READINGS

Luke 10:38-42
Deuteronomy 33:1-3 (KJV and HEB)
Luke 7:36-50
Acts 6:1-7

HOMILY

Today's Gospel follows on immediately from the account of the Good Samaritan and theoretically, we are on the journey from the area around Galilee towards Jerusalem.

We're still, according to the Gospel, still much closer to Galilee and the Samaritan area than we are to close to Jerusalem.

And yet here we have Jesus coming to the house of Mary and Martha - Martha and Mary - at Bethany.

And Bethany of course is right by Jerusalem, it's within earshot of the Mount of Olives.

I mean, it's really very close to Jerusalem, it's where Jesus would go to spend the night from Jerusalem during his last days.

And it's where, in John's Gospel, Jesus goes towards the end of the Gospel to the house of Martha and Mary for the raising of Lazarus.

So what's it doing here geographically somewhere else? Well we don't really know.

What the Gospel says is: As they went on their way he entered a certain village.

So the villages are named, where a woman named Martha, which can be either lady or the bitter one - there are two meanings for the word Martha - welcomed him into her home.

So she is the lady of the household. She had a sister named Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to what he was saying.

In the Aramaic version of St Luke's Gospel (which may be as old as any of the texts that we have), the suggestion is that the Mary in question was Mary of Magdalene and that she normally lived in Magdala which is a rich suburb of Tiberias, and had come to visit her sister.

And that she was the woman who earlier in Luke's Gospel had sat at Jesus's feet and washed his feet with her tears, the perfume.

In other words, the relationship between her and Jesus's feet is deliberately emphasized here.

That's part of the Aramaic background, there's nothing in there in the Greek to suggest that but the relationship between the kind of presence that she had.

Jesus said she must have been forgiven already because she loves so much.

That here she was receiving whatever it was that Jesus had to give her.

But Martha was distracted by her many tasks.

Now and again the text seems to point forward to the Acts of the Apostles, in which the apostolic group doesn't want to get distracted by many tasks when it comes to feeding the Hellenists widows who are getting a bad deal compared with the Hebrews widows.

So they designate deacons to engage in service, diaconia, which is the same word as is used here.

So that they can spend more time listening to the word.

So there seems to be a reference to that story here.

Martha was distracted by her many tasks, so she came to him and asked: Lord, do not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?

Tell her then to help me.

So this appears to be a tale of potential rivalry between two sisters, one of whom apparently is sitting around doing nothing by sitting at Jesus's feet and listening to the word, and the other who is busy doing all sorts of things.

In the Aramaic version of Luke's Gospel, the ancient Arabic version, apparently, all the words - both for the listening to the word and the being ready about many things - are liturgical words.

They describe the Levitical role in keeping the cult going, those are the word references in this passage.

So here, in the domestic church, if you like, there are the two Levitical roles being performed by these two ladies, Martha and her sister.

And in their midst is the Word.

And of course, this fits beautifully with Moses's final blessing in Deuteronomy 33 when he gives a blessing to the people and tells them that the Lord will come.

It slightly varies according to the translations but this is:

The Lord came from Sinai and dawned from Seir upon us; he shone forth from Mount Paran. 

With him were myriads of holy ones, at his right, a host of his own. 

Indeed, O favourite among peoples, all his holy ones were in your charge; they sat at your feet receiving direction from you.

That's the translation of the Hebrew which the NRSV screws up, but the King James version gets right: the sitting at your feet.

So this is the second version - sitting at your feet - we have Mary Magdalene sitting at the feet and we have the blessing of Moses indicating the one who was to come, the Word, and sitting at his feet and receiving direction from him was the appropriate thing to do.

So the Lord answers her and here's the difficult bit of undoing the rivalry between the sisters.

Martha Martha... now there are very few places where our Lord refers to somebody twice by the same name.

There's one occasion where he says 'Simon Simon' to Peter.

But this is the standard way that the LORD - Yahweh - talks to people by repeating the name twice.

This is the attention grab. This is when the Lord indicates that it's the Lord who's speaking.

Thus the Lord says Abraham Abraham to Abraham and Moses Moses - to Moses; the double Saul Saul to Saul when he undergoes his conversion on the road to Damascus.

So these double uses are very indicative of this is the Lord speaking, so there's no question of who it was, who was in the home, it's definitely the one who Moses was indicating.

