“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.” It’s a familiar story. Martha is angry. Why wouldn’t she be? Like any good woman of her day, she has worked hard getting ready for the arrival of a friend of the family, Jesus of Nazareth. There’s been so much to do: slaughter, dress, and cook the meat, make the cakes, prepare the fruits and vegetables, set the table, heat the water for the bath that Jesus, dusty from the long road, would surely want. Now he’s here, but there’s still plenty to do. But where’s Mary? As soon as Jesus arrived, she joined the men, plunked herself down at Jesus’ feet and began listening to Jesus’ teaching? Women don’t mix with men who are not relatives, they don’t study Torah, and they certainly don’t listen to a rabbi’s teaching. What is Mary doing? Why isn’t she helping?

What’s your response to this story? Do you sympathize with poor, overworked Martha, Martha who is doing everything expected of her? I’ve read somewhere that, in any organization, ten percent of the people do eighty percent of the work. Where are the rest? When we ask for Vestry nominees or delegates to Diocesan Convention, why is it the same people who are willing to serve? Whether it’s church clean up day or Loaves and Fishes, why do the same people turn up? Why do so few come forward to be lectors, Eucharistic Ministers, or Eucharistic Visitors? Of course, all of us are grateful for those who do come forward, but if you’re one of those ten percent, you might just want some of those other ninety percent to do a little more, right?

On the other hand, perhaps you’re looking at Mary and thinking, “Yes! Good for her, for breaking free of the kitchen – or the fireplace in this case – and doing what a true disciple should do: joining with other disciples and deepening her relationship with Jesus. And good for Jesus, you might think, supporting Mary in claiming her right to be a full disciple.

What’s going on here? Is Jesus really rebuking the hardworking Martha? Does Jesus really approve of what Mary has done? The traditional interpretation of this story is that Martha represents the active life, and Mary represents the contemplative life, and that here at least Jesus suggests that the quiet contemplative life is preferable to the noisy active life. But I wonder. Does Luke really want us to believe that Jesus prefers the contemplative life to the active life, that it’s better to spend your life in a convent or monastery than out ministering in the world? Remember that this story immediately follows the story of the Good Samaritan, which you heard last week. If nothing else, the Samaritan engaged in active ministry, in real service to the man who’d been left half dead by robbers. There is no question that ministry is an important theme in Luke’s Gospel. Think of what the Seventy were told to do: not only proclaim the nearness of God’s Reign, but also to heal the sick. Think of the many times that Jesus is shown healing people. So I don’t think that we are to see Jesus as suggesting that service is unimportant, or that the contemplative life is preferable to the active life.

Actually, the story of the Good Samaritan and this story are complementary, each of them teaching us something about what it means to be Jesus’ disciple. In fact, the meaning of discipleship is an over-arching theme in Luke’s Gospel. Remember that Jesus told the Good Samaritan story in response to the second of two questions. The first question the lawyer asked Jesus was, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” When Jesus asked him what was written in the law, the man answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” He then asked Jesus who his neighbor was, and Jesus responded with the story of the Samaritan who went against social expectations and show unexpected compassion. Through that story, we are reminded that we must minister to all. In the story of Mary and Martha, Luke asks us to look at the other aspect of discipleship, loving God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. Through the devotion of Mary, we are reminded that what is most important to being a faithful disciple is having an intimate relationship with Jesus. Serving people is important, but knowing Jesus is even more important. Intimate friendship with Jesus must be the foundation of all our service, indeed of our entire lives. Knowing Jesus involves sitting with him in prayer, listening to him, learning from him. And notice that for Luke having such a relationship with Jesus involves a choice. While we believe in God’s free gift of grace, while we believe that God continually reaches out to us with an invitation of love, nevertheless we must choose to accept God’s love. Mary has chosen the better part, intimate relationship with Jesus – and so must we.

And there’s more. When our lives are grounded in an intimate relationship with Jesus, when we pray and worship regularly, when we allow silence into our lives so as to better hear Jesus’ words, when we meditate and journal regularly, then God’s transforming grace begins to work in our lives, and our lives begin to change. Perhaps we begin to question the other choices we may have made in our lives. Perhaps we begin to see places where our lives need to change. Perhaps we see roles that our culture has encouraged us to take on that now no longer fit. Perhaps we begin to understand the distinctive ministry to which God is calling each of us. Whatever the outcome, we can be sure that as we deepen our relationship with Jesus, as we choose the “better part,” as we sit more intentionally at his feet, he will lead us to into change and transformation, perhaps even unexpected change and transformation, so that we become more nearly the person we have truly been created to be.

What might such a life grounded in love of Jesus look like? Grace Thomas* was born in the early part of the twentieth century, the second of five children of a streetcar conductor in Birmingham, Alabama. After marrying and moving to Georgia, Grace became a clerk in the state capitol in Atlanta and became interested in politics. Although she was a full-time mother and employee, she enrolled in night school to study law. In 1954 she shocked her family by announcing that she would run for governor of Georgia. The only candidate to strongly support the decision in Brown v Board of Education, she was soundly defeated. However, in 1962, she decided to run again. By then, racial tensions in the South were great. Grace received death threats because of her progressive platform on race. One day she held a rally at the old slave market in a small town. Standing where human beings had once been bought and sold, she proclaimed that, “The old has passed away, the new has come. A new day has come when all Georgians, white and black, can join hands and work together.” At that point a man angrily interrupted her speech and shouted, “Are you a communist?” Why, no,” Grace replied quietly. “Well then where’d you get all them galdurned ideas?” Grace pointed to the steeple of a nearby Baptist church. “I learned them over there, in Sunday school.” Grace had spent time listening to the Word of her Lord and grounding herself in that Word. What she heard changed her life and launched her on a very specific mission in life.

And so we come back to service and ministry. The story of Martha and Mary does not ask us to choose between service and prayer, between the active and contemplative lives. It does not suggest that the contemplative life is superior to the active life. What it does suggest is that all our activity, all our ministry, must be grounded in a deep relationship with Jesus. Ultimately, it is our relationship with Jesus that must order and govern our lives. And this is true for us both as individuals and as a community. As both individuals and as a community, Jesus calls us to be both grounded in relationship with him, through prayer, worship, and study, and ready to serve a hurting and broken world in his name. Is this a vision that we can pursue as a parish? To be a powerhouse of both prayer and mission? As we go forth from this place, formed by the Word we have heard and taken into ourselves, may we continue by God’s grace to deepen our relationship with Jesus even as we are strengthened for service to God’s people.

*From a story told by Tom Long and posted by Scott Hoezee at http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/thisWeek/index.php.