The One Thing Necessary—some thoughts on Martha and Mary

 

“Jesus entered a village
where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.
She had a sister named Mary
who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak.
Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said,
"Lord, do you not care
that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving?
Tell her to help me."
The Lord said to her in reply,
"Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.
There is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her." --Luke 10: 38-42

 

Summer vacations are like crucibles. They try our souls and reveal who we really are. Are you a Martha or a Mary?  Do you fret over many things, or do you focus on the one thing necessary?

 

When our children were younger and we would take them on vacations, my wife would be packing suitcases, making lists, coaching the girls on how many toys or how many books they could bring, planning itineraries, planning menus, snacks for the car, food for the hotel room.  She was the one concerned about tire pressure, gas tanks, seating arrangements, departures and ETAs, even cat care while we were gone, mailboxes, home security, her garden; who would water her hydrangeas? 

 

Me—my main worry was the music for the drive; what CD would we play first? As we backed out of the driveway, what song would signal the start of our adventure?  Van Morrison, The Beatles, Ella Fitzgerald, Joni Mitchell, Pete Seeger, or Sharon, Lois and Bram?

 

Was I choosing the “better part?” Or was I just being a husband? Oblivious to the need for preparation to insure a successful vacation?  One thing I know for certain is this: without Lynne doing all that work, I wouldn’t have been free to go out and buy doughnuts and cue up my favorite song.  Without her taking on the responsibility of making sure everyone packed enough underwear and socks, toothbrushes, and a favorite bedtime toy, the vacation might never have happened. 

 

And the same be said of Martha’s hospitality and service.  Like any good hostess, she is busy making sure every empty glass is filled, every plate piled high, every need cared for, every guest welcomed.  Without her efforts there would be no party… Often, this story is cited as a depiction of two kinds of spirituality: service and contemplation.  Martha is service; all hustle and bustle, Mary is contemplation; sitting quietly at the foot of Jesus. And so, some people read the words of Jesus as a verdict on types of spirituality, i.e. that service may be good, but contemplation is better.

 

But, I don’t think that is what Jesus is saying here.  Think about how Jesus answers Martha; what does He actually say:  You are anxious and worried about many things… But only one thing is necessary.  Ok, Jesus… but what is that one thing?

 

The Anglican theologian N.T. Wright often recommends that when we are confused by a passage in the Gospels we should look at the context of the passage; what comes before it? What comes soon after? Reread the entire chapter…

 

The story of Martha and Mary comes directly after the story of the Good Samaritan.  And the story of the Good Samaritan comes as a kind of answer to the question: What is the one thing? What is necessary? What do I have to do to get into Heaven?  And that question is asked by someone who is “anxious” and worried and trying to put Jesus to the test (cf. Luke 10: 25-37). 

 

The Good Samaritan story is a story about a man who knows the one thing necessary: love, compassion, to care for others. The priest and the Levite cross to the other side of the road when they see the victim, because they are blinded by their cares and anxieties. They’re living not in the what is, but in the what if… What if the man is dead and I become unclean? What if he is contagious? What if his needs are too big, his wounds too serious and I can’t help him? Or I don’t know what to do? Or worse, what if I do the wrong thing? What if he is just faking and it is a trap? What if? What if? What if?  

 

But the Samaritan –who may have his own worries and needs and obligations—doesn’t hesitate; he simply goes to the injured man and show love, acts with compassion, becomes a neighbor.

 

What I hear in this story of Martha and Mary isn’t a dichotomy between service and contemplation, but a lesson about focus, about attending to the one necessary thing.  Martha’s service and food and hospitality were a blessing that even Jesus in the moment was enjoying, consider the story of Abraham and the three visitors (cf. Genesis 18:1-10) if you want another example of someone rushing around to prepare food for his guests.  The difference is, Abraham never complains. He is filled with joy at the opportunity to show hospitality, to serve these three strangers.  He gives himself fully to the one necessary thing. 

 

Jesus doesn’t correct Martha’s actions; He doesn’t tell her to slow down and sit still for a minute or come join with Mary at His feet.  Instead, He addresses her attitude. The scattered focus of her anxiety.  As the psalmist says: All doers of evil are scattered (cf. Psalm 92:9).

 

I think Jesus is calling us to focus; to give ourselves completely to whatever we are doing, whatever we are committing ourselves to.  And to not worry about the what ifs.  Sufficient unto the day are the troubles there of...  or to put it another way: Don’t worry about what other people are doing? Or saying… Or thinking… Just be present to the moment, present to what you are doing, who you are with, and do it with love. Let God take care of the rest. 