Martha Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things. 

There is need only of one thing. 

Mary has chosen the better part which will not be taken away from her.

And again, in the Greek it says 'the better part', the Aramaic apparently is 'a better part'.

Now again there appears to be a pun here since part is portion or lot; it's the same word that was the Levitical lot for the sacrifice, but also it's a pun with the word for worrying.

So Mary's is a portion and marimna where all of the things that you're distracted about.

There's a word game going on there.

It looks as though Jesus is saying: you've got your portions in a muddle.

Apparently, behind this, there is a kind of a joke which of course jokes don't translate between languages, that's part of the difficulty here that what might be a witty remark in Aramaic cannot be wittily translated into Greek, far less into English.

We are pretty good at our own witticisms, but they're not very easily transferable.

So it seems, and of course this is speculative, I'm relying on my old friend Duncan Duret and his extraordinary reading of this passage, that Jesus is effectively saying to Martha:

you want help with doing the waiting, but really I just want to wait upon you.

In other words, 'wait' and 'to be waited upon' is more the sense of Jesus's pun at this stage.

He's saying that the whole point here is to allow yourself to be waited upon, not to do the waiting.

That, of course, fits in with other phrases in Luke's Gospel where apparently the one who appears to be the guest, is, in fact, the host.

This is a typical entry of Jesus into a home and reversing the role of host and guest, it's the guest, the apparent guest who is, in fact, the host.

And this trick happens frequently, Jesus talks about this that this is what will happen: the disciples of those who allow themselves to be waited on.

The master comes in and then waits and set them down at a table and then waits on them himself.

It's rather an odd thing because we're so used to a pious version of this in which Mary is being told: yes, it's right to sit around and do nothing and Martha is being told: don't get worked up about house businesses, feeding me and so we think oh yes, contemplative is right, acting is less good.

It actually appears that it's much more a question of I am the one who wants to feed you; are you going to allow yourself to be fed by me?

It's the reversal of positions, that's the key thing here.

And reversal positions are particularly important from those who get disturbed about liturgical things, wanting to get everything right and making everything look classy and beautiful and brilliant, whereas the real question is not the classics, the brilliance of the beauty, but whether the person concerned is being served, because it's the host who wants to be the waiter.

And that's the real way you show love and respect for the word: allowing yourself to be waited upon and transformed into a sharer of the waiter's word, the waiter's richness, the food that the waiter is giving.

Something like that seems to be what's going on.

It says: Mary has chosen the better part - a better part talking about the portion, the different sorts of portion, the non-worried portion which will not be taken away from her.

And the not being taken away makes perfect sense if one understands that she has become like a symptom of God's giving, of the words speaking.

She's allowed herself to be taken up into the being served which is how God wants us to grow.

What I call 'the secondariness' - that is the real sign of discipleship - is when we're aware that we are secondary to someone doing something for us, rather than being concerned about how we need to be in order to get something done for other people.

This is the rich account of Jesus teaching secondariness as being our portion and our lot, and the richness and creativity that comes from accepting secondariness.

SUMMARY

Goes to the house of Mary and Martha.

Martha was distracted by her many tasks.

The Lord answers her (and here's the difficult bit of undoing the rivalry between the sisters):

Martha Martha... you are worried and distracted by many things. There is need only of one thing. Mary has chosen the better part that will not be taking away from her.

Duncan Duret -> Jesus is effectively saying to Martha: you want help with doing the waiting, but really I just want yo wait upon you.

Wait and to be waited upon is more the sense of Jesus' pun at this stage.

He's saying that the whole point here is to allow yourself to be waited upon, not to do the waiting.

Jesus: I'm the one who wants to feed you. Are you going to allow yourself to be fed by me?

In liturgical terms, the real questions is not the classics, the brilliance of the beauty, but whether the person concerned is being served, because it's the host who wants to be the waiter.

This is the real way you show love and respect for the word allowing yourself to be waited upon and transformed into a sharer of the waiter's word, the waiter's richness, the food that the waiter is giving.

The real sign of discipleship is when we're aware that we are secondary to someone doing something for us, rather than being concerned about how we need to be in order to get something done for other people.

This is the rich account of Jesus teaching secondariness as being our portion and our lot, and the richness and creativity that comes from accepting secondariness.