Mary, Martha and the Rummage Sale
The timing of the lectionary in the propers for the fixed dates in ordinary time has the story of Martha and her sister Mary entertaining Jesus – on the same Sunday that we conclude our annual Rummage Sale.
The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost – July 18, 2010
Luke 10:38-42
Margaret Rehberg and I finally get to be in church together at the same time. Not only was she on the road when I came back last Sunday, but even before I took off for three months, she spent a year serving as the Escort to the Grand Martha in the Eastern Star. This was a demanding role for her, one that required her to make journeys throughout the northwest, give speeches, and take on appropriate duties that support the work of the woman named for the heroine of today’s Gospel story.
We think that we know this story fairly well, don’t we? Jesus has come to dinner in the house of his friends, Mary and Martha of Bethany, and while Mary sits dreaming at the master’s feet, Martha calls out from the kitchen to ask Jesus to tell Mary to give her a hand with the chores. And Jesus surprises Martha by telling her that Mary has chosen the better part. For the rest of history, these two women have been idealized to represent the worker and the listener; the active life and the contemplative life. And Jesus tells us that the contemplative life is the better part. I used to try this out on my mother when I was a kid, except I wasn’t exactly sitting at the feet of Jesus when she would call me in to help out with the housework.
We think we know this story, but today I invite you today into its strangeness.. First off, I was struck by how very short it is. We’ve just had a fairly extensive story about the Good Samaritan that went on for several verses. Then there’s this little piece. The other thing that struck me is that in Luke’s Gospel, these are just some people Jesus knows in some village. There is no deep relationship like we know from their interactions in John’s Gospel. It’s almost as if Luke just pulled their names out of thin air to demonstrate a point, not to bring us those two impassioned women whose brother was raised from the dead, who challenge Jesus about resurrection, who anoint him with costly ointment. Somehow, this story becomes really different to me when I hear it again – different because it is now a couple of strangers in a strange setting. And the focus then becomes different, and strange.
We remember that last week we heard the story of the Good Samaritan told in response to the lawyer asking how to inherit eternal life. Love God; love your neighbor. But who is my neighbor? A man was on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho…. The neighborly character in that story was the one who did what was totally unexpected, who breached the dividing line between Samaritan and Jew, who stepped out of his comfort zone to rescue and restore a man who had been left for dead, who went above and beyond the call of duty in providing for his care, and covering his bill at the local inn. Remember, our lawyer wants to know how to inherit eternal life – the shocking answer is to step out of what is normal, go beyond what has been the expectation of his whole life.
And now Jesus is being welcomed in a home – and Martha is quite rightly doing what should be done to welcome any honored guest. She prepares food, she makes the guest comfortable, she sees to it that there is water for washing, a place to recline, all his needs are met. This is exactly what should be happening. Except wait. What’s Jesus doing, exactly, going into a home of two women? By himself? When he talks to a woman of Samaria in broad daylight by himself, his disciples get nervous. And here he is unchaperoned in the home of this woman Mary and her sister Martha? (Dan Brown fans, this is where we start wondering about their relationship).
And what exactly is Mary doing sitting with the man listening to him? Martha is absolutely right to be concerned about the propriety of this situation. It is out of the ordinary, strange, stretching beyond what we normally expect.
I read a quote from Thomas Merton the other day – he keeps showing up, doesn’t he? It’s from his book, Opening the Bible, and showed up in a daily mailing I get from the activist Christian group, Sojourners, people who probably think Martha got a bum rap. Merton writes, “There is, in a word, nothing comfortable about the Bible — until we manage to get so used to it that we make it comfortable for ourselves. But then we are perhaps too used to it and too at home in it. Let us not be too sure we know the Bible … just because we have learned not to have problems with it. Have we perhaps learned … not to really pay attention to it? Have we ceased to question the book and be questioned by it?”
How do we question this story from Luke? How are we questioned by it? If you worked on the rummage sale this past week, maybe you feel some solidarity with Martha doing all that work, and maybe you have some feelings about Mary sitting there talking to the company when there’s still work to be done. And Jesus, very inappropriately, it seems, entering the triangle she initiates when she tells him to get Mary to help her, tells her that Mary has chosen the better part. So if you’ve heard this scripture your whole life, it might indeed make you question this story from Luke to have your efforts relegated to useless worry. Do we have a right to argue with Jesus here? And maybe in arguing we can step away from the story to see the iconic brush strokes that depict for us that reckless, inappropriate love of God that the law and the prophets call us all to do. How do we inherit eternal life? Love God; love neighbor. Can we pull them apart?
There’s another story about hospitality in the Bible that this brings to mind. Think with me of the story of Abraham when he receives the divine visitors at the Oaks of Mamre. The Lord God came to Abraham, says the Bible. Or three men. In the mythic telling from Genesis, that detail goes unremarked and unexplained, and leaves us room for strangeness and wonder. Early on, Christians wondered if the three men also identified as the Lord God were a type, a model, for the Trinity.
Abraham immediately sets out to get work done, or rather delegating it to Sarah – slaughtering the calf, baking bread, bringing out yoghurt. It is a time-consuming ritual that shows his devotion to the visitors, despite, or even because of the effort, the work, the busy-ness and attention to detail. The famous icon by Rublev of that visit is in more than one version. In one version, Abraham and Sarah are visible in the margins engaged in their efforts. But in the one most familiar, it is only the guests who are there in the center, seated at the table in mystical tension and contemplation. The icon is called the Hospitality of Abraham. What will your household be like when the Lord God shows up unannounced? The icon draws us away from all the norms of hospitable activity to what is really going on – and takes us to the holy table set in the midst of the triune company.
Our baptismal covenant calls us to see the face of Christ in all we encounter, to seek and serve Christ in all we meet. That is a call to action for most of us. Action spurred by the like of the prophet Amos who could be reading the headlines of the New York Times when he rails against fraud, greed, corruption, selling the poor for the price of a pair of Manolo Blahniks. But it is also a call to sit in awe at the feet of Christ. To listen. To breathe in the holy spirit that leaps between us when we meet; to hold in tension that running spirit of divinity that draws the holy circle in the center of the icon.
As we celebrate the conclusion of our 81st rummage sale, which has once again grossed enormous receipts representing perhaps fair exchange for the countless volunteer hours involved in gathering, sorting, displaying, selling the items that others no longer need – we watch a community transformed with the work of welcoming Christ in those who otherwise could not afford the clothing, the furniture, the books, the toys, the rich offering of gifts. We watch a community transformed by its connection to the rest of the Palouse, as friends show up to help with the work, and work carries on uninterrupted for days on end. I helped with the teardown yesterday, when the goods that were left over, unbelievable abundance, were boxed up and carted away by yet another community outreach organization serving the poor in Moscow. The funds we’ve gathered at St. James will support the work of the church both in forming the Christian witness of our youth and in direct assistance to the community in need. When the rummage sale calls, there isn’t a lot of time for sitting in devotion, but there is time today to thank our volunteers and hard workers, and also to thank God for this incredible outpouring of generosity, creativity, and abundance in our midst. We give thanks to God for this opportunity to sit in awe at the face of Christ in our midst.
