Proper 11C. 17 July 2022. The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz
Amos 8:1-12. Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land.
Colossians 1:15-29. For this I toil and struggle with all the energy that he powerfully inspires within me.
Luke 10:38-42 The better portion.
O God beyond our perceiving, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
It might just be because it’s hot and I’m getting close to vacation, so I’m a little grumpier than usual; but I looked at our readings for today earlier this week and thought to myself, “I don’t really want to say thanks be to God or praise be to you, Lord Christ to any of these three!”
Amos, of course, is responding to the ancient command of the Divine: “If you see something, say something.” What he saw was the shocking evils of a flourishing urban elite exploiting people and extracting resources in a way that was impoverishing the whole country. Amos saw that military might, extravagant wealth, and shallow piety would result in utter devastation if those in power did not repent and return to the Holy One, to the Mosaic Law of love for neighbor, which meant (and still means) the just distribution of resources. The word of hope in Amos, which our lectionary doesn’t include, is that the time will come when those who plow shall overtake those who reap, when those who plant the vineyards will enjoy the fruit of their labor.
My apologetic for Colossians is simply that this passage is most likely a hymn text; and, as we all know very well at Emmanuel Church, we can put up with all kinds of difficult, troubling, and downright offensive theology when it’s set to beautiful music. Unfortunately for us, the ancient score has not accompanied the hymn text in our Bibles. What surprises me, though, is after this long passage that is included in our lectionary, the last line is left out. The writer is saying that we proclaim the redeeming love of God so that we may present everyone as being perfected or redeemed in the love of God. And the writer concludes with, “For this I toil and struggle with all the energy that Jesus Christ powerfully inspires within me.” Gosh. That seems important to include! I wonder, what energy do we have that Jesus Christ powerfully inspires?
Our Gospel story today about Mary, Martha, and Jesus is wedged in between the story of the lawyer asking for justification in drawing the lines about who is and who is not a neighbor to be loved, and the story of Jesus’ teaching about how to pray. When these five verses of the Martha and Mary story get separated from that narrative arc, a world of trouble ensues. Out of context, this becomes a story that pits women against each other and invariably fuels resentment and division in groups that study it together. Our tradition has made Mary and Martha so flat, so awfully binary. Calling someone a Martha or a Mary evokes such strong and singular images. I long for them to engage as whole, complex women with a whole, complex Jesus. The story we have, isolated from its context, seems overly simplified and woefully incomplete. I want to hear Martha’s retort. She was a leader in the early church. Martha’s Christological confession in the Gospel of John is right on par with Peter’s Confession (which scores him “Head of the Church”). Surely she would have had a strong reaction to Jesus’ rebuke! Perhaps, “Yes, Lord, but you do want to eat don’t you?” I want more from Mary, too: an invitation to Martha to sit down for a while, an offer to trade places for a while, an invitation for Jesus to come into the kitchen so the conversation can continue, something! Can we agree that this story leaves a lot to be desired?
This Gospel story might be a lesson about the superior value of being still for reflection and prayer, about Sabbath time. It might be about privileging one ministry, the ministry of discernment and prayer, over another ministry, the ministry of hospitality and service. It might be the earliest Christian example of triangulation in the Church! It might be a reminder of the right of a woman disciple to study just like a male disciple or a rabbi. It might be a reflection of the later tension in Luke’s time about the leadership of women. Martha was the head of her household and her welcome indicates extra enthusiasm and warmth. Surely Jesus would not be criticizing that! Some think that Jesus’ rebuke had to do not with her work but just with her grumpiness at not having enough help, and to that I want to say, “Don’t go there, Jesus.” Then I’m reminded of something Rabbi Shire said in his inaugural Shabbat service about the proverbial rabbi or priest who asked her congregation, “How many of you want things to change?” Most raised their hands. The she asked, “How many of you want to change?” Not so many hands that time.
Is this story of Mary and Martha an affirming story about the importance of sitting at Jesus’ feet? Yes, probably. Is it a terrible story about discouraging ecclesiastical leadership of women? Yes, probably. Is it something else altogether? Yes, probably. This story is probably all of these at the same time, and we naturally see one or the other. You might know the famous drawing of a beautiful young woman and an ugly old woman, which is used to teach about perception. Depending on how your mind interprets the various lines, your visual system, seeing either the young woman or the old woman, will lock into a meaningful understanding or explanation. Your age, your interests, your experiences, and other factors, will all influence the interpretation. Often, with some study or assistance, you can see the alternate understanding or interpretation, and with practice, even go back and forth between the two interpretations at will, or even see both at the same time.
