July 17, 2022

Phil Hooper

[RCL] Amos 8:1-12; Psalm 52; Colossians 1:15-28; Luke 10:38-42

Here’s a trick question: Are you a Mary or a Martha?

If you have ever spent time hearing interpretations of today’s gospel passage, you probably understand the dichotomy implicit in the question. Martha, we often say, is the “active” one, rushing around, busying herself with the demanding practicalities of life. Mary, on the other hand, is the “contemplative” one, resting attentively at Jesus’ feet, engaged in a more conventionally prayerful, intellectual encounter with her Lord. Two sisters, two followers of Jesus, and, we are told, two diverging possibilities for discipleship, with Mary’s prayerful receptivity being “the better part” and, therefore, the one to which we are taught to aspire.

It’s not surprising that we tend to engage the story in this way, as a sort of spiritual personality test. We love personality tests. Consider the enduring popularity of frameworks and tools that measure and compare our dispositions, from astrological signs to the Enneagram to those random Facebook quizzes that reveal which dog breed or Disney Princess you resemble. We are and always have been – in ways both meaningful and absurd – people desperately seeking a glimpse of ourselves. We sift through our habits and tendencies for some definitive indicator of who we are, some solid thing at our core, a name by which we might be distinguishable in this increasingly crowded and confusing world.

And so, when we hear Luke’s Gospel today, we might ask ourselves: which one are you? Martha or Mary? Busy or mindful? Striving or tranquil? Perhaps, as you hear the question right now, you can already feel the pressure of having the right answer, of measuring up, of choosing that “better part.”

But before you get too lost in all of that, remember what was said at the outset: it’s a trick question. It is a false choice.

It is false, quite simply, because it is not the choice that Jesus, by way of this text, asks us to make. Jesus is not pitting the sisters against one another, nor is he creating a hierarchy of modes of discipleship. The dichotomies that we read into the text are our own fabrications, borne of our own desire to render the world intelligible through categories and labels. We do this all the time, in ways both benign (like the roles we take on in a group of friends) and destructive (like the reductive stereotypes that continue to harm people at the margins).

This is not Jesus’ agenda. When he tells Martha that Mary has “chosen the better part” he is not challenging Martha’s “personality,” nor is he even rejecting Martha’s present busyness, but is instead gently calling her back to the fullness of herself, reminding her of both the ground of her being and the telos, the purposeful endpoint, of all of this good, hard, and necessary work: namely, himself….

CONTINUE READING…

From the Episcopal Church website: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/sermon/a-trick-question-pentecost-6-c-july-17-2022%ef%bf%bc/