Busyness

Amos 8:1-12
Psalm 52
Colossians 1:15-25
Luke 10:38-42

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

It’s one of the great “Women’s Fellowship” questions of all time, are you a “Mary” or a “Martha.” Ladies, you can help me here. The Martha’s do the work in the kitchen. The Martha’s are the women who make up the Funeral Dinner and Kitchen committees. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying these women are passive homebodies. These women know how to get things done and if you should besmirch the church kitchen you will pay. The Reverend Bill Clarke at the First Presbyterian Church in Lamar, Colorado, one of my mentors, taught me to be careful when putting away silverware because spoons put in the wrong drawer can bring a fate worse than death.

Now when it’s time to come to the lessons and the worship and such, that’s where the Mary’s take over. They are a little more studious and are definitely more comfortable presenting it. Before the event, they’re the ones doing the organizing. They’re doing lesson plans and putting together the teaching supplies too. Of course, it’s the Martha’s who make sure the snacks are on the table to gnosh.

I’m not saying Martha’s can’t have Mary traits and Mary’s can’t have Martha traits, but I am saying that we have comfort zones. Not many of us excel in both, some do, but not many. Both are blessed. Both are necessary. I’m glad we have both in this congregation.

When it came to Vacation Bible School I was blessed. At the first organizing meeting, I did my part, then the women, I was the only man at that meeting so I repeat, then the women ran with it. When I had to go with Marie to the doctor’s office on Friday, all I had to do was put together the lesson plan and one of the Mary’s took it and made it sing. It’s as if the theme for the week was “No Problems.” Some of the ladies apologized to me for this or that. I smiled to say that everything was fine because it was. It wasn’t perfect because nothing is, but the lessons, the music, the crafts, the play; was glorious. God bless all of you Mary’s and Martha’s. It doesn’t always run that way though. It didn’t with the first Mary and Martha.

According to Luke’s gospel: “As Jesus and his disciples were on their way to Jerusalem, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?’” It’s that last sentence I want to focus on.

Hospitality is important. It has been important since Abram and Sarai (that’s right, they weren’t Abraham and Sarah yet) hosted three travelers in their tent. It was at this meeting where they were blessed with their son Isaac and their new names. Martha wasn’t fishing for a blessing, she just had her Lord, his disciples, probably various hangers on and very little warning that they were on the way. When she got the news, she went into “Martha Stewart Mode.” She had to get everything just so and it wasn’t when he got there.

The New International Version says Martha was “distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.” The New Living Translation said Martha was “distracted by the big dinner she was preparing.” In this case, like the New Living Translation, it’s a bit more descriptive. It has that feel that the Messiah has come for dinner with the feel that Martha is trying for a spot on “Iron Chef Palestine.” She’s got her sauces on. The meat is over the spit. The naan is being baked and it’s going to be yummy. Maybe there’s an antipasto ready to be passed around. Everybody has washed their feet and she has that laundry sorted.

Everything’s going according to plan, almost. Jesus is teaching but Martha’s sister Mary is at the feet of the Lord. She’s taking the position of a disciple instead of helping which is her place not only as a woman but as the younger sister. Doesn’t she know her place?

Here’s today’s bible study lesson. We need to know what translations or paraphrases we are reading. All translation is interpretation; you’ll hear me say that a lot. The New International is a very good translation. The NIV is a pretty easy read and has a more evangelical tilt. That doesn’t mean conservative/evangelical, it means it’s accessible to new seekers.

Paraphrases take more risks and generally aren’t translations from the original Hebrew and Greek at all. They rephrase other versions to make them easier to read. Unfortunately, in making things easier, some things get lost, some things get tacked on. In the NIV we read “She [Mary] came to him and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!’”

Eugene Peterson’s famous paraphrase, The Message this reads, “Later, she stepped in, interrupting them. ‘Master, don’t you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? Tell her to lend me a hand.’” Gosh Martha, passive-aggressive much? No other translation takes this tone with the Lord. Martha is so lost in her busyness that she comes off cranky.

This is the normal point in the sermon where the pastor points out that Jesus points out Martha is worried about many things but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better and it will be better. Remember, after “Iron Chef Palestine” Mary will have the learning and Martha will have the dishes, thus comes the rhetorical question “who is wiser?” Well I’m not going there.

Now, something I find interesting as a language geek is the Greek verbs used in this passage to describe what Mary and Martha are doing. More accurately, I find their prefixes interesting. The prefix used in the Mary verb is para-, it means alongside. The Martha verb prefix is peri- meaning around. We say Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet and Martha is distracted, but to peel the Greek verb like an onion, Mary is literally sitting alongside and Martha is literally hovering around. Other ways to translate the verb used to describe Mary’s activity include overburdened or overwhelmed. Mary is being with Jesus while Martha is doing things for Jesus. Martha is paying attention to cultural norms and Mary is not, but because Martha is not paying attention to Jesus, she doesn’t really know what he wants, does she?

So the question for us isn’t study vs. service, or active vs. contemplative, the question is where do we put ourselves in relationship to Jesus? Do we sit alongside him or do we hover around him? Do we rest at his feet, moving when he moves? Or do we constantly work anticipating our Lord’s next move, his next need, making plans which may or may not come to fruition? When we are alongside Christ, as he moves we can move. If we are constantly in motion, making contingency plans, when the Messiah moves we might be in a committee meeting trying to figure out the next big thing for ourselves. Or worse, we could be trying to figure out how to recapture the glory of days gone past.
It is better to be alongside than around.

I know cradle Disciples and UCC members may not be familiar with this, but if you have ever been to a church that used creeds, our reading from Colossians may sound familiar. Colossians 1:15-20 says:

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

It’s very nice to say, “I have no creed but Christ,” but in the earliest days of Christianity, theologians had too many different ideas about what that meant and some of the crazier ideas needed to be weeded out. So, in 325 AD, Roman Emperor Constantine called a council of Bishops to make the very important decisions about “what is the nature of God.” Decisions which split the church between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox. In 381, Roman Emperor Theodosius I continued and completed this work which became the Nicene Creed. I could tell you more, but then you’d have to kill me, or at least you'd want to kill me.

All you need to know is that the writer of Colossians, thought to be a student of Paul from sometime around 80 AD, wrote this to remind his readers, the church at Colossae, Paul’s thoughts on the nature of Jesus which are orthodox in the church around the world. Many of these words making their way into a creed used over 1600 years later. This is the same Jesus we all understand. This is who we stand alongside.

So yes, Mary chose the better way, not because there are fewer dishes or because the meal Martha prepares nourishes for a time and the Body and Blood of Christ nourish for a lifetime but because it is better to be alongside Christ than it is to be around Christ. We do this through study. We do this through contemplation. We do this through remembering our stories. And we do this through sharing our stories. It’s not a bad idea to have something to gnosh on, but a genuine word of God and a Chips Ahoy are in the words of our Lord, “what is better.” After all, if the word is sincere, store bought cookies will be good enough.