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"Don’t Do Something; Just Sit There" | Luke 10: 48-42 | July 18, 2004 |
The screen is dark, there only sounds:
sizzling/ pan lids bouncing on boiling pots/ dishes rattling/ ice hitting the bottom of glasses/ a muffled voice with an edge to it/ the slam of a refrigerator door/ the clang of a pot on the stove.
The camera pulls back to reveal the stove, follows a figure across the screen/ pans up to a woman's face, her lip dotted with perspiration is puckered in a scowl. The camera follows the quick movements of the woman as she grabs a pot and thrusts it with a hiss into the sink.
"Oh no, the green beans are burned." she says.
There is more clanking of pots and dishes.
The woman mutters: "Where is the butter dish? Shall I cut some fruit? Do we need another vegetable? O dear, I can't watch everything. Louder What do people want to drink? I could use some help. . ."
Then walking to the doorway she asks, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me!"
Does this scene look or sound familiar? How many of you had a mother like the one who always sat sideways in her chair during meals? Whether the table was surrounded by family members or invited guests, she was poised for action. She’d jump up if she had forgotten something in the kitchen, if someone wanted a steak sauce that wasn’t on the table, or if it was time to pass the serving dishes around again or pour more tea. Such a mom seldom relaxed enough to enjoy the food and conversation.
Why is the story we heard from scripture in the gospel? Is this a gospel recognition of domestic disputes? During the Middle Ages this story was used to justify and exalt the contemplative life over and above the active secular life. The story has been used as an allegory to illustrate the primacy of faith over works.
There are those who say the story illustrates Jesus as the liberator of women. In a time when women were almost non persons, could not go to the synagogue schools nor study the Torah (some rabbis went so far as to caution against talking too much to women)--in just such a time here is Jesus engaged in intelligent conversation with Mary and seems to be saying to Martha, "Don't be so caught up in the role society has thrust on you. Don't hide in the kitchen."
Most of the interpretations of this story come off as a criticism of Martha
In a commentary on this story by Margaret Guenther she says, "I must confess that as I read this story I ask: Where would Jesus be without Martha? And why did he seek her hospitality if he then intended to belittle her? Why didn't he just stay out by the roadside for his teaching if the teaching was all that mattered? We rely on the Marthas to get the job done and to postpone their own pleasures until all obligations are met. . .
"If I were Martha " she continues, "I would say to Jesus. 'Don't you care that I've been left with all the work? Don't you think I would like to sit at your feet? But there's still dinner to prepare and a hundred small tasks to do. No one will notice that I do them, but they'll certainly notice if I neglect them. Have you ever wondered why you like to come to this house and not to the house next door or across the street when you are tired and hungry and when you yearn for a quiet space around you?’"
A 19th century sonnet, Martha and Magdalene by Giuseppe Belli ends with Martha snapping back at Jesus when he tells her that Mary’s choice is more important: “So says you, but I know better. Listen, if I sat around on my salvation the way she does, who’d keep this house together?”
Is Martha's complaint and criticism of her sister Mary an example of service gone sour?
But I'm not ready to believe that Martha is a whiner. But she does complain to Jesus, "Don't you care that I'm doing all this work -alone- while Mary sits in here and does nothing? And Jesus if effect responds: "Mary is doing something by doing nothing." I know my wife will claim that I've mastered the 2nd half of that. She still can't tell the difference between contemplation and napping. “Doing nothing or just sitting there” may be an appropriate sermon topic for vacation time. It may be that our time and place needs to hear the words of Jesus to Martha “You are anxious and troubled about many things.” (Eugene Peterson translates “Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing.”)
We live in a time when you don’t fit into the office culture unless you come in Monday complaining about how exhausted you are because of all that you did over the weekend.
A couple of years ago Alvin Rosenfield and Nicole Wise wrote a bestselling book: The Over-scheduled Child: Avoiding the Hyper-parenting Trap in which they detail and decry the child-rearing style prevalent in middle and upper middle class homes where parents jump start their children to achieve milestones early and to develop skills faster and build a resume of extra activities to prepare themselves to get into prestigious colleges. Ironically, if you look this up on the Web you find that you can schedule into one of their workshops on the “over scheduled child.”
David Brooks, whom you may have seen as the conservative commentator on PBS and who is a New York Times columnist has a new book out: On Paradise Drive where he skewers what he calls “The First Suburban Empire.” He paints a picture of the “uber mom,” a former corporate strategist, who deploys her energy and $950,000 education to rear young achievers. He says, “Uber moms are easily recognizable because they generally weigh less than their children.”
The uber mom is a by product of what Brooks calls “the Achievatron” a “cross-generational conspiracy to produce success.” The Achievatron’s children are more supervised than any generation in history. They study harder, require PDA’s to negotiate their activity schedules and frequently own three helmets for sports. A Michigan University study in 1997 which compared children’s activities with 1981 showed that children’s leisure time dropped from 40 per cent of the day to 25 per cent. The time children spent in non-organized play dropped by 16 per cent. You may have seen the article in one of last week’s papers of a community on the north shore where the kids just gather, someone divides up the gloves and that determines who is on what team and they play without umpires or anything “official.” There are a number of writers who suggest that children need a good deal of time which isn’t organized and scheduled, time to “goof off” or as one Australian puts it in the Aussie vernacular “doin’ nuffin.”
Doing nothing--in the case of Mary listening to Jesus--may be a different kind of work than activity--it is not idleness.
Doing nothing may require a lot of preparation--plans made, schedules cleared, etc. to create some quiet and serenity.
For some it is difficult to stop pushing things about, exerting the will, striving to be on top of the situation.
If we are Martha can we cut down on our magnificent preparations, quit showing how much we care, how hard we try, what a good person we are with all our activity??
How much of our doing, our activity is saying "Look at me, Look at me!" See I can prove that I'm capable, lovable, worthy. We don't know how Jesus said "Martha, Martha." Maybe he touched her gently on the arm or took her hand. Maybe he smiled the kind of loving smile that made her understand instantly that she was loved for who she was, not for what she did. So what is the good news from today’s gospel? One woman said she never likes hearing this text preached because she always comes away with the sense that it’s never possible to get things right. If, like Martha, she works hard, she will be labeled “overfunctioning.” If, like Mary, she sits and listens too long, nothing gets done.
But the good news of the gospel is that we don’t “have to get it right.”
There is nothing we have to do or be to be loved by God. Knowing that, we can ease up on all our striving and anxiety.
Perhaps we need to imagine that Luke’s story is really incomplete. After the interchange which is recorded, all three sit down to relish the supper that Martha had prepared. Then, when at last the meal is over, Mary quietly gets up and does the dishes, while Martha lingers at the table with Jesus, listening quietly.
We would do well to heed the words of one of my favorite philosophers, Winnie-the-Pooh.
Christopher Robin asks him, “Pooh, what do you like doing best in the world?”
“What I like best is me going to visit you and you saying, ‘How about a smakerel of honey?’”
“I like that too, but what I like doing best is Nothing.”
“How do you do Nothing?”
“Well it’s when grown-ups ask, ‘What are you going to do?’ and you say ‘Nothing.’ And you go and do it.”
“I like that,” says Pooh, “let’s do it.” Amen
Joe Dunham
| Copyright © 2004 by Joe Dunham. All rights reserved. |