July222007 - St. Matthew's United Church of Christ

A Sermon
Presented by Rev. Merlin T. Batt
Intentional Interim Pastor
St. Matthew’s United Church of Christ
Maiden, North Carolina
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 22, 2007

Scripture Lesson: Luke 10:38-42
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You are probably aware that the Bible verses we read each Sunday morning at worship come from what is called the “Revised Common Lectionary.” A lectionary is simply a list of “lections,” or readings from the Bible. They are arranged on a three-year cycle, so that, for example, the Bible passages we read today will be used again on this Sunday in the year 2010, assuming, of course, that St. Matthew’s continues to use this lectionary.

There is great value in using a lectionary to guide the choice of passages we read each Sunday, not least of which is the fact that this particular lectionary is shared by so many denominations. For example, if this morning, instead of coming here to St. Matthew’s, you had gone to worship at another UCC church or a Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, or even a Roman Catholic church, you likely would have heard the very same Bible passages we have before us today. In a quiet and unassuming way, this fact represents an enormously important ecumenical advance, the mere fact that, for the past 25 years or so, most Christians in the United States, Canada and Europe are gathering around the very same passages on the same day.

I share this information with you in order to tell you about something that happened to me last week. Tuesday I think it was, I stopped at City Hall in Newton to pay my utility bill, and on the way out of the parking lot I noticed, across the street, the Beth Eden Lutheran Church sign, which listed among other things the pastor’s sermon title. Actually it was the title of the sermon she preached last Sunday, but the church custodian hadn’t got round to changing it. Pastor Mitcham’s sermon for last Sunday was entitled “A Familiar Story – Or Is It?”

I thought to myself, “Ah, she preached on Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan as I did last Sunday. I wonder how she interpreted the story. Did she see what I saw in it? Did she focus on something different, something I hadn’t seen, perhaps? From the title, she appears to have gone deeper than the standard interpretation of the story as a moral encouragement to help people in trouble. I wonder what she said.”

All the way down the road to St. Matthew’s that morning, hot cup of coffee in one hand and steering wheel in the other, I thought about the challenge of preaching on familiar passages from the Bible and about the importance of digging deep into their meaning, that is, not remaining at the merely moral, good-advice-giving level. For, you see, Christianity is not good advice; it is good news, news about something which happened in Jesus Christ, because of which the world is a different place!

As I drove along, I realized that the next Sunday, today that is, we have in the lectionary the familiar story of Jesus’ visit to the home of Mary and Martha. I decided right then to borrow Pastor Mitcham’s title from last Sunday, “A Familiar Story – Or Is It?” and simply add the word “Another” to the beginning. So, based on what happened when Jesus visited in the Mary-Martha home, this sermon’s title became “Another Familiar Story – Or Is It?”

The problem is we think we know what this story is all about: two unmarried sisters, Mary and Martha, receiving Jesus into their home. Pots-and-pans Martha is busy in the kitchen getting the meal ready. Adoring Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet in the living room hanging on his every word. Martha gets cross because Mary has left her to do all the work, so Martha complains to Jesus hoping he will order Mary back to the kitchen to lend a hand in the necessary work of preparing the meal. When we see it this way, the story is reduced to the level of a sibling rivalry, a domestic spat between two sisters, and a moral tale about what is important in life.

Of course, the lesson often drawn by preachers and teachers is this: it’s more important to pay close attention to Jesus than it is to be busily occupied with many things. Or, another take on the story, there are two types of Christian spirituality – the active kind modeled by pots-and-pans Martha and the passive or contemplative kind exhibited by adoring Mary, and both of these types are options in the Christian life. On these approaches to understanding the story, there are endless variations, and over the years you have probably heard most of them!

But I submit to you that they all miss the point of the story! You see, the real problem between Martha and Mary wasn’t the workload Martha was bearing alone in the kitchen. That was upsetting to Martha, no doubt, but the main issue upsetting Martha was that her sister Mary was behaving as if she were a man! You see, by being in the living room and listening to Jesus, Mary had crossed an invisible boundary that her culture had placed between men and women; and as you’ll see, she had crossed it in two ways.

