Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, Johannes Vermeer.
First, let’s clear something up: Martha wasn’t just doing dishes. Her complaint wasn’t about housework. And Mary wasn’t necessarily her biological sister. This was not a domestic dispute between two women, settled by a man.
Martha and Mary were probably ministry partners in leadership, co-managing a household of faith. Think of them as sisters in the way Jordan and I are brothers in Christ, or our wardens Heather and Luke are siblings in Christ. And notice too that the story begins with Martha – just Martha – welcoming Jesus into her home: perhaps she was alone at the top of the org chart, and Mary was her second in command. They were running the community of faith in that village. Think of their “home” more like Grace Church than your condo.
Jesus, meanwhile, was slowly moving down the countryside, on his way to Jerusalem—to death, and to resurrection. And so this little story is a snapshot of life in the early-first-century Jesus Movement, a lightly sketched story to make an important point. The Martha-Mary story tells us what Christian community is like:
there’s lots of travel as people move around the world proclaiming the message, following the path of Jesus toward death and resurrection;
the local communities are run by women, or at the very least, freely comfortable with women as equal partners in ministry;
and each household is visited by Jesus – literally for Martha, but in other ways for every community that gathers in his name.
This means Jesus visits us, too, in the household we call Grace Church. Women and men work alongside each other here, and though your current interim rector is male, you’re comfortable with women in leadership. And Jesus visits when we open the book and break the bread; when we wash in water and anoint with oil; when we learn and pray; when we discern great need and respond to it with love; when we welcome the stranger and serve our neighbor. We are the Body of Christ, and so when we gather, and when we do as Jesus does, Jesus is here.
And today Jesus says this: “There is need of only one thing.” Typical for Jesus, he doesn’t explicitly tell us what that thing is. He doesn’t spell it out. But we can draw some solid conclusions. Mary is at his feet, listening to him: the One Thing that matters most, then, is about listening, maybe even studying. It’s about focusing on Jesus. It’s about paying attention to his words as the most important words.
But we can open this up even more.
There are a thousand thousand things to do here at Grace Church. What is the One Thing we need the most? There are a thousand thousand things we do in our lives, with our families, with friends and neighbors and co-workers and strangers and merchants and vendors and caregivers. What is the One Thing we need the most?
That One Thing is Jesus himself. More than anything or anyone else, we need Jesus.
When I helped recruit new vestry members last fall, I told them the top priority if they joined the vestry would be that it truly becomes a ministry for them, and fulfills them. If it’s just a bunch of to-do lists, it’s a drag, they’ll burn out, and we won’t be focused on the One Thing we need.
When we prepared people for baptism this past Easter, there were countless chores, but we talked with them – and with one another – about what they were promising, what was about to happen to them, and who – in baptism – they were becoming. We all spent the season of Lent working out a theology of baptism together, focused on the One Thing we need.
As your profile committee finishes its work and your vestry begins to form a search committee, there are all kinds of tasks, many of them more than a bit tedious. But they go about their work with prayer, listening to each other, listening to you, praying for your next leader, and staying focused on the One Thing we need.
In all of these, God’s Word – Jesus – is that One Thing. The Creator spoke the Word by the power of the Spirit, and all creation exploded into existence. (We have a new telescope showing us pictures of the early era that followed this!) God’s Word became human and lived among us, teaching us how to give away everything in love, leading us in the way of reconciliation, defeating the powers of sin and death, and giving us true hope, even in times of immense anxiety and chaos. Jesus is the One Thing we need.
Now, hang in here with me on this. Some of you may be thinking I’m starting to sound a little … evangelical, a little bit like a Jesus freak. Years ago a friend of mine stitched a patch on his jacket that said, “100% for Jesus,” and I was intrigued, but also a little discomfited. But he really meant it: he was a progressive, open-minded Pacific Northwesterner, probably a universalist in his theology, definitely pro-GLBTQ, feminist, all the usual perspectives held by many people of faith we know. But all of that gave his little patch of Jesus love even more power!
Think of it this way: let’s take Jesus back. Let’s claim that we are 100% for Jesus, as we understand him, but also as he really is. Jesus is not patriarchal (look how he respects Martha’s authority and is welcomed by her, not the other way around). The Jesus Movement travels around the world, so it is not insular, not xenophobic, not small-minded and mean the way some folks are who say they love Jesus, but act otherwise.
But there’s more to placing Jesus at the center than merely understanding him more clearly as the traveling peasant-class person-of-color prophet that he was. Placing Jesus at the center also means that we see him as he is, now and always, and it means that we follow his Way – his Way to death and resurrection.
If we are 100% for Jesus, then we, like him, travel into danger rather than out of it. We wade into the world’s problems and work hard to solve them – together. We spend our lives doing this, even at great cost. Some of us may even lose our lives for the cause. We burn with serious purpose. We travel the Way of the Cross.
And then – again, this happens when we are 100% for Jesus – then we are raised with him. Our hearts and minds are full with the Spirit of God. We find hope and meaning in our vocations. We are like green olive trees in the house of God. We bring healing to other people, and even to the land. When we are 100% for Jesus, life flourishes.
Jesus is huge. Cosmically huge. Paul finds Jesus at the heart of all creation, firing the entire cosmos with meaning. Today we heard a portion of his letter to the household at Colossae, a city in what is today western Turkey. (Naturally, I presume the Colossians were led by women.) But the Colossians had gotten a little off track. Like Martha, they lost the center, getting caught up in many things. In their case, it may have been eclectic practices of belief that diluted the message with astrological musings. Paul wants them to focus on what’s most important. Paul wants them to be 100% for Jesus. He places Jesus at the center of the universe, replacing the Colossians’ astrology with a thoroughly Christian worldview.
And when he returns them to Jesus at the center, he reminds them that they will find Jesus on – and follow Jesus to – the cross. If Jesus is at the center of all things, then death and resurrection are at the center of all things. Self-giving love dwells at the center of all existence. We die to everything else, so that life might flourish. Jesus reigns as our sovereign, but he reigns from the cross.
I will close with my friend Susan Cherwien’s meditations on the cross, which grace the cover of your bulletin. (May Susan rest in peace and rise in glory: she died this past December. Like Martha, she is one of our sisters, one of our ministry partners, one of our matriarchs. Her memory is a blessing.) Susan drew upon Paul’s letter to the Colossians in her meditation on the Crucified One, the cosmic Christ. She praises Christ at the center, Christ the essential one, Christ the One Thing we need. Here are her words.
Image of the unseen God,
firstborn of creation,
matrix of the spinning world,
heavenly foundation:
Christ, now reigning from the cross,
wondrous incarnation.
Dawn of light before all time,
union of all being,
of the mystic church, the head,
source and the beginning:
Christ, now reigning from the cross,
precious is your coming.
Firstborn of the blessed dead,
dwelling of the Maker,
concord of all things with God,
wounded intercessor:
Christ, now reigning from the cross,
glorious is your splendor.
***
Preached on the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Year C), July 17, 2022, at Grace Episcopal Church, Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Amos 8:1-12
Psalm 52
Colossians 1:15-28
Luke 10:38-42