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July 22, 22007  Pentecost 8, All Souls' Episcopal Church 

Mary has chosen that good part

The Bible tells us that Martha, Mary, and their brother, Lazarus, were friends of our Lord Jesus. And so, it should not surprise us that Jesus is attending a dinner party at their home. While Martha, a good and conscientious hostess, prepares the meal and waits on the guests, her sister Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and listens attentively to his word. Martha becomes irritated with having to do all the work without Mary’s help, and approaches Jesus on the matter. Our Lord replies: “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things; but one thing is needful, and Mary has chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

       One rather agenda laden interpretation of these events suggests that Mary was being something of a renegade by sitting at Jesus feet and listening to him like the men-folk while Martha thought she should be doing the women’s work in the kitchen. The problem with this interpretation is that no men are mentioned as being there, although we may safely assume they were there. Also, if Mary was where she didn’t belong according to societal standards, a man would have brought up the matter for Jesus to shoot down. But, that’s not what this account is about. It is about doing what is most needful.

       The church has always understood Martha and Mary to be representative of the active and contemplative aspects of human life. Martha, busy and troubled with many things, represents the active soul while Mary, sitting at the feet of her Lord, represents the contemplative soul. I will refrain from asking for a show of hands as to who thinks they’re more like Mary and how many Martha types we have in our congregation. The plain fact is that both types are needed. In fact, we need to be both individually. There is a time for work and a time for prayer; a time for action and a time for reflection. 

      So, why has Mary chosen the better part? In typical sermon fashion, I give you three reasons. 1: Have you ever heard someone say, almost piously, that “the ends cannot justify the means”? Well, ends are purposes. If means cannot be justified by purposes, what on earth is there that can possibly justify them? The problem, rather, is that we either have bad purposes or we have no ultimate idea of what our purposes are. In this account, Mary, as representing the contemplative soul, is concerned about the proper end or purpose of things. Endless activity is like driving around and around without ever consulting a map or charting a course. T. S. Eliot put it well in Choruses from The Rock:

Endless invention, endless experiment
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
Where is the life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

      Martha is all about service, and service of others is not only a wonderful and Christian activity, it is what is required of us by the demands of the Gospel. Our deeds matter. And yet service cannot supplant or take place first before the need we all have for spiritual attunement. Martha wants to make music. Mary knows that you’ve got to be in tune first.

      2: I was visiting a parishioner a few weeks ago who has reached an advanced age by anyone’s standards and who offered an insight which suggested to me that wisdom has been acquired in her many years. She said, “There is too much emphases these days in marriages upon the children. Everything couples do, they say, they’re doing for the children. We invite children into OUR marriage, not the other way around.” And she is right. I thought of this while talking the other day with a friend who called me from England. He was upset about his brother’s recent divorce. They were a couple with three children heavily involved in sports and other worthwhile activities which occupied almost all their free time. It led them to spend less and less time in church on Sundays. But, they thought that was okay because they were with the children and supporting the children. The problem with all this is that the couple in question was allowed activities to camouflage problems in their marriage which ought to have been addressed. They were so busy focusing on the children that they didn’t notice themselves growing farther and farther apart. Sometimes you have to stop and focus on the thing itself. That is what Mary was doing in today’s lesson.

      3: Finally, the concept of a secular society – which is simply a society which is not a theocracy run by the church – is only possible when the institutions in that society are understood to be the living out in practical terms of spiritual principles. There was a time when that was a thing more or less understood. However, society in our own time has become increasingly hostile to religious and spiritual themes and principles. Atheists have become almost evangelical in their zeal, and spiritual principles are everywhere under attack. Making maters worse is a lack of understanding by religious leaders. There is no lack of those willing to lead, but there is very little understanding. Meanwhile, what T. S. Eliot called “The Waste Land” is very much upon us.

       In such a world, an attention to the deep things of the spirit is essential not only for growth but ultimately for survival. Mary has chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her. Why shall it not be taken away from her? It shall not because she is focusing upon what cannot ever fade away or be diminished. Mighty empires fade away and great structures crumble over time; wealth is depleted in time; every body ages, and even talents and abilities fade, but the word of God endures forever and the things of the spirit are eternal. Seek those things which are above. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.   

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