UPPITY HOLY WOMEN

July 17, 2022
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
Amos 8:1-12; Ps.52, Col. 1:15-29; Lk. 10: 38-42
Rev. Denise Clark-Jones

Are you a Mary or a Martha? I can’t tell you how many times I have heard that question. The story of Mary and Martha hosting Jesus in their home is so familiar. It has been used as a proof text that a personal relationship with Christ is more important than a Christian mission. Reading Luke’s gospel as a whole, rather than picking out particular stories or verses, we would not come to this erroneous conclusion. Would Luke, known as the social justice gospel, denigrate service? Hardly. This story is part of a pair in Luke. This is a common literary device in Luke. The author frequently uses a pair of stories, one a male protagonist and one a female protagonist, to make a point. The companion to the Mary/Martha story is the one in which Jesus answers the Jewish legal scholar’s questions with the parable of the Good Samaritan. Together, these two stories illustrate Jesus’ Greatest Commandment: to love God and to love one’s neighbor. Each of our scripture passages for today could be measured, like Amos’ plumb line, against this directive.

Last week we heard the Jewish legal scholar ask Jesus what one must do to have eternal life. Jesus responded: “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” ²⁷He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus approved of his answer. But then the legal scholar asked: “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan. The story of Mary and Martha, addresses the first part of the Greatest Commandment: “to love God with all your heart and soul and mind.”

Martha is perturbed that her sister, Mary, is not helping her do the necessary work to provide hospitality for Jesus and his disciples when they stop in to visit on their way to Jerusalem. Martha is doing the work traditionally assigned to women. Mary is turning that societal expectation upside down. She is taking the role assigned to men by studying under the tutelage of the rabbi. Martha sees herself shortchanged by a system that expects women to serve men, neglecting their own fulfillment in life. Martha complains: “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” Well, not so subservient that she doesn’t refrain from chastising Christ. That takes some chutzpah!

Martha’s complaint is answered by a gentle correction. Not because she spoke up for herself, but her misinterpretation of the situation. The phrase used to identify Jesus’ appraisal of Martha’s behavior, “she was distracted by her many tasks,” uses the Greek root word, “spao” in the word translated as “distracted.” From this same root word, we get the English word “spasm.” Therefore, we might say today: “Martha was spazzed out!” (Mark Davis “Left Behind and Loving It. Internet blog posting. July 11, 2016”) Jesus pointed out that Martha was “worried” and “anxious.” Isn’t that the root of our anger, fear? Luke, more than any other gospel writer, employs the phrase: “Fear not.”

What is Martha afraid of: that she will be judged harshly because dinner is not on time, or the house isn’t clean enough? Jesus didn’t care about either. We have all been guilty of losing sight of what is truly important. We have all wasted too much time being worried and too little time paying attention to what is wrong rather than enjoying what is good that makes life meaningful and joyful. Modern communication devices that connect us with the Internet have created many distractions. Multi-tasking is expected of those who are in the labor market. Communication and being “in the know” is key to productivity. Paul Tillich, the 20^th century theologian explained that the lesson Jesus wanted Martha to learn was that there is a time to engage in the busy-ness of life’s chores, but our busy-ness should not be an excuse to miss out on what is important to God. He wrote:

“There are innumerable concerns in our lives and human life generally, which demand attention, devotion, passion. But they do not demand infinite attention, unconditional devotion, ultimate passion. They are important, often very important, for you and me and the whole of humankind. But they are not ultimately important….”

Mary is not worried about the kitchen work because she is being lazy or dismissive of Martha’s contribution. Mary’s desire to hear Jesus’ words comes from her love of God and her trust that Jesus is speaking for God. Martha is doing important work – Jesus must be fed – but duty and resentment have taken over her purpose for service. Without the love of God from which the desire for service arises, the work becomes a source of pride, self-pity, bitterness or boasting. To use Martin Buber’s terminology, the service becomes I – centered rather than Thou-centered.

Jesus responded to Martha’s complaint: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; ⁴²there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” You can image Jesus’ tone when he speaks these words. It is more of an invitation than a reprimand. Dinner can wait, this is a special time that you should be a part of while I am here. You too are entitled to hear what I have to tell you. In our epistle reading for today, which we will read as our affirmation of faith, Paul declares this: “Jesus Christ was the incarnation of God’s Word – the Word made flesh that dwelt among us. The two sisters have God in their midst.

Without the connection with God and the support and fellowship of other believers, service, like the chores Martha does for her guests, loses its purpose and becomes merely charity or obligation without the love. Likewise, without our worship, our study of God’s Word and our prayer life, our mission work becomes merely a fulfillment of an expected duty.

In our reading from Amos, the prophet tells the people of Israel they have lost their chance to hear God’s voice and feel God’s presence. They had their chance, many chances in fact, but they refused to listen and obey. Because they did not ‘love God with all their heart and soul and mind,’ they treated their neighbors cruelly. Given abundant blessings from God, they hoarded those blessings. Last week Amos told the privileged insiders of society that God had set a plumb line to measure their faithfulness and they did not measure up. The scales of justice were imbalanced.

Instead of a plumb line, this time God showed Amos a basket of summer fruit. That’s a lovely image, isn’t it? However, in Hebrew the word for “a basket of summer fruit” is nearly identical to the word “end.” It’s a pun, which God spells out with a description of the “end” Israel will face. Their army would be defeated by surrounding hostile nations and the people would suffer oppression at the hands of their conquerors. But the worst punishment awaiting them is that they will no longer hear the words of the Lord. Who are the voices of injustice today, that shout over God’s Word? Are we joining their chorus?

Biblical historians inform us that Amos served as a prophet at a time when Israel reached the peak of its material and economic prosperity. Her military conquests added new territories to the nation. There were people at the highest levels of economic and political power who were bursting with national pride, while they enjoyed all the material rewards of Israel’s success. It was a bull market, and all the privileged stockholders were sitting on easy street. Great monuments to the king’s glory were constructed, enslaving the people by toil and debt. Yet, Amos saw through the trappings of prosperity to the injustice undergirding a seemingly robust economy. The cost of Israel’s wealth was, for many, poverty and injustice. God was incensed that those who prospered at the expense of others presented a front of false piety – a hypocrisy of the highest order.

“⁴Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, ⁵saying, “When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale?”

The rich couldn’t wait for their sabbath obligation to cease work for a day was over, so they could return to cheating the poor and then ignoring their poverty.

‘We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances…” They would rig the economic system in their favor. They were “⁶buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and selling the sweepings of the wheat.” God ordained that landowners should reserve a tenth of their fields from which the poor could glean the wheat. But the wealthy landowners in Israel would not even save the sweepings of wheat left over from their harvests for the poor but sold every possible grain to maximize their already abundant profit. The time for talk was over, Israel had not listened. When the punishment was carried out, God would respond to Israel’s anguished cries with silence. This, the psalmist laments, is the most crushing blow – the existential loneliness of God’s absence.

What God had told the Israelites all along was their faith was judged by how they ordered their lives, what they prioritized, to what voice they were listening. This was the lesson Jesus taught in the story of Mary and Martha. This is the challenge of the gospels, to decide what is the most important thing to be doing at a particular time and doing it. We are guided in our discernment by listening to the Word of the Lord. When we have discovered what God wants us to do, Jesus has told us that our love for and trust in God demands we get busy with that – but never so busy that we forget why and for whom we are busy.

May we too sit at Jesus’ feet and hear what he has to say, then go out into the world and see what needs to be done.

Amen. May it be so!

© Rev. Denise Clark-Jones, 2022, All Rights Reserved
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