Luke 10:38-42
“Sisters”
July 21, 2019 – Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
Every once in a while when I want to irk my wife, I’ll (badly) sing a chorus from the 1960s musical “Hello, Dolly!” After each verse about how it takes a woman to clean the sink drain, dump the ashes, wash, and set the table, weave, and clean the stable, shovel the ice, set out traps for the mice, etc., etc., a group of men sings:
Yes it takes a woman
A dainty woman
A sweetheart, a mistress, a wife
O yes it takes a woman
A fragile woman
To bring you the sweet things in life
Or, if you prefer country western music, there’s the 1970s Shel Silverstein song sung by Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Tom T. Hall and several other male singers:
Put another log on the fire
Cook me up some bacon & some beans
And go out to the car & change the tire
Wash my socks and sew my old blue jeans
Come on baby you can fill my pipe & then go fetch my slippers
And boil me up another pot of tea
Then put another log on the fire babe
And come & tell me why you’re leaving me
And, just like that, many of you guys are trying not to smile and several of you women are staring daggers at me. The fact is, though, that there is an ancient human bias which expects half the human race to take a subservient but cheerfully loving role in relation to the other half. The amazing thing is that, to some extent, many women buy into and play along with that bias because it is so familiar and comfortable. Songs like I just mentioned make the injustice of it all pretty obvious, but that slanted perspective on gender roles often lurks in the background of our lives.
We see it operating in our text for today as Jesus spends time in the home of two of his most faithful and helpful disciples, Martha and Mary. Dedicated and selfless Martha invited Jesus to her home and worked like crazy to prepare a meal for Him and His other male disciples. But her sister Mary shirked the women’s work in order to sit like one of the men at the Master’s feet and listen to what He was teaching.
I have always been struck by Dorothy Sayers observation, long ago now, that she had never heard a sermon on this text that did not, in some way or other, sympathize with Martha.[1] Indeed, you might get the impression that almost everyone prefers Martha to Mary. Women prefer her because you relate to her story, you empathize with her plight. You see yourself working hard, busy with the necessities of life, and way too distracted to sit down for a little informal Bible study before dinner.
Men prefer Martha because, after all, she’s the one getting dinner ready. Even in our enlightened, egalitarian age we males are far too often utterly dependent on women who do what we think women are supposed to do, making our lives easier by cooking, taking care of children, doing our typing, and picking up our messes.
There is lots to be said for Martha. She was pretty clearly the head of that household in Bethany, which Luke only calls “a certain village.” It was Martha who “welcomed him into her home,” it says in verse 38. She was wonderfully hospitable to her divine visitor, like Abraham was in our reading from Genesis 18 today (more on that later). If you look over at the beginning of John chapter 12 verse 2, you will find Martha in that same role. They gave a dinner for Jesus and “Martha served.”
Martha was clearly not just a housekeeper. In John chapter 11, as Jesus speaks with her about the death of her brother Lazarus, it is Martha who offers a confession of faith in Jesus that is every bit as profound as one given by the male disciple Peter. She said, “Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” So if you sympathize with Martha, if you just plain like Martha, that’s O.K. As a follower of Jesus, she definitely had a lot going for her.
Yet as Dorothy Sayers points out, Jesus Himself preferred Mary’s behavior at this moment here in Luke 10 to Martha’s. Yes, He loved Martha. You can hear it in how He responds to her verse 41. But right then at their home, in the late afternoon before mealtime, Jesus preferred what Mary did over what Martha did. He said in verse 42, “Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
That “better part” which Mary chose is the first and most important lesson of our text today and it has nothing much to do with gender. It is about priorities, about how you and I live out our love for God.
America is full of people like Martha. No wonder we feel so sympathetic toward her. She is you and I. We are busy, active people. We want to be doing things, producing something, showing a profit in return for our hard work. We find it hard to rest, to simply sit still. There are cars to be repaired, babies to be diapered, papers to be written, clothes to be washed, orders to be filled, and, of course, meals to be prepared. We often think, “If I don’t get that done, who will?”