First, Mary crossed an important boundary within the house. What I mean is, the public room in the house (what we call the living room) was the space that belonged only to men. There men gathered to talk and socialize. On the other hand, the kitchen (and other parts of the house unseen by outsiders) was the space assigned to women. In the culture of that day, men and women could only mix outside where little children played and, for husband and wife, in the bedroom. Now you can see what Mary has done. By crossing the threshold into the living room, the place where only men gather to talk, Mary has violated an important social boundary within the first century home.

But that’s not all. Mary also violated an equally important boundary within her social world. Recall what the text says, “Mary…sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying.” You need to know that what she did was an exclusively male thing to do in that culture. To sit at someone’s feet meant that you were his student. Thus, to sit at a rabbi’s feet was what you did if you wanted to become a rabbi yourself someday! Sitting at the feet of an honored teacher wasn’t like simply taking a continuing education course; it was preparing for your life’s work.

This is exactly what Luke means when he tells us in his second volume, The Book of Acts, that Saul (whom we know better as the Apostle Paul) “sat at the feet of Gamaliel,” a famous first century rabbi. Paul wasn’t sitting there in an adoring posture as though Gamaliel were some kind of rock star, and he wasn’t just accumulating extra-curricular credits. No, Paul sat at Gamaliel’s feet to learn from him how to be a rabbi, a teacher of Israel. So here in the men’s space in the house, Mary has come to sit at Jesus’ feet so she could become one of his disciples, a teacher and preacher of the Kingdom of God, just like Peter and Andrew, James and John, and the others.

So here’s the picture: Mary’s settling down among the men in the living room was scandalous, and her sitting at Rabbi Jesus’ feet as if she wanted to be a teacher and preacher of God’s Kingdom like the other disciples was outrageous. This is what made Martha mad! But, like we do sometimes, Martha disguised her anger. Her real reason for being angry she hid behind a complaint that she was stuck in the kitchen doing all the work while Mary sat listening to Jesus, but the underlying issue was Mary’s inappropriate, even scandalous, boundary-crossing behavior – that is, behaving like a man.

Now, I want you to pay close attention to what Jesus said in response to Martha. He said to her, “Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.” English translation: Mary is right to do what she has done. She is welcome in this room, and, what’s more, she is as qualified to sit at my feet to become my disciple and become one of those who proclaim God’s Kingdom as any man.

Imagine Martha’s reaction. Imagine the reaction of the men in the living room, who were as uncomfortable with Mary’s presence as was Martha. Imagine the reaction of the religious leaders who, you can bet, later heard about what happened in that living room in Bethany. And imagine how different church history, and world history, would be if only we had understood this little story in its first century context, that is, understood it not as a domestic spat and a teaching about priorities, but as what happens when God’s Kingdom breaks in upon the world. Why, the gifts of half of humanity could have been more fully used in the proclamation of the gospel.

Once again in this little snippet of a story, we see that the way Jesus treated people was an expression of the overflowing love of God which, like a great river overflowing its banks into a parched countryside, irrigates parts of human society which had remained barren and unfruitful. And it was deeply disruptive. It was more than disturbing to have Jesus going around erasing boundaries between men and women, tearing down dividing walls between Jews and Samaritans, welcoming outcasts and sinners, challenging power and privilege, confronting evil, and laying claim to authority that went far above and beyond that of Caesar and his representatives. Why, you could get yourself killed doing things like that!

You see, the picture we have drawn of sweet Jesus, meek and mild, going about the countryside telling memorable, homespun stories, helping people in trouble, showing us by word and example how to be good boys and girls, and offering advice to help us live “happily ever after,” is simply not accurate. That’s a portrait of Mr. Rogers, not Jesus of Nazareth! And if that’s what Jesus was like, then why would anyone have wanted to crucify him? No one in his right mind would want to kill Mr. Rogers!

So today we have heard another familiar Jesus-story from the Gospels, the one about Mary and Martha. But we have found that the deeper into it we go, the less familiar it is, and the more challenging it becomes, and the more we understand why Jesus met the end he did, and the more we come to see that, as his church, we are called to do for the world what Jesus did for Israel: that is, act in such a way that the love of God, like a river overflowing its banks, irrigates parts of our society which remain barren and unfruitful, bringing new life to God’s good world.

Now to the One
who by the power at work within us
is able to do far more abundantly
than all we can ask or imagine,
to God be glory in the church
and in Christ Jesus
to all generations, forever and ever.
Amen.