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The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost Imagine this scene. You have welcomed an important guest into your home. There is much to be done: beds to be made, food to be prepared and served, pots and pans to be washed, a table to be set, and you bustle about tending to it all, confident that it will all be accomplished and grateful that you have your sister to help you. You know that what you are doing is important—providing hospitality for strangers as well as friends is a primary virtue—but still, it’s a lot to do, and you’re beginning to feel a bit worn. As you move from task to task, you look around to see how your sister is doing, but she’s out of sight. Then, to your surprise, you see that instead of helping you, she’s sitting at the feet of your guest, and leaving all of the work for you. This is the context of today’s gospel story, the story of Mary and Martha. Like the story of the Good Samaritan we heard last week, the story of Mary and Martha is a familiar one. And just as “Good Samaritan” has become synonymous for one who cares for others, so have the names “Mary and Martha” when uttered together, come to stand for the dilemma we find ourselves in from time to time, caught between the constraints society places on us on the one hand and the desires of our hearts on the other. It’s easy for most of us to identify with Martha, with the feeling of being put upon, having to take care of everything, having to be responsible while others are off, seemingly having more fun. Martha’s complaints were legitimate: It was her role to provide a meal for her guests, to make sure their needs were attended to, and she had no one else to help her. So why does Jesus scold her and not Mary? I think that the answer t o that lies in the nature of Jesus’ message to his followers throughout this part of Luke’s gospel. Jesus consistently challenges his listeners to go beyond their comfort zones, to push the boundaries and restrictions that govern their lives. When Jesus says to Martha that “Mary has chosen the better part,” it is not so much a rebuke of what Martha does as it is a validation of Mary’s choice to sit and listen, taking on a role normally reserved for males. Jesus legitimizes Mary’s choice and in doing so he seems to legitimize women’s place in the life of the church. That would be radical enough, but I think Jesus’ message extends even beyond that. In the 1st century world of Palestine both men and women were entangled in and restrained by a complicated web of rules and expectations that defined what it meant to be respectable parts of society. Jesus’ call to follow him was also a call to break out of that entanglement, to let go of the societal and cultural bonds that restrained them and to take on his yoke instead. This is a liberating message because when taken to heart it frees us from defining ourselves and others as male or female, gay or straight, black or brown or white; it frees us from being constrained to fill only socially prescribed roles; and most of all it allows us to claim our identity as God’s beloved children, nothing more and nothing less.
On Friday we observed the feast day of four 19th century women, all of whom defied the bonds placed on them by society to work for justice. Two of these women, Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman were born into slavery, and after escaping those bonds worked tirelessly to free others and to abolish the practice of slavery in this country. After the civil war ended they joined their voices with those of the other two women whose feast day they share, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Amelia Bloomer in the long struggle to gain equal rights for women. And today is the feast day of Mary Magdalen. Although tradition is rich with stories about Mary Magdalen, we know very little about her actual life. The gospels record that she was among the followers of Jesus, and that she was present at his crucifixion and burial. It was Mary Magdalen who found the empty tomb and it was Mary Magdalen who was sent by the resurrected Jesus to tell the others what had happened, earning her the name of “apostle to the apostles.” Some argue that it was she from whom Jesus exorcised seven demons and some claim that it was she who wiped Jesus feet with her hair after anointing them with oil. Like the Mary in today’s gospel story, Mary Magdalen chose following Jesus, chose the role of disciple even when meant abandoning the roles her culture sanctioned for her. The six women whose lives and ministries we celebrate this week are a diverse group but they have at least one thing in common. Like Mary in today’s gospel these women broke free from the constraints that society placed on them and chose a different way. These women are wonderful icons of women’s discipleship and women’s ministry, but they are more than that. Their lives and work can remind all of us, women and men alike, that in Christ, we are neither male nor female, gay nor straight, black nor white, young nor old, rich nor poor. In Christ we are not bound by the roles and restrictions society places on us. Rather we are created as God’s beloved children and how we live our lives serves as our expression of that love in the world. No matter what other roles or vocations we choose to take on, it as a beloved child of God that we become most truly ourselves. And for that we give thanks to God. AMEN
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