Doing what is expected --Some thoughts on The Parable of the Good Samaritan (15th Sunday in ordinary Time)

 This Sunday we had one of the most famous passages in the Bible: The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). This is one of those familiar stories that I can easily listen to with one ear tied behind my… well, you get the idea: because I’ve heard it so many times, I don’t always give it my full attention.  And I’ve heard so many homilies preached on it that I quite easily find myself drifting off during the preaching, wondering about breakfast, whether there is enough buttermilk to make biscuits… Do we have any flour? What about tortillas? We have those ripe avocados. Maybe I should make tacos… Which, of course, leads to trying to remember how old that bottle of salsa in the back of the refrigerator actually is.

 

BUT… that isn’t how I want to treat the Gospel. What I would rather do, is listen to it fully, every time… as if I were hearing it anew. Fresh.  But, I also want to know it. Have it planted in my heart.  And so I have begun reading the Sunday readings earlier in the week, in preparation for church, to kind of get myself ready; to let things start percolating inside me.  And something struck me about this familiar parable that I had not considered before. And that is the scholar who asks the question that gets everything started.  Trying to put Jesus to the test, he asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t just answer. Instead, He asks the scholar, what does the law say? What do you think?  And the scholar answers that we are to love first God, and then “your neighbor as yourself” (cf. 10:27).  So far so good. But then, even after Jesus has affirmed his answer, the scholar, in an effort to justify himself, pushes the point. He wants to know just exactly who is my neighbor? And this is when Jesus tells the famous parable of the man beset by thieves who leave him to die beside the road and the 3 people who see this poor man. First there was a priest who saw the man and moved to the other side of the road –kept walking. And next a Levite passed by and saw the man and did the same.  Both have avoided contact with the victim who lies bleeding (possibly dying) beside the road.  Now, for me it is easy to see in these two men, a priest and a Levite (a descendent of Levi who assists in the temple), icons of some kind of hypocrisy. They are supposed to be holy men, Godly men, but instead we see them avoiding contact (even eye contact) with someone in need.  And usually, that is all the attention I give to these two sorry figures. But today, this parable opened my eyes in a new way—which is what a parable is supposed to do. First, I began to remember all the times I too avoided eye-contact with someone in need.  With the homeless man at the stoplight who was asking for money, or the needy neighbor who calls to ask for help with her sprinkler—sadly, I must admit there have been times I didn’t answer the phone because I knew it was her and I knew what she wanted, and I didn’t want to do it. Of course there were extenuating circumstances: I didn’t go out in the heat. I had just made myself a sandwich, or I just started watching a show or maybe I’d just poured myself a glass of milk and a plate of Oreos.

 

Anyway, I began wondering about these two, and their extenuating circumstances… What would make them behave this way? And I remembered there are some very strict cleanliness laws in the Torah about contact with the dead, and contact with blood. If the priest were on his way to temple, perhaps to serve at the altar and offer sacrifice, to religious intervene for all the people who had brought offerings, then stopping to help this victim on the road would make him unclean. He wouldn’t be able to fulfill his priestly duties –at least not until he’d gone through a ritual cleansing of his own, which could take seven days (cf. Lev. 19:11).  The same would go for the Levite as well. On top of that, there is a priestly warning in Leviticus 21:11 that says a priest should not profane himself by coming into the presence of a dead body, even for the sake of his mother or father. 

 

Read in this light, these might have seemed appropriate “extenuating circumstances” for the audience Jesus was speaking to, especially with this legal scholar standing there. And I have begun wondering whether those possible extenuating circumstances might be part of the lesson Jesus is teaching.  A lesson about what we are supposed to do, what the world expects of us, and about moving beyond that. Moving beyond the questions of what do I have to do to get my prize; to inherit the Kingdom? What is the minimum requirement to make sure I go to Heaven?  Teaching in parables, I think Jesus is calling us to see the very question of responsibility and reward in a new way.

 

And so we come to the “Good” Samaritan.  He doesn’t concern himself with what he is supposed to do, with what the world expects of him. He simply sees a fellow human in need and stops to offer help, to do what he can—even at his own inconvenience. 

