Mary and Martha Walk Together

June 27, 2010

Welcome to today's worship service by the on-line Swedenborgian community

Mary and Martha Walk Together

        Open a Bible                     
      

Light a Candle     

FROM THE BIBLE 

Luke 10

At the Home of Martha and Mary
38As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. 40But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"

41"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, 42but only one thing is needed.[f] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

MESSAGE

Teresa of Avila was in her 50’s, and in poor health, when she felt she needed to leave the security of her convent to travel about Spain. She saw corruption in the convent, and felt called to reform the order and start new convents.  She wrote:

This [the uniting of the will with God] is a great favor for those whom the Lord grants it; the active and contemplative lives are joined. The faculties all serve the Lord together; the will is occupied in its work and contemplation without knowing how; the other two faculties serve in the work of Martha. Thus Martha and Mary walk together.

She was a great mystic with a deep contemplative life.  In her fifties, she realized that action in the world was part of contemplation.  She found the story of Jesus visiting Martha and Mary to be one filled with meaning for her.

In the Luke story, [above] is Jesus taking sides? Is he advocating contemplation over action? Is he trying to separate them? Or to unite them?

In Teresa’s mind, it was about putting the two together:

Believe me, Martha and Mary must join together in order to show hospitality to the Lord and have Him always present and not host Him badly by failing to give him something to eat. How would Mary, always seated at his feet, provide him with food if her sister did not help her? His food is that in every way possible we draw souls that they may be saved and praise him always.

So why does Jesus seem to favor the role of Mary over Martha? Teresa has an answer for that:

The answer is that she had already performed the task of Martha, pleasing the Lord by washing his feet and drying them and drying them with her hair. … and the years that she subsequently lived in His absence must have been a terrible torment. You see she wasn’t always in the delight of contemplation at the feet of the Lord.

In her book, But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation, Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza looks at the Mary and Martha story. She argues that many women identify with the role of Martha, who is doing tasks often assigned to women. She suggests that some secretly resent Jesus for being critical of Martha, while others blame themselves for not being good enough “Martha’s.” Contemporary interpretations tend to view the text as putting love of God over social activism. This way of viewing the text pits Mary and Martha against each other as “good woman” – “bad woman,” creating a dualism out of the roles of the women.


Swedenborg writes of the importance of attending to one’s externals, as well as internals. Today’s reading [above]is one place where he makes this point.  He also says this:

TC 406-7

Man is born not for the sake of himself, but for the sake of others; that is he is born not to live for himself alone, but for others; otherwise there could be no cohesive society nor any good therin … to love the neighbor is not alone to wish well and do good to a relative, a friend, or a good man, but also to a stranger, an enemy, a bad man. But charity is to be exercised toward the latter in one way and toward the former in another.


Teresa's years in the convent had been deeply contemplative, and she needed to balance the inner focus with an external one.  For many people in today's culture, it's common to become so absorbed in the work of the world, that we lost our inner contemplative selves.  I was talking recently with a man who said that he was going to take the first vacation he had had in years.  I asked him how he would spend his vacation time, and he showed me a list of all the chores he planned to do on his house.  I asked him when he would actually have time for rest and renewal.  He admitted that he never had quiet, restful time in his life.

As we move into the summer season in the Northern hemisphere, this is a good time to consider to ponder our own lives.  Do you have a balance between quiet and action -- between "being" and "doing"?  Is your summer filled with long "to-do" lists that provide no time for relaxation? 

To connect with the inner contemplative self, we need times of letting go of all "doing," -- just allowing ourselves to "be."  It's true that a meal must be prepared, but we also need time to just sit at the feet of Jesus and listen.

At the close of today's service, you'll find a quiet meditative video.  Feel free to relax into this tape, and give yourself some quiet moments to listen to your heart.

Close the Bible

  Go forth; knowing that you need times of inner quiet as well as times of activity.