The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost (Year C, Proper 11 RCL)
July 22, 2007
The Reverend Paul R. Abernathy, Rector
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“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be
taken away from her.”[1]
If Martha – literally striking a blow for fairness in the name of countless servants, even slaves throughout history who strove in un- and
underappreciated labor while others sat idle and languidly watched – had grabbed a serving spoon and bopped Mary and Jesus upside the head,
I, for one, wouldn’t have blamed her, even cheering her on: “You go, girl!” And, as I think about it, perhaps Martha, being fully human, did just
that.
But Luke’s gospel account isn’t a diary. It isn’t a daily journal of Jesus’ Excellent Adventure. It isn’t a detailed news account From the Road to
Jerusalem With Jesus and His Disciples. Rather, it is a faith narrative purporting to tell a story of an extraordinary figure who lived an extraordinary
life and died an extraordinary death – all of which has extraordinarily affected those who follow him. All of which is to say, everything that
happened during Jesus’ life and ministry isn’t in it. And if such a thing as Martha throttling Jesus had happened, no doubt, it would have been
viewed as too damaging to his image or too great a distraction from the telling of his story. Therefore, it wouldn’t have been included.
But again, as I think about it, whether it happened or not, Martha’s complaint – “Jesus, I’m doing all the work? Tell Mary to help me!” – did survive
the editor’s cut. And, as I read it, her discontent is more than the occasion, the presenting opportunity for Jesus’ teaching, but rather, the point
itself. For her disgruntlement raises one of the most fundamental issues in our daily living. Fairness. That sense of the right order of things. That
sense, in the words of the psalmist, that those who are blameless, who do what is right, who speak truth from the heart, who do no evil abide with
God, and those who are wicked are rejected.[2]
But life isn’t like that. The innocent suffer. The poor are oppressed. The wicked often prosper. Yet, even though we know that, our sense of what
should be, our sense of fairness abides as eternally within the human heart as God abides in heaven.
How do I know? Well, it’s not something I know, but rather believe. For many years now, I have listened to peoples’ reaction to this story. And
I am convinced that very few things – perhaps nothing – can excite, even inflame our hearts more than those moments of our painful rediscovery that
life isn’t fair. And no matter how many times it is declared that at least one point of this story is that the meditative, single-minded contemplation
of God’s word, God’s will for one’s life, as represented by Mary, is far more important to Jesus than the energetic, even well-intentioned, but
overactive and, therefore, hopelessly unfocused efforts to do good, as represented by Martha, most folk I know, in defense of Martha, still respond
with a vigorous, “But!” – for they sense a basic lack of fairness in how she was treated. I also believe that those who take up for Martha see a bit
more of Martha in themselves than Mary. But how could it be otherwise for us? We who daily live, daily strive in our overscheduled, family-work-church
juggled, BlackBerry-reading-while-driving, multi-tasking culture. We take Jesus’ rebuke of Martha – no matter how mild and, let us assume, loving it
may have been – personally!
All of this suggests to me that fairness matters to us humans. For somehow it seems our capacity to stay on course, to be faithful – reliable,
trustworthy, true to others and our very selves – rests in some measure on our confidence in the fundamental fairness of things.
And it’s hard to remain steadfast to a cause or even to our values if there is never the reward of tasting the fruit of our labor or the blessing of
beholding the benefit of our efforts. It’s even more difficult, if not impossible to do so when, caught in the clutch of life’s unfairness, our
endeavors yield an even worse result than that which existed in the beginning.
The examples both historical and personal, I would guess, are too numerous to count. One immediately comes to my mind. I think of the cautionary
advisement my very first therapist, many years ago, shared with me as I contemplated engaging an extensive, intensive course of work to face my
demon of anger. “It will get worse,” she said, “before it gets better.” At the time, I dismissed her warning. How could something that was
already so bad, get worse? And how could it get worse if I was trying to fix it? It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t fair. I should have listened to
her. It got worse.
Perhaps this is why, in this and in many circumstances, faithful contemplation, concentration – as manifested in the kind of attentiveness for which
Jesus commends Mary as “the better part” – is so important, for therein lies the capacity to perceive of a possibility beyond or, indeed, in
the context of the present reality. And in that perceiving, being able and willing to be faithful when there is no reward, when life again and again
proves to be unfair. And perhaps to behold faithfulness as its own reward.
Even more, as I think about it again, perhaps this is why my individual sense of fairness, my fundamental conceit that things should be as I believe
or want them to be shouldn’t be a standard for faithfulness at all. For faithfulness to be faithfulness is all about reliability, trustworthiness
in the face of what is, not what I want it to be. Even more, faithfulness, as an ethical virtue, always must be worked out in the concrete
context of that connection, communion between my values and my relationships. In other words, faithfulness is always a matter of my steadfastness in
upholding my personal principles in relation to you. Faithfulness, therefore, is always about matters bigger, greater than any one person,
whether it be Martha or me.
[1] Luke 10.41-42. The gospel passage appointed for the day is Luke 10.38-42.
