Worship and Work
Luke 10:38-42 (MSG)
July 18, 2010
Rev. Nancy Pfaltzgraf
Martha and Mary! Can you get the picture? Martha invites Jesus and his disciples (and there were considerably more than twelve of them) to her home. Luke says she "welcomed him and made him feel quite at home." In other words Martha had the gift of hospitality. She probably loved having people in her home, feeding them and tending to their needs. But on this particular occasion she is feeling just a bit overwhelmed. There is so much to do and she seems to be the only one doing it! She might even be able to hear what's going on, listen to bits and pieces of what Jesus is saying. She probably wishes she could take the time to just sit and listen, but, Luke says, she is "pulled away by all she had to do in the kitchen."
Boy, can I relate! Whether it's hosting parties at my home or getting ready for some function at church there have been times when I've felt swamped, overwhelmed, distracted and pulled away by all that had to be accomplished. It's even worse on those occasions where I feel like I'm doing it all alone. There's something about having companions to share the load that makes it all seem easier somehow. But Martha was stuck doing it all herself!
Meanwhile Mary is sitting in rapt attention, hanging on every word that Jesus is saying, filled with wonder and perhaps even joy, because she seems to be just as welcome to receive the teachings of this rabbi as any of the men. Mary might even be aware that she should be in the kitchen helping her sister, after all that's where women belonged, but she just can't tear herself away.
I've been there too, and I know some of you have as well. Needing so much to be fed, filled, nurtured, cared for that we don't have anything to give. I've heard some of you say that you hear the call to help teach kid's quest, assist in the nursery, serve as liturgist or some other job that needs doing, but you really want or need to be in worship.
Yes, if we're honest I think we can relate to both Mary and Martha, although we may feel more kinship with one or the other. But the tension between these two sisters is familiar ground for most of us.
Finally, when Martha is at the end of her rope, she barges into the room where Jesus and the others are gathered and says, "Master, don't you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? Tell her to lend me a hand." Now I have to give Martha a lot of credit here. Me, I'd probably just fuss and fume and bang cupboard doors, hoping that Mary would catch my irritation by all the noise and get herself out to the kitchen where she belonged. I know for sure that if I had risked saying anything it would have been directly to Mary, not to Jesus. But Martha took her concern, her irritation, her need to Jesus. Isn't that what we're supposed to do? And I can well imagine that she was more than just a little put off by his response; at least I know that I would be. It seems uncharacteristically harsh and uncaring.
"Martha, dear Martha, you're fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it--it's the main course, and won't be taken from her."
Mary and Martha; what are we to make of this story? What is Jesus saying here? What had Martha missed that Mary got? And most importantly, what wisdom might we glean for our own lives?
This story, it seems to me, points to an age old tension in the church. Are disciples called to piety or service, prayer or action, worship or work? And, on the surface of this story, it would seem that Jesus would have his followers choose piety, prayer and worship over service, work and action. However, if we read the gospel of Luke from beginning to end, we would see that just before this story of Mary and Martha is the story of the encounter of Jesus and a lawyer and what we call the Parable of the Good Samaritan -a parable that is all about serving. In fact, it was the priest and the Levi who put worship ahead of responding to one in need that seem to fall short. And Jesus last words to the lawyer were "go and do likewise." Then, immediately following today's story, we find the disciples asking Jesus to teach them to pray. Whereupon he shares with them the prayer we have come to call the Lord's Prayer -which, as we will see next week, is a prayer that deals with both worship and work.
By his positioning of these stories, Luke seems to point to his understanding that those who seek to follow Jesus must balance piety and service, prayer and action, worship and work! But balance is a tenuous thing isn't it? We can be balanced at one moment and then all too easily out of balance in the next. Yet Jesus says what Mary has chosen will not be taken from her. So perhaps there is something more than just balance that we need to understand.
As I was thinking about this I thought of Jesus' instructions to his disciples to "seek first the
This past week I spent two days at an Interplay retreat called Praying the Body: Interplay as Soulwork and Deepening Our Body Wisdom. Cynthia Winton-Henry, one of the co-founders of Interplay, was our retreat leader. We danced and played and talked and sang. We listened and moved to the rhythms of beautiful music and the rhythms of our hearts. We talked a lot about noticing -one of the core elements of Interplay: noticing our body data; noticing the things that give life and energy, joy and ease; noticing, paying attention, being aware of the deep movements of the spirit in the movements of our life. At one point Cynthia gave each of us a card that said something about one of the core elements of Interplay. Then she invited us to reflect on what it might have to say to us. My card had the element known as leading and following. As I listened to the wisdom pulsing up from my deepest self, I began to think about my need to move back and forth between the two -sometimes being a courageous, insightful leader and sometimes being an ecstatic and joyful follower. Then I began thinking about Mary and Martha, and the Spirit seemed to be saying to me that the one thing that Mary had chosen was to listen to her own deepest, truest wisdom -that part of herself that danced in partnership with the Divine Dancer; to pay attention to what she needed in that moment; to trust that her deepest wisdom was life-giving and then to act on that wisdom. So despite her duty to help her sister in the kitchen, Mary chose to sit at Jesus' feet and learn. In another moment her choice might have led her into some act of caring, compassionate serving. Martha, on the other hand was distracted, pulled away from her deepest knowing, so caught up in "shoulds" and "oughts" that she missed the joy that could have been hers.
Worship and work, it seems to me, are part and parcel of the divine dance of life. Like Mary we are invited to listen deeply to the music of our soul and move with the rhythms of grace, ready to respond to the nudges of the Spirit with the right action at the right time and for the right reason. Amen.
Leave a comment