July 18, 2010

Clay Nelson

Pentecost 8     Luke 10:38-42


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The Sufis tell of a certain wise man widely thought to have become irrational in his presentation of facts and arguments. The authorities, fearing he might be a danger to the public, decide to test him.

On the day of the test he paraded past the court mounted on an ass, facing the donkey’s rear. When the time came for him to speak for himself, he asked the judges, “When I rode in, which way was I facing?”

The judges answered, “You were facing the wrong way.”

“You make my point,” he answered. “From another point of view, I was facing the right way. It was the ass which was facing the wrong way.”

This story illustrates the anxiety I am experiencing in addressing the story of Martha’s annoyance with her sister Mary when she chooses to sit at Jesus’ feet instead of helping to prepare tea. Being not as brave – or is it foolhardy – as Jesus who enters into the spat to side with Mary, I am reluctant to enter the fray at all. I have wished several times this past week that I had the foresight to check out what the Gospel was for this Sunday before I prepared the preaching roster. If I had, Ann, Linda, Carolin or Denise would be up here now. While there is more to it than this, you cannot discuss this story without engaging gender issues. As a hetero-male approaching this story about two women in conflict over how best to be a disciple, I fear I will be the ass and not the sage.

What I’ve learned the past week in scouring the commentaries, bantering with the staff team, consulting colleagues, and discussing it over a dinner made by a “Mary” who resents having been culturally conditioned to be a “Martha,” is that this seemingly simple story is heard and interpreted in a multitude of ways. Our understanding is shaped by our gender, cultural context, and experience. For some Martha is the heroine, for others, Mary. The story may seem simple and even familiar from our daily lives, but how to be a good disciple is not made intuitively obvious by it.

On the face of it the story seems to say that the best disciple is the one who sits passively at the feet of Jesus and listens, never saying a word. Being busy preparing a meal, while all well and good, is secondary in importance. It merely supports discipleship. It’s not valued as much. No wonder the women on the staff team thought Martha should’ve taken off her apron and said. “Bugger this, I’ll join Mary. Let’s see what they think ‘the better part’ is when their tummies start rumbling”

Even men should be able to get why Jesus’ rebuke of Martha is a hot button issue for women. Some things haven’t changed since first century Palestine. Twenty-first century New Zealand women are still expected to provided hospitality and prepare meals. Sure there are many men today who know how to cook a meal or at least “man” a “barbie,” but few who live with women feel ultimately responsible for managing the home even if they do pick up their socks off the floor or occasionally dust. If you think things are different than in Jesus’ day, check out how many men help with morning tea after the service. In my nearly five years here I can think of three who did it for a short while.

Considering that reality, no wonder women feel conflicted by Jesus’ praise of Mary at Martha’s expense. Society expects women to initiate and manage all that being hospitable requires, but when they do as expected, then they are not appreciated, but put down for doing it. It’s not unlike when God hardened Pharaoh’s heart and then clobbered him with seven plagues for his hardheartedness. And clobber women with this story we have. Those who opposed ordaining women to the priesthood 35 years ago in the US certainly used Martha to justify their position of keeping women in their place. Their point of view was, “Sure women are important in the church…in a support role.” That has traditionally always been their role was their argument, conveniently forgetting that men made the rules. With England still resisting the ordination of women as bishops and the Vatican this week equating ordaining women with paedophilia by declaring both gravely evil, clearly the clobbering continues.

But because this simple story is not so simple, Mary has also been used to support gender equality when she isn’t being lauded for her silence. Since the socially acceptable thing for Mary, as a woman, was to help her sister, sitting at Jesus feet to be his student was not a passive act. It was a bold act of liberation. She defied convention without a word. From this point of view, Jesus did not put women down but raised them up, even if he still didn’t help make the coffee. He may not have been just any man, but he was still a man conditioned by the social context in which he lived.

To avoid this tangle of gender issues, many a male preacher has focused on the behaviour of Martha versus Mary rather than the role of women. The favourite themes for such sermons are the importance of the contemplative life over the active life or condemning the rivalry between Mary and Martha for Jesus’ attention. Martha tends to come out badly in these sermons.

My point of view, which may make me a wrong-facing donkey, is that the story isn’t about any of these things. It isn’t about siding with either Mary or Martha. They are both worthy disciples in their own way. Ideally, we have some of both in us, be we male or female. Choosing between them is to choose against a part of ourselves. No, it is about how to obtain eternal life.

To get to this viewpoint one must broaden the context. Luke tells the story of Mary and Martha immediately following the Parable of the Good Samaritan. In that story, the lawyer asks Jesus how to obtain eternal life. He then answers his own question, “by loving God and your neighbour as yourself.” But because the lawyer is consumed with himself and his own self-justification he sets himself up for rebuke by asking, “Who is my neighbour?” The rebuke is the Good Samaritan. It is about not WHO is your neighbour, but HOW to be neighbourly. It’s certainly not about winning an argument against Jesus to quell his anxiety about his self-worth.

The Martha and Mary story focuses on the “loving God” requirement for eternal life. In the story both are shown loving God: Mary by sitting at Jesus feet and Martha by inviting Jesus into her home and serving him. The difference was that Martha was anxious about it. Like any good hostess she wanted everything to be just right. What Jesus picked up on was her anxiety. She wanted her service to Jesus to reflect well on her. Like the lawyer, she is letting her need for self-justification limit her love. But for the sake of argument, say it was Mary who was anxious in the story. If she was the one worrying about receiving Jesus’ approval for being a good student, it would’ve been Mary Jesus rebuked.

By juxtaposing the two stories, Luke reminds us that we don’t love our neighbour or God for our own sake. When we put ourselves first we have it backassward. When we let our selves get in the way, being one with the love that is God is unobtainable. From that point of view, it is in losing our selves in loving God and neighbour that marks us as Jesus’ disciples. How to do that is the challenge: be we a Martha or Mary, a male or female, a sage or donkey.