least that is what I would have said, or maybe muttered into the fire that no one else bothered to stoke.

As I have increased in age (and one would hope in wisdom), I have discovered the wisdom of the early Church Fathers. More and more I appreciate what they had to say about the same Scriptures that we read centuries later. The case in point is that of St. Bruno of Segni (d. 1123). He was the greatest scripture commentator of his age. Listen to his understanding of this passage dealing with differing life-styles of two sisters:

Martha welcomed Jesus into her house. Mary has chosen the better part. Everything our Savior did was full of sacred teaching. In every situation his actions were meant to point beyond themselves. For example, his outward actions in the hillsidevillage of Bethany are repeated every day in his holy church.

Daily the Lord Jesus enters in, not thinking frequent visits beneath his dignity. There he is welcomed by Martha, who takes him into her home.

Let us see then what Martha stands for, and what Mary symbolizes. Each of them denotes something important, for these two make up the entire Church.

One of them, namely Martha, symbolizes the active life; the other, Mary, the contemplative. That is why scripture says it was Martha, not Mary, who received Christ into her house. Mary, of course, does not own a house, since the contemplative life entails the renunciation of all worldly possessions.

All that contemplatives want to do is to sit at the feet of the Lord?to read, pray, and give themselves up to contemplating God is their whole desire. It is enough for them to be always listening to the word of God and feeding their minds rather than their stomachs

Such as these were the apostles and prophets; such are many others who, leaving everything, flee from the world and cling to the Lord. They seem to possess nothing, yet they have everything. Only good people can live this kind of life, whereas both good and bad alike can lead active lives.

Now the reason the active life is so called is because it consists of constant activity, weariness, and toil, so that scarcely a moment's quiet can be found in it.

We are not referring here though to that kind of active life that occupies thieves, impels tyrants, tempts misers, stirs up adulterers, and incites all wicked people to commit evil deeds.

For just as we speak only of one Martha who was Mary's sister, so we are referring only to that type of active life which is most closely related to the contemplative life, that is, an active life that is pure and blameless.

When the apostle preached and baptized, worked with his hands to gain a livelihood, journeyed from city to city, and showed solicitude for all the churches, was he not living the active life? In the same way then our text says of Martha that she was busy with much serving.

In fact, right down to the present day we see prelates in charge of the churches and the other clergy devotedly hurrying to and fro about their work, hot and bothered, sweating over the needs of their brothers and sisters in various ways, so that we may rightly describe them also as busy with much serving.

The contemplative life then is superior to the active because it is free from anxiety and will never end. Nevertheless the active life is so indispensable that in this world the contemplative life itself cannot exist without it.

St. Bruno understands this passage in the light of service: secular and sacred. In otherwords, he sees this as a way of Jesus telling his followers that all of life can be spent in service to God, but that not all service is the same. Some serve in lives of prayer, some serve in lives of labor. Both are serving.

I think a contemporary application of St. Bruno's understanding is that not all Christians are called to be clergy. But that does not mean that not all Christians are called to serve. The service is different, but it is still service to God. The lack of a call to ordained service is not bad. As if the "common life" is somehow not worthy.

There is Martha, that saint, in all of us. Just as there is Mary a saint as well. In fact, there is probably a lot of Mary in Martha and a lot of Martha in Mary. The challenge is in letting them get along. And when we sit down before the feet of God, let not our Martha fail to rejoice in the moment. And when we go about preparing the meals of life, let us labor, not with comparisons or resentment, but with the joy of having seized an opportune moment.