 

That seems enough of a lesson right there. But, because I have my Bible open, I see another lesson that I have missed all along. My blindness keeps becoming more and more clear to me. Perhaps that is why I am writing a series of poems about a blind man… Anyway, back to the Gospel.  Here is one more thing to consider the next time you read this story:  Just before Jesus stops to teach this lesson, he and the disciples tried to pass through a Samaritan village, but the people there would not receive Him. They were upset that He was heading to Jerusalem (cf. 9:51-56). And so we have that context: the Samaritans who rejected Jesus and His disciples, and this Samaritan who has become an exemplar of hospitality and compassion. What does that mean to us? Why would Jesus tell this story in this context? And why make the “good” man a Samaritan?  So many wonderful rich questions. This passage just keeps opening up more deeply, more profoundly, with every reading.

 

I guess that is the real lesson. Don’t think you know the answers. Don’t think you know someone else’s story, their depths, their injuries and their dreams? Like these parables, each and every one of us is a mystery and a revelation. We are all walking contradictions, one moment selfish, the next a saint. One moment a fool, and the next –well, in my case, still a fool, but now a different kind of fool. 

 

I hope this makes some sense.  What I mean to say is this: every time someone asks for your help, they are offering you a blessing. They are sharing with you their God-given grace of “need.”  They are giving you the opportunity to be blessed by helping them, to receive the grace of laying down your life for another; setting aside your own wants and needs for the sake of another.

 

Perhaps the priest and the Levite miss out on that opportunity, because they were too focused on their responsibilities, on their “duties.”  Whereas the Samaritan is simply focused on the person right there in front of him, or next door, or knocking at his car window. He is simply being Christ for others by living in the moment, and receiving every opportunity to serve as a chance to find blessing.  We cannot do everything, but we can do something, instead of walking away.  And that is how the parable opened my eyes today.  How about you?  What is this famous Parable saying to you?

 

 

 

 

 

Shaking the dust off your feet… Thoughts on Luke 10:1-12 (the gospel reading for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

For some of us, letting go of the past is hard.  I cannot tell you how many times I have found myself cringing or wincing over some mistake or cruelty I committed years ago.  I’m 63 and I still ache with shame when I think of how my 6 or 7 year old self treated a little boy who came to my door and asked if he could be my friend.  I imagine he was new in the neighborhood and didn’t know any other children. I remember telling him I already had one, and closing the door. As if he were trying to sell me a set of encyclopedias or another sister.  Why would I be so heartless?  I think I was afraid of his need for a friend. His vulnerability—as if it might be contagious.  That memory still haunts me.  And there are so many more. I have done my share of being a jerk.  

 

And I have done my share of stupid things as well.  Letting people down, breaking promises… Had my share of disappointments, failures, and probably more than my share of successes.  But, living in the past, whether it is recalling the highs or the lows, the hurts or the happinesses, is not healthy.  And this little bit of advice about shaking the dust off your feet seems like quite good advice not just for the apostles, but for all of us.  Reading this passage, it occurred to me that what Jesus is telling His disciples is good coaching advice. He is telling them, shake it off. Let it go.  Don’t get focused on that last play, that last pitch, that last swing. Let it go. Pick up your bat, dust yourself off, and get back in the box; get ready for the next pitch.  And remember,  Babe Ruth struck out almost twice as often as he hit homeruns. Just saying…

 

So, what is the context for this piece of advice?  It appears in all three synoptic gospels. Jesus is sending the disciples out on their own and giving them advice about how to behave.  This advice is related what might feel like a failure, like a strike-out; specifically, it is related to being rejected by a town:  “Whatever town you enter and they do not make you welcome…shake the dust of that town off your feet as you leave.” (cf. Mt. 10:14, Mk 6:11, Lk 10:11). 

 

I like to think of this advice as especially necessary after last week’s gospel reading. Last week we read the passage from Luke 9 in which James and John ask Jesus if He wants them to call down fire from Heaven on a Samaritan village that wouldn’t welcome them.  James and John are holding onto the hurt of the rejection. They want revenge. They want to strike back. They want to lash out at the hurt they felt… the hurt they still feel. Because they are clinging to the hurt. They are holding onto the memory of that painful moment.  But Jesus says, no to such behavior. Jesus always says no to living in the past. Instead—He reminds us again and again to be present to the grace of the moment. This moment. Right here. Right now.

 

As Bob Dylan once sang:

“Shake the dust off of your feet,

Don’t look back.

There’s nothing that can hold you down

Nothing that you lack…”

 

Life is full of disappointments, and sadly too often we ourselves may be the cause of that disappointment. No matter how hard we try to be good, we are human. We will fail. We may thoughtlessly reject someone, and (in our turn) we too will probably be rejected.  Don’t cling to the hurt. Don’t cling to the painful memory. Don’t wallow in it and grow bitter or resentful.

 

As Fred Astaire, another great American singer, once sang: “Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.”