Proper 11 Year C

This is another notes sermon. I have tried to clean it up so it all looks vaguely like sentences for you all out there in the internet realm. I enjoyed preaching this one, though it was not quite the magical sermon prep time that I had imagined. I felt like I could have managed my time better during the week and gotten this one done early. Instead it took one of those night before revelations to tie up the loose ends for me. As I talked about this passage (readings found here), I found that women have a very hard time with this passage. I suspect there are plenty of men who do too, but all the women I talked with had a hard time imagining themselves as anyone but Martha, I think. Here was my crack at these sisters.

I'm going to take you on a little journey that I will call adventures in writing a sermon this morning. Perhaps it would be better called adventures in not writing a sermon but that might be a little untrue because it tuned out I was making true this gospel passage the whole time.

See I’d like to blame the heat. It's probably an easy target but I just got stuck in an over thinking over trying loop this week and couldn't seem to figure out this passage.

I mean-it seems easy enough. Sisters fighting about their roles. One wanting the help of the other.

This week I found that I was recreating the busyness of Martha as I flitted about and worried that the sermon was not coming together the way I imagined.

So with that I'll tell you about my sermon process this week. Peel back a mysterious layer of being a priest.

It all began when, after reading through the passages appointed for the week I began to feel a little lost. So I turned to some commentaries.

For those who don’t know, commentaries are often written by Biblical scholars, theologians, or even just other ministers and priests. They offer up their thinking and tend to suggest directions you might take your sermon in. They can be very helpful and a good way of jump starting your own thinking. Or, as the case was for me this week, they can lead you further down a rabbit hole.

The first few commentaries I read took this passage in it’s context between last week’s Good Samaritan passage and the very next few verses of Luke where Jesus teaches the disciples the Lord’s Prayer and theorized that Martha is like the Good Samaritan, she acts and Mary is more like the Lord’s prayer. In this interpretation Mary is prayerful and studious, where Martha is just trying to do too much.

The next one I read suggested that it is not Martha’s activity that is problematic, rather it is her distraction. The better part that Mary has chosen is to keep her focus on Jesus.

            -Her activity of hospitality has distracted her from actual hospitality.

-The sermon this commentary suggests would be about doing and our desire to act can prevent us from being fully present. I am assured that a sermon around the idea that we are perpetually distracted in our modern age would help us all to be more present, consider when we act to merely seem busy, and look for ways to keep God as our focus.

But I didn’t or maybe couldn’t stop there.

Next up was one that explained the problem with Martha was the worry and anxiety she has. Ah, yes. This anxiety is a problem with our modern age. Anxiety can keep us from being present, from being open to learning, and is marked by an inability to try.

            -a sermon could focus on fear and anxiety an how they keep us confined in roles assigned to us. It is Martha’s anxiety that keeps her in the kitchen.

The final one I read cautioned me against reading too much into Mary’s presence at Jesus’ feet.

            -She is in the place of a student

            -Most Rabbis would not have allowed a woman to be in this position

            -Her body is literally taking the place of a man.

-But this commentary urged me not to interpret too much about this because poor Martha is still doing hospitality work. And  she gets no help from Mary or Jesus with her work. Thus women are still getting the short end of the stick.

With all of these swirling thoughts I was unable to do much of anything.

When I sat with some women on Friday evening, they asked if I had finished my sermon. “NO” I admitted sheepishly.

When I told them which Gospel was appointed for the week, they seems to wrinkle up their noses “oh they said, that’s the one where Mary takes it easy and Martha has to do all the work”

Despite the many commentaries I read, and despite my own thoughts, I felt unable to redeem Martha. This was the point where I felt totally stuck. I felt unsure about where the good news for us was.

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks, I could not redeem Martha, but I certainly had been Martha all week.

“Sarah, Sarah, you are worried and distracted by many things. There is need of only one thing.”

In my efforts and thoughts I had totally  missed the mark.

            -I had over thought this whole passage

There is need of only one thing: to focus on Jesus’ word and divine communication.

Even though Martha had the best intentions, create a hospitable welcome for her Lord, and even though I began with the right question: how do I bring the good news to the people at the corner of Clinton and Montague? We each got totally caught up in the activity of it and didn’t make time to sit at Jesus’ feet and hear the word.

-Perhaps this whole adventure in sermon process could have been avoided if either Martha or I had the courage to put down what we were doing and go to the feet  of our Lord.

The simplicity of Jesus’ revelation: there is need of only one thing is a call for us to refocus our hearts and lives around God.

The simple good news of this passage is Mary’s presence at Jesus’ feet. It shows us that all are welcome there, even those who society would not imagine should have access to God.

And when Jesus describes Mary’s presence there he uses an important word: choice. Jesus says that Mary chose this place, and invites us all to make that same choice.

AMEN.