Setting Aside Worry and Anxiety
A Reflection on Luke 10.38-42
RCL Proper 16C
17 July 2022
Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral
New Westminster BC
Many years ago my mentor and friend, the late Louis Weil, returned home to Texas after a stressful time as a faculty member at the Seminario del Caribe in Puerto Rico. He was both physically and spiritually exhausted and was uncertain about his future, as a priest and as a teacher.
Louis was the child of a mixed marriage. His father was Jewish, his mother a Baptist. Among his father’s friends was a rabbi with whom Louis had always had a good relationship. So Louis decided to talk with his father’s friend, confident that he would get a truly impartial, third-party opinion so to speak.
After Louis had unburdened himself and laid before the rabbi all the worries and anxieties that were plaguing him, the rabbi sat in silence for some time. Then he said, ‘Louis, if Jesus is who you believe him to be, why are you so burdened with these anxious fears and doubts?’ Now let me be clear. The rabbi was not questioning Louis’ belief. He was asking Louis to return to the roots of his belief in Jesus as the Christ and, to use the words of the Christian scholar Marcus Borg, to ‘meet Jesus again for the first time’. Perhaps Louis like Mary of Bethany might decide to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen for a while.
I am often brought up short when this brief episode from the life of Jesus is read. It is, like the parable of the Good Samaritan, a story that is quite familiar to all of us. It has even become the origin of a phrase used from time to time in conversation – being a Martha or a Mary.
There are several ways to interpret this story. A frequent approach is one that suggests that Martha represents the ‘active’ life and Mary the ‘contemplative’ life. Jesus seems to be saying that the ‘contemplative’ life is the best form of discipleship because the ‘active’ life tends to be prone to distractions and obstacles to Christian life. Earlier in the Gospel, Luke gives his own version of the parable of the sower, found also in Matthew and Mark, where seed falls on various soils.
The ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe only for a while and in a time of testing fall away. As for what fell among the thorns, these are the ones who hear; but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. But as for that in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance. (Luke 8.13-15)
Another way of reading today’s gospel is to do so in the light of the cultural attitudes towards women and discipleship in the time of Jesus. Martha of Bethany is fulfilling the classic role of the woman of the household – making sure that everyone is fed and that obligation of hospitality is met. Mary, on the other hand, is boldly assuming the posture of a male disciple – kneeling at the feet of Jesus to listen to his message. When Martha complains, not to her sister but to Jesus, Jesus praises Mary for her courage and discernment.
But the more I hear this story, the more I am convinced that the key to understanding this tory is in the final two verses: “But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’” (Luke 10.41-42)
My friends, who among us in this waning pandemic, in this time when religious communities such as ours navigate difficult waters, in times of economic and social stress, are not ‘worried and distracted by many things’? We often avoid facing the depth of our worries and anxieties by plunging into a kind of ‘busy-ness’ that simply aggravates our feelings. Our health suffers; our mental and emotional health suffers; our relationships suffer. Even when our ‘busy-ness’ is associated with ‘good’ causes, we may find less and less fulfillment in them; they become burdens rather than joys, obligations grudgingly accomplished rather than ministries freely undertaken.
It’s not that the work we are doing is unimportant. It’s because it is becoming more distant from its source of energy and purpose – the saving word we encounter in Jesus of Nazareth. I am very aware that, in my own life right now, the voice of Jesus is fainter than I would wish it to be. Like Martha I have been doing what is good and proper, fulfilling the ministry that was entrusted to me when I became your Vicar and your Archdeacon. But I know that I am both worried and distracted.
Worry and distraction are emotions that are signs that we need to pause and to listen to Jesus. Jesus speaks to us in many ways – through the Scriptures, through prayer, through times of rest and re-creation – to remind us that ‘God is working (the divine) purpose out as year succeeds to year’ (The Hymnal 1982, #534). Just as we need to ‘keep our eyes on the prize’ and to nurture our peripheral vision of the path before us, we need to be intentional – a frequently used and frequently ignored adverb – in maintaining our connection to the source of our life, our strength, our hope.
We are not being asked to choose between being Martha or Mary. We are being invited to be disciples whose service is shaped by what we have heard at Jesus’ feet. We are being invited to be disciples who, upon hearing the living Word, rise to the challenges we face, unburdened by worry, undistracted by anxiety, freed by love, by hope, by faith to do and to be infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.