Some of our activity is meant to express our love for God. You teach a Sunday School class or host the snacks after worship or help repair the irrigation system. You practice worship music or clean our restrooms or give someone a ride to worship. It is truly, sincerely all for Jesus. And He knows that. He loves and blesses you for what you do. I am sure that not long after this conversation with Martha, Jesus reclined at her table and gratefully blessed and ate the meal she had prepared for Him.
Yet in this moment, as weary, frustrated Martha asks Jesus to join her in scolding her sister for ditching her duties in the kitchen, Jesus says something else. He says it with love, as I alluded to a moment ago, in verse 41, beginning with her name, repeated twice, “Martha, Martha.” There is familiarity there, gentleness there, the tender lovingkindness of God by which Jesus also wept over a city and said its name twice, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…”
Jesus preferred what Mary was doing at the moment, sitting close and hearing the Good News He brought, but He loved Martha deeply. He knew her well. You can hear that as He goes on, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things.” Jesus was not some oblivious male chauvinist, imagining women were created to wait on Him. He knew very well all the work Martha put in on his behalf. But more than all that effort, He wanted the very best for Martha. So He told her, “there is need of only one thing.”
I’ve heard it suggested what Jesus meant by that “one thing” needed was a single, simple dish for dinner, not the eight course meal Martha was slaving at. She could have knocked off a casserole or something like that, popped it in the oven, and then had time to sit down beside her sister and listen. I find that suggestion a little silly. Jesus sounds too serious here, talking about Mary’s choice of something better, to be offering her older sister tips on how to throw a dinner party.
No, Jesus was talking about that one great need at the center of every one of us, the need to love and be in relationship with God, and to come to God through Himself, Jesus Christ. As Paul celebrated eloquently in our reading from Colossians 1 this morning, Jesus is the first, the head. He is to have “first place in everything.” At that moment, Mary showed she understood that Jesus comes first, that He is the one thing needed, the one absolute necessity, but Martha did not get it, not yet.
This text is here in God’s Word to help you and I get it. In the midst of all our busyness and frantic activity, will we remember the one, and only, thing necessary? Will we take time, will we direct our lives so as to know and love God by drawing nearer to Jesus Christ His Son? As we sometimes say, what everyone on earth needs is a personal relationship with Jesus. That relationship can’t be only about doing things.
It’s true in any relationship, whether between spouses or friends or siblings. It can’t be all about doing things for the other person. What is absolutely necessary alongside doing stuff for someone is simply being with someone. Besides fixing dinner, you may need to sit down and listen to a story, even if you’ve heard it before. Besides unplugging the garbage disposal, you might need to take a walk just holding hands.
“Being with” rather than “doing for” is especially crucial at key moments in life, when things get hard, when what is happening can’t be resolved by preparation or by clever repair. You can’t just fix cancer or prepare well for dementia. You can’t just clean a messed up work situation like a messed up room or put a cast on broken heart like you would on a broken arm. What you can do is be there, alongside, listening, loving.
Jesus, of course, does not need us to be with and console Him in difficult circumstances. He enjoys the eternal and glorious consolation of His relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit. But we definitely need to be with Jesus in those hard times. What you need with Him when life is out of whack is not more and better activity. It’s some time to simply sit and listen, to hear His word, to feel His love for you, to remember that He knows and calls you by name. That is the one thing needed.
The point of all this is not to make you feel bad if you are like Martha, if you sympathize with her. Most of us are, most of us do. Many of us would say, “Oh, if I only had the time, if I only could sit down and rest beside Jesus for a while, but I can’t. If I don’t do all those other things, who will?” No, the point is to help us, Marthas all maybe, to remember what is truly needed, what Jesus most desires for each of us. And, I’d like to say now, to help each other draw closer to that, draw closer to Him.
We are all called by Jesus to seek to make Mary’s choice rather than Martha’s, to choose “the better part.” He is asking us to be more attentive and devoted to His presence and teaching than to some energetic activity of our own, even if we believe it’s on His behalf. He wants you sometimes just to sit with Him and be with Him. Let’s think a bit how we can make that more possible for each other.
In particular, I’d like to return to where I began, with that “fragile woman” putting “another log on the fire.” I’d like to point out that there is a double meaning in my sermon title today. “Sisters” is not just a way of saying it’s about these two Bible siblings Mary and Martha. It’s a way of saying there is a lesson here for us men in how we relate, especially in the church, to our sisters in Christ.
I’m sure I am walking into dangerous territory here, but relationships between men and women in the church often reflect those same sorts of relationships in the cultures around us. Despite two thousand years of Christian conviction that male and female are equal in God’s eyes, despite a hundred years or so of American political assertion of equality between men and women, those songs I began with still got written. All of us, maybe especially men, but all of us need to admit that there are expectations for women that are not equal nor just. And we need to admit we hold those expectations too.
Just a glance at the tortured American political landscape shows that though women have achieved seats in Congress and the Senate, powerful, assertive women are still often felt to be a problem more than a blessing. They disconcert and upset the powerful men around them, and they often don’t sit well with the rest of us. At root in all our unease with such women is, at least in part, a sense they are not doing what they are supposed to be doing. They are not good Marthas. They are not serving. They are not cooking or caring for children or answering the phone or making social arrangements. They are sitting down with men at tables of power and talking about important business of the world. And that seems to bug a lot of people, men and women.
I’m not endorsing any female politician or any particular party or policy. I’m simply pointing to a cultural worry that we can address a little by working on how we as men and women live together in our Lord’s church. How can you and I arrange our life together as a Christian community, as people of God, to help Martha get out of the kitchen and take a seat to be with Jesus? If we can make some start on an answer to that question, perhaps we can help the world around us be better at equality too.
First, I want to thank you for being people who understand and value what Jesus was teaching here and what He and His prophets and apostles clearly taught in the Scriptures. Women are not secondary citizens of the kingdom of God, nor secondary members of our church. You have regularly and wonderfully welcomed and blessed women leaders and teachers and preachers among us. That’s still a bit rare among Christians faithfully committed to the Bible, but you demonstrate every week that it’s part of the truth of the Gospel. Thank you.
Second, though, I’d like to challenge some of our own expectations of each other, wondering if some of that cultural stuff doesn’t still seep through into us as a church. Check the list and I think you will see that currently our children’s Sunday School teachers are all women. Most of our nursery volunteers are women. The people who look after our kitchen and who do most of the work in there during big meals are again mostly women.
No, not always. There are some men doing some of that traditional “women’s work” among us. God bless you guys who help with children’s church or wash dishes or cut up carrots or whatever. You are there and you are champs. All I’m saying is that it’s a bit lopsided. There are likely some “Marthas” who would like a break to sit down in worship and praise Jesus and listen to what He has to say to them this week. Perhaps a few of us men who aren’t already doing so could help make that happen, could volunteer in the nursery, or teach Sunday School, or put some dishes in the dishwasher.
Guys, you’ve got an example right in our readings this morning. In Genesis 18, Abraham was the good host. Yes, he asked his wife Sarah to make bread, but he himself waited on his visitors, got the meat ready, and set the food on the table. Yes, culture kept Sarah in the tent while the men ate, but Abraham was still the one serving. Let him be a model for us men today.
Remember too that a “Martha” among us may be a man. Gentlemen, you are really busy doing some really good things like yard work or painting or volunteering for the shelter or even serving in the nursery like I suggested. That’s all wonderful and we are all super grateful. Just don’t forget that “one thing” that is so needed, that you so need. Let yourself have time to stop doing for a bit, and just be with Jesus. Read His Word, think about His love for you. It’s all about what He has done for you, not what you do for Him. Jesus is what you need. He is what we all need.
Amen.
Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2019 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj
[1] Are Women Human? (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973), p. 46f.