There are many examples of how our brains search for resolution to perceptual ambiguities. In the smallest fraction of a second, our brains create explanations or interpretations to reconcile conflicting information. We are wired to wrap things up neatly before we even know that there’s anything amiss! We can, however, counteract the jumps to conclusions about visual ambiguities: move closer, move further away, move back even further, close one eye, look with both eyes, stare for an extended time and watch the image shift to see if we can shift our interpretation at will. Applying these ideas about perception to scriptural ambiguities seems like such a subversive activity, so of course I love that! It’s a way to counter the perceptual errors produced by reading scripture texts through doctrinal formulas and narrow interpretations.
Reading these five verses about Martha, Mary, and Jesus in the larger context of Luke’s Gospel, I notice that in the narrative, this story not only follows the teaching about mercy and compassion, and precedes the teaching about prayer, but also appears as we are approaching the center of the Gospel. The center-point idea is something the writer wants to emphasize and an idea that can be the interpretive key to the writer’s message. My estimation of the center point in Luke is when someone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” He replied, “Who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you? Be on your guard about all kinds of greed.” Then Jesus told a brief parable about the rich man who builds bigger barns for his excessive amounts of grain and then dies. Jesus warns, “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” And then the mother lode: [1]
Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or about your body, what you will wear, for life is more than food and the body is more than clothing. Consider the ravens…Consider the lilies…Do not keep worrying, being anxious and distracted. Sell your possessions and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
So that is an interpretive key to understand the one thing that’s needed.
The better portion that Mary chose is an expression in Jewish literature of the time that occurs often in talk about the shalom of God, about the promised land. Jesus seems to me to be inviting Martha, and therefore, everyone, to choose that better portion. The biblical testimony is that the better portion to choose is available to us in our work and our rest, in our giving and our receiving, in our life and in our death. Many of us struggle to perceive it.
It’s striking to me that Do you not perceive? is a question that Jesus asks repeatedly in the Gospel stories. There are ten different words in our Greek New Testament that get translated perceive. The idea of perception was very nuanced and seems as critically important then as now. How might we improve our perception, our ability to see and understand the realm of God that is, as Jesus said, at hand. How might we improve our perception, our ability to see and understand the realm of God that is, as Jesus said, within each one? (Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Blessed is the day when one realizes that within and above are synonymous.”) [2] What is our version of stepping back and stepping forward, of closing one eye and opening both eyes, of staring long enough for our perceptions to shift? How can we increase our recognition and appreciation of ambiguity? And how can we use that to decrease our worries and distractions?
One answer, for us, is always in present community. By asking questions, hearing one another speak in the context of a community of praxis, and listening carefully, we can learn to recognize and honor multiple interpretations in such a way that they strengthen people’s resolve to stand up for their own dignity and rights, and to stand up for the dignity and rights of others.[2] Start with the familiar questions of what strikes you, what speaks to you, and what difference does it make. There are also questions like, what if this story were a dream that you had, and all of the characters in it represented a part of you? What part of you is represented by Mary? What part of you is represented by Martha? What part of you is represented by Jesus? There are always questions about culture, religious education or experience, age, gender, class, race, sexual orientation, financial circumstance, and how they affect one’s perception. There is employment of the ancient Jewish tradition of midrash, of interpreting scripture by imaginative story, a telling that fills in gaps left in the Biblical narratives.
One answer for Christians is engagement with tradition, an appreciation or regard for listening to histories and traditions but with a critical eye, maybe squinting, to rediscover, reclaim, and reconstruct (when necessary) our theological and historical understandings. I also think that one answer for us has to be our engagement with the well-being of creation with an eye to the future of creatures. Other avenues involve a fervent hope to get back to life more fully lived in the love of God, to cultivate a practice of worrying less, and to pursue our desire to experience more the joy of the Holy One.
P.S. Maybe identify one of your worries or distractions, take a week off from focusing on it, and report back!
- Luke 12:22-34.
- R. W. Emerson, Journal, Dec. 21,1834. Available from Wisdom Portal .
- An idea in the introduction to the Tenth Anniversary Edition of In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1994), xvii. There are many right interpretations, but all must meet this test.