a creative tension at the center
Once upon a time someone said the Church should be named “The Church of Mary and Martha”. When I asked why, she said “There’s this tension right at the center between the doing of Martha and the listening of Mary.” She was talking about her own local congregation, though I think the same could be said of all congregations. The same tension has been at the heart of the Church since Jesus entered the living room and Mary left the kitchen, leaving Martha holding the spatula, feeling left out.
I wonder if Luke had this in mind when he placed this story immediately following that of the Good Samaritan. That story has a laser focus on the one who shows mercy to the neighbor. This one turns our focus to the necessity of listening to God in a time of multiple distractions. It’s easy to make this a forced choice, as if one were better than the other. That’s the traditional option. I think Luke wants us to avoid that dilemma.
I can’t imagine my life without the company of Martha. It’s the company that taught me to live the Christian life. It’s probably why I became a social worker. The company of Martha is always at work doing good things, preparing meals, fixing homes, providing shelter, advocating for just policies, dispensing medicine, and so on, without end, because there really is no end to the good things that are necessary. Goodness, compassion and hospitality are pouring out from them among us morning, noon and night. No time to rest until the kingdom comes.
Even so, I remember the moment when I began to wonder seriously whether the Martha company was missing something. Or rather, I was missing something. I was driving to yet another church meeting, listening to a song by the folk singer Iris Dement.
She wrote it after her father died:
“I’m guess I’m older now and I’ve got no time to cry …
I’ve got no time to look back,
I’ve got no time to see the pieces of my heart
that have been ripped from me
and there’s bills to pay, and songs to play and a house to make a home.
I guess I’m older now and I’ve got now time to cry.”
I have come to see that the Marys among us find time to rest - and to cry. And it’s not just hanging out, as Martha fears, it’s attentive listening for God. This listening can best be described as staying alert. The Marys have an attentive eye, a poet’s ear and a mystic’s heart. They take the time for reflection, prayer and are learning to be un-distracted by fevered busyness. They are capable of doing the one thing that Jesus says is necessary: listening to the Holy One. They are not burdened with FOMO as I am.
This Mary-Martha tension is at the center of life, yours and mine. We are tempted to tilt one way or the other, and if we take this story of Mary and Martha alone, we might think the tension is to be dissolved by sitting down next to Mary. But that would be misleading. Luke cautions us that Jesus didn’t dissolve the tension, he displays the importance of balance by placing the story of the Good Samaritan – the heart of sacrificial service – just before this one, where Jesus names the one thing necessary: listening to him.
Nevertheless, most of us tilt one way or the other and for most, it is toward Martha. We are frenetically at work, cleaning up the world, dusting here and there, trying to mend all the broken pieces of humanity, fixing this and bandaging that. Protesting one day, petitioning the next and making casseroles for the hungry on the third day; and that’s only the middle of the week. We dissolve the tension by neglecting the other side.
Those who tilt the other way, refusing to follow one’s prayer into fray of this wounded world where Jesus embraces the suffering, and casts down the thrones of the proud, dissolve the tension in the other direction. Prayer becomes a cozy shelter rather than the strength to bring the battered in from the storm.
I think of this as a creative tension that’s always present, reminding us to discover the balanced life, that integrates compassion and contemplation. This is never about either compassion or contemplation. They are practices bound together and mutually enriching one another.
How might our congregations serve with Martha, and also sit with Mary listening to Jesus? This remains the heart of the Christian life.
In my experience, whenever the tension is dissolved, two things occur: passivity and self-indulgence on the one hand, cynicism, and burnout on the other. Without the dialectic, what passes for spirituality is religious self-indulgence with no connection to the world where God’s children continue to suffer. Yet, on the other hand, relentless religious work, can be a form of running from the emptiness that lies at the center of our lives. If we stop long enough, we have to listen to our heart and come to terms with a spiritual crisis. A crisis that’s more frightening than we like to admit.
The prophet Amos describes the consequences of a people neither listening to God and walking in God’s way:
“The time is surely coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.” Amos 8:11-12
One way to hear this story is Jesus inviting the Martha to surrender, setting aside your tasks for a moment, joining Mary listening to Jesus, the voice of God. There is a time for doing, and there is a time for being.
How can we nurture a community of contemplation and compassion - listening and acting - that all may find the life of Christ among us?
It seems to me this is the most important question set before us today.
_____
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Luke 10: 38-42
July 20, 2025 at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Most days in the early evening I watch a pair of hummingbirds (male and female) come to the feeder for some food and quickly dark back to their perch. This female appears to be resting from her labor for a moment with eyes closed. Resting. Listening.