Sunday Homily - July 21st, 2019 - I'm Such a Martha!

I.

"Oh, I'm just such a Martha,
 but I wish I could be a Mary."

"Oh, Jillian is such