I usually don’t title my sermons until sometime Sunday afternoon or Monday morning, but I am thinking about calling this one “Cook, Pray, Slay Dragons.” You’ll hear more about those things in a little bit.
Reading this morning’s Gospel – I don’t know about you, but these days I feel more like Martha than Mary, running at full speed, trying to get done what needs to get done, worrying about the details, the deadlines, my obligations to the world, and feeling a bit overwhelmed – not stopping to rest, to pray, to sit with Jesus and listen for his wisdom, to listen for the still, small voice of God in the midst of the whirlwind of what must be done now. I would like have more Mary minutes in the midst of a Martha schedule.
This morning’s Gospel is a story that’s been read and re-read and misread so much over the years, to the detriment of Marys and Marthas and women in particular, wherever they are along the Mary-Martha spectrum of contemplative and hospitable, anxious and calm, studious and industrious, quiet and outspoken.
The Mary-Martha story, contrary to what some of us may have heard growing up, is not a story about Mary being more virtuous or Martha being more domestic. It’s a not a story about women’s roles in the home and in the church, or about petty arguments between sisters, and it’s not a story about Jesus playing favorites (because Jesus didn’t play favorites).
It is a story that, like many stories in scripture, upended the traditional and expected roles of women. And – like most stories in the scriptures – it’s a story that still speaks to us and to our whirlwind lives today, regardless of our gender, or our cooking skills.
And the story of Mary and Martha is a both/and story, not an either/or story, however you look at it.
It falls at the end of the 10th chapter of Luke, which we’ve been traveling through for the last few weeks, beginning with the sending of the 70 disciples out into the world – lambs among wolves – two weeks ago, and continuing last week with the parable of the Good Samaritan, which Jesus tells the student of the law in response to his question, Who is my neighbor?
(To which Jesus answers: Everyone, including and especially those whom you fear, those whom you do not know and those whom you are enemies.)
And in today’s reading, the brief story that closes the chapter, Jesus stops to rest in the home of friends, in the home of two sisters – Mary, who may or may not be Mary Magdalene, depending on which scholar you ask, and Martha, her sister, who may or may not be the same Martha who accused Jesus of coming too late to save their brother Lazarus, depending on which scholar you ask. More about those questions later.
Jesus’ time with Mary and Martha is time away from the crowds, time to rest, to be among people he knows and who know him, to break bread, tell stories, catch up on news. Which already gives us some background for the conversation we just heard.
Martha is working. She is embodying the familiar role of hostess, a role she is especially good at, cooking dinner, perhaps making up beds – perhaps they didn’t have much advance warning that Jesus was visiting that evening – doing a little bit of surreptitious dusting – running around in circles at top speed, perhaps feeling a little overwhelmed, like she’s not making any headway, and she keeps coming back to Jesus, sitting in a chair, with Mary sitting at his feet, listening, asking questions, learning, and not doing anything to help Martha.
And because Martha and Mary are sisters, and Martha, Mary and Jesus are friends, Martha is comfortable enough to vent her exasperation. “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
Jesus answers: “Martha, Martha,” not with judgment, but with affection and love, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed – or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Our translation uses the word “better,” when the Greek really translates as “good.” Mary has chosen the good. Martha’s choice of work is not the issue, Jesus says. Her work is necessary, and it is good – she is creating a space for peace, and rest, and conversation, and nourishment. As Catholic theologian and priest James Wallace writes, “[Jesus] is not going after Busy Martha, but Worried and Distracted Martha.” While Mary is focusing on Jesus and on his teaching, Martha is focused on her own anxiety and all the tasks she must do. Jesus is telling her, Peace. He is bringing to her what he sent with his disciples, 30-some verses earlier: Peace to you. Peace to this house.
The work of Mary and the work of Martha are both necessary and good, on that day so long ago, in the early church that was just coming into being, and both their work is necessary and good now. The work of our everyday can send us in endless circles if we are not grounded in Christ’s teachings. And yet all our study and contemplation and prayer become empty words if we do not act on them. And when we run in circles, distracted and worried by the expectations we have of ourselves, we lose focus on what is most important – the peace of Christ, and the word of God, and the wisdom carried there. The contemplation, and the hard work, are both necessary, in our lives and in the lives of the world.
Fr. Wallace describes it this way: “God is both inside and outside, sustaining us while summoning us to work and, through our service, to bring about a world of justice, mercy, and peace.” Mary, defying a culture that said only men could be apostles, and Martha, welcoming into her home the Son of God, a controversial prophet and teacher who would become a target of the Roman Empire – they are both embodying a courageous faithfulness that pushes against the expectations of the world around them.
I mentioned a few minutes ago that scholars disagree as to the identity of Mary and Martha. Over the years, Mary in this story is often identified with Mary Magdalene, sister to Martha and to Lazarus, though some scholars now question whether they are two different Marys, and two different Marthas. There is a case to be made either way, though I lean toward this Mary being Mary Magdalene, partly because it deepens the story of these two women in the New Testament. Just recently I learned more about the story of Martha and Mary, a legend – you may know it – about their life following the days of the Gospels, which illustrates even more why this both/and of contemplation and service, prayer and action, are so integral to Christian life.
I’ve been reading a book, The Making of Biblical Womanhood, by scholar Beth Allison Barr, and she tells the story of Mary and Martha’s ministry in the years to come, beyond this argument over who is helping enough in the kitchen, beyond the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead, a story recorded by medieval Christians centuries after the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Christians in the medieval period honored Mary Magdalene and Martha. Legend has it that after the death of Jesus, and the death of St. James, they, along with Lazarus, were imprisoned because of their faith. The authorities felt that they couldn’t put them to death because their followers would be angry, so instead they put them on a ship without supplies or food or any good way to navigate, and set them afloat in the middle of the ocean. The ship made its way to France, and those on board survived. When they reached France, Mary Magdalene, Martha, Lazarus and their companions began to travel, preach, teach and work miracles, and Mary Magdalene and Martha converted countless people in France to Christianity. And here’s where the dragon comes in.
And perhaps not surprisingly, Martha became known as a slayer of dragons.
Legend has it that Martha, while Mary was preaching to the French, learned that a dragon was terrorizing the people living there, killing people and sinking ships. She found the dragon on a beach, devouring a man. Not daunted in the least – which perhaps should not surprise us, from Martha – she threw holy water on the dragon and then tied him up with her girdle, after which the local people finished him off.
As Beth Allison Barr writes: “Martha could be both a superb hostess and a preacher who slew dragons. Mary could both sit quietly at her devotions and be the apostle of the apostles whose preaching spread the gospel in France.”
Even if this is legend, a story that never literally happened, it tells us something about the strength of Jesus’ friends, the strength of Biblical women, and of the both/and work of Christians – dragon slaying and all.
The life of faith is not an either/or life. It is about making space for others to rest and enjoy a meal together. It is about sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to his wisdom; it is about teaching that wisdom to others. It is about slaying dragons, whatever our dragons may be. And it is about making space for ourselves, slowing ourselves down when we are busy or anxious, and remembering that our work is both/and – cook, pray, slay dragons when necessary, and take care of one another. Amen.
