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Cathedral Eucharist Sermon preached by The Venerable Howard Leigh – Precentor
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, 18th July 2010
Readings: Amos 8:1-12; Colossians 1:15-28; Luke 10:38-42

The trap is set: praise Mary, blame Martha. The way it is designed, conditions seem to be pretty obvious for that route. Martha is the one paying attention to the wrong things and Mary to the right things.
Mary and Martha’s sisterhood—or sibling rivalry—has inspired centuries of commentary about the relationship between devotion – the deepening of religious experience and the need to offer practical ministry and maintain the institution – whether it be to clean and cook or to carry out some much needed work around the house or readjust the budget! The parallels with congregational life are obvious.
In our saner moments we can all acknowledge that both are necessary; however in anxious times or through personal insecurity it is easy to think that some aspects of ministry are valued more than others and that ‘my offering’ is undervalued.
Here at the cathedral in the way the Cathedral Council has two specific groupings – the Resources Board and the Ministry Council yet meeting together quarterly as one we acknowledge the variety of tasks and ministries which are complimentary - functionality and intimacy with God are the two sides of Spirituality.
Martha offers an excellent example of the disempowerment that happens when well-meaning individuals yet unaware of their own desires and agendas blame others. The best signals of this, as we know, appear with presumptive evaluations and unchecked assumptions. Martha presumes 1) that Jesus does not care, 2) that her sister has "left" her "to do all the work by herself," and 3) that she, Martha, has the right to tell Jesus what he should do. How often we see this happening in organisations and institutions like the Church. A therapist may well recognise that the deep rooted problem here is that Martha’s unspoken desires (For connection? for recognition? or solely for help in the household?) have not been addressed. Martha’s lack of self-awareness is so human, and so easily identified in today’s congregational disputes.
How many times do we get tangled in "he said/she said" dynamics when each participant simply has needs or desires left unaddressed, unmet? Desires that may easily be met without others’ expense? What could Martha’s relationship with her Lord have been like, had she been able to claim and then honour her own needs for deeper connection, beyond her distractions?
How might Martha’s experience of Jesus’ visit been different had she had recourse to the simple wisdom of Brother Lawrence, (a 17th century Carmelite lay brother who spent most of his life in the monastery kitchen). His wisdom was to open one’s heart to divine love and receiving unearned grace amidst the most mundane and ordinary of responsibilities? - A concept that has been spoken of on more than one occasion during this Ordinary Time of the liturgical year. Does Martha’s lack of self-awareness and need for Jesus’ approval and direction suggest an early teaching of resurrection presence available in small tasks, offered with devotion and integrity?
However, to serve alone is not good. It is stressful and every community needs a cooperation of forces so that all of the service gets both equally shared and received. At this point, we must see Martha and Mary as complementary ministries to the church and not as divisive and separate ones. Cooperation, thus, is the key to get communities working, neither having someone relying on somebody else’s work, nor blaming those who are not doing what they were supposed to do.
Had Mary helped, Martha would have not been that anxious. Had Martha understood the other part of their ministry, Mary could have engaged Jesus without being reprimanded. Thus, this text is about communal life, about life together, shared equally. Also, this text shows how difficult and challenging this life together is, and how it presents to us a different way of living with one another.
In some ways, Martha and Mary shared diakonia (diaconal service) together. Two vital complementary ministries going on at their house church, marking the trajectory of their lives: service and word.
To read the Bible is a constant exercise of critique and self-criticism of the models of power and service within the life of the church. Martha and Mary’s text is an invitation to the distribution of tasks, of balancing responsibilities, and the calling forth of the capacity of communal cooperation in the service and in the word. In this way, Marthas and Marys of our world can be more than their own tasks and worries, for instead there is a given complementation of their own gifts and talents to themselves and to the church.
Perhaps this text can help us check the balances and unbalances of the ministries we have in our church both diocesan and local and in our mission to the world. Without blaming someone else or victimizing ourselves, we are called to learn both to serve and to speak, to live and to do the word of God in the world.
Maybe Martha and Mary can teach us all that practical Christianity and devotion are not so antagonistically directed. Perhaps congregations today could be the crucible in which heightened awareness to individual and unspoken desires may instigate deeper connection for all, regardless of who does the dishes (as Brother Lawrence might say in his writings with considerable humour and an impish smile).