Mary, Martha and the Mommy Wars - A sermon

Pentecost 9c

Luke 10:38-42

I’m convinced that there had to have been more substantive conversation than the brief tantrum that Martha threw at her home that day.  There just had to be something of more importance taking place than this little spat between sisters.  So why is this the focus of the visit to Mary and Martha’s home?  Did the gospel writer of Matthew get just as much of a kick out of disputes between women as our current world seems to? 

I just don’t get it.  Women don’t need something else driving a wedge between us.  We already have enough things to drive us apart and cause us to have issues with one another.  Take the mommy wars.  It’s a troubling thing that takes place between Breastfeeding moms vs. formula moms…cloth diaper moms vs. disposable diaper moms…co-sleeping moms vs. non-co-sleeping moms…vaccinating moms vs. non-vaccinating moms…stay at home moms vs. working moms. We pile guilt and aggression on one another instead of just making a decision for what’s best for us and our families and leaving everyone else alone so they can do the same thing. 

We don’t need another topic to quarrel over.  Who are the Martha’s? Who are the Mary’s?  Don’t be like Martha, Sally…be like Mary…Mary got it right.

There have been many sermons preached on the virtues of the Mary’s and, to some extent, shaming the Martha’s.  But, before we go off and divide ourselves into the Marys and the Marthas, praise the Marys and guilt trip the Marthas…which is probably not a helpful thing to do right before we send a group of young women off to Oklahoma for a mission trip…is this even what this Gospel text is even about?

I mean, think about it.  It’s such a short interaction, we assume a lot when we think that Jesus is shaming Martha for being the host instead of the one sitting at his feet and listening.  Jesus never says that Martha was doing anything wrong.  In fact, she was doing what she was supposed to have been doing. She was providing hospitality for her guests.  And many guests there were that day…at least Jesus and the twelve.  And even if she knew ahead of time that there would be at least thirteen men coming to visit her home, that is still a lot of people to host a dinner party for.  And I’m pretty sure that if any one of us were running around trying to prepare a dinner for thirteen guests while the other members of your family just sat around, we might be tempted to get a little testy, too. 

So I don’t think that Jesus is telling us that being a gracious host is a bad thing.  Being someone who works behind the scenes and busily scurries around to make sure everything is in place for her guests isn’t the wrong thing to do.  Martha’s spirit is filled with hospitality and that is a good thing. It was a necessary thing. If it wasn’t for Martha, who was going to cook the meal? Who was going to set the table?  Who was going to provide for the guests? Maybe Mary wasn’t a very good cook, so for Martha to step in and take care of the food arrangements we better for everyone.

But here’s where Martha went wrong…it is the same place where many of today’s dinner party hosts also go wrong.  Martha provided great hospitality for her guests by welcoming them into her home and providing a meal for them, but she missed out on one very important area of hospitality… she wasn’t present with them.  Luke tells us more than once that she was worried and distracted…maybe the lamb had not turned out quite the way she hoped it would, or she was worried that she didn’t make enough hummus for this many hungry men.  What ever it was, Martha was not present with her guests, her mind was elsewhere.  To put it in another way, Martha may have been physically in the living room, but she was really in the kitchen.  Mary, on the other hand, while not being helpful at all to her sister, was totally present with Jesus and the twelve. 

Now, before we go any further, I wanted to stop a minute and say:

Hi Men! I bet that few of you have ever said in your life, ‘gosh, that was such a Martha thing to do’ ‘Let’s go out there and be like Mary today.’  Ok, maybe some of you have …who am I to say what does or does not motivate you…I’ve just never heard a male use this terminology.  But it is probably pretty accurate to think that men have a harder time identifying with this story than women.  That’s completely understandable…but the moral of the story applies to men as well as women. 

Have you ever been in a situation where you’re trying to do more than one thing at once but you get to the end and either a detail was left out or you can’t remember what the person you were talking to on the phone while you were trying to return an email was saying? 

That’s one level of what this story is about…being attentive to our everyday tasks, regardless of how menial they may be. And in this modern day culture where we have our ipads and smartphones and computers beeping at us at the same time, worth is often measured by how busy we are, and multitasking is praised because we can get more done in less time, I think that at some point, unless we are completely intentional about it, we can all develop a deficit in our attention.  But we are called to be attentive to what our tasks are from day to day.  Whether it is something as simple as doing the laundry or the dishes, or something as important as having a conversation with a guest in your home, our presence with them is important. 

When you are in Oklahoma this coming week, ladies, you are being called to be attentive to the children you play with in kids club, the work projects you participate in, the new friends you are going to make, and the community around you at Osage Reservation.  It will be a busy week with lots to do and lots of exhaustion, but the more present you are, the more people will see God working through you. 

The other item of importance in this story, beyond being attentive to our tasks and the people around us, is being attentive to God’s presence around us.  Mary and Martha welcomed the Son of God into their home, but Martha’s worries and distractions prevented her from taking in the presence of a Jesus who is on his way to the cross…a Jesus who demands that we turn away from the distractions and worries of life and focus on his mission to go to Jerusalem and give his life so that we might have life. 

If Martha hadn’t missed that one, most important, aspect of hospitality…being present with your guests…Martha would have found the joy and rest of sitting at the feet of Jesus and hearing about the coming of the kingdom of God.

There’s no need to start another female competition using the story of Mary and Martha, no need to convince ourselves that we have to be more like Mary and less like Martha, for the opposite of distracted and worried Martha isn’t Mary…the opposite of distracted and worried Martha is a centered and present Martha…and that makes all the difference. Be Present, my friends, Amen.