Pentecost 6 C: Listening to Jesus Today

Luke 10:38-42

Dear Partner in Preaching,

What if their names were Matt and Marty, rather than Mary and Martha?

I’m talking, of course, about the two characters interacting with Jesus in this week’s Gospel reading. Because they are two women, and because they seem – at least momentarily – at odds with each other, and because Jesus appears to take a side, we have for centuries tried to read this story as about discipleship and yet somehow regularly made it about women’s roles. Women’s roles in the church, in leadership, in society, and beyond. Goodness, but the pull of this interpretation is so strong that it has escaped Scripture and entered popular culture. (Consider, as just one example, that the women assigned to be household servants in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian The Handmaid’s Tale are called “Marthas.”)

But what if these two weren’t women? I mean, how different are Jesus’ words to Martha – “You are worried and distracted by many things, but there is need of only one thing”(10:41) – than his words to his would-be followers, all of whom are distracted by urgent “but first…” tasks to which they must attend before following Jesus (9:56-62). Because they happen to be women, we have unfortunately let the narrative dichotomy of the story – work or sit, be busy or be still – become a functional dichotomy in how we understand, characterize, and far too often restrict the options facing women. (Again, think of the clearly prescribed and painfully limited roles afforded women in Gilead, the religiously oriented country in which The Handmaid’s Tale takes place.)

So I’ll ask again: what if these two weren’t women. Then this story might not be about a conflict between Mary and Martha, or between two sisters, or between two options for how women should behave – busily attending to the “woman’s work” of running a household or listening attentively to the male leader – or about any of a number of other themes we’ve placed on this story in order to validate our own cultural assumptions. Instead, this story might be about timing and priorities, about circumstances and contexts which demand different behaviors, even about the paramount call of Jesus to his followers then and now.

Jesus, after all, has set his face for Jerusalem, and the urgency of his mission is paramount. At this particular moment, both disciples – indeed, all who would be his disciples – cannot afford to be distracted but must attend to his mission, his ministry, and his impending sacrifice. I mean, here’s the thing: even those closest to Jesus misunderstood so much of what was about to happen. They assumed strength would be demonstrated by a show of power, that God’s justice would be made manifest through violence, that vulnerability equated weakness, and so on and so on. Of course they – from those who would bury a parent first to those who would run a household efficiently in order to offer hospitality – need to pay attention, need to be called from the ordinary, even if important, details of daily life to see God’s surprising, unsettling revelation unfold and challenge our assumptions about God, about ourselves, and about how we relate to one another.

I’m not sure things are all that different twenty-centuries later. We still get so easily caught up in the ordinary, if also important, details of raising families and getting our work done and making sure our congregations are at least functioning if not always flourishing, that it’s easy to buy into cultural assumptions about meaning, purpose, identity, and potential. Which is why Sunday worship and other opportunities to gather as fellow disciples matters. No matter how busy we are, not matter how caught up we may get in pursuing our careers or taking care of our kids, no matter how preoccupied we may get with headlines and all the rest, it’s helpful – no, actually, needful and necessary as Jesus says – to attend to Jesus’ words, to have our culturally-shaped assumptions challenged, and to be introduced once again to the God whose power is made manifest in weakness, whose love triumphs justice, and whose peace is achieved and offered without resorting to violence.

Having suspended for a moment our awareness that the two characters in this story are women in order to better hear Jesus’ words to all of his disciples today, perhaps this is the point to return to Mary and Martha as two women. Because, in the end, that matters, too, but perhaps not for the reasons we assumed. What I find meaningful is not that these two women are offered, let alone represent, two options for being disciples – because I just don’t think that’s Luke’s intention – but rather that Jesus is addresses these two women as significant actors in the story. Notice, they are not portrayed as Lazarus’ – or anyone else’s – sisters in Luke’s story. They stand on their own. Mary chooses to listen to the words of the teacher, in the company of all those men, and is not scolded but commended. Martha is invited to put aside the tasks of running a household to do likewise. Both women deserve and receive Jesus’ attention. Both are invited into full discipleship. Both have things to contribute no less valuable or significant than any other disciple. Jesus teaches Mary and invites Martha to join her because his words are for all, his call is to all, his invitation is for all, and he lives, works, dies, and is raised again so that we know there is room for all.

And that, my dear Partner in Preaching, matters, because we seem, at the moment, to be having a really hard time in the church and larger society to recognize that “all” really means all.

You see what amazing things happen when we stop to listen to Jesus?  🙂 Thanks for your attention, labor, and words to help call us to hear, be transformed by, and live God’s amazing and expansive love. Blessings on your proclamation.

Yours in Christ,
David

Post image: “Christ with Martha and Mary” by Mikhail Nesterov (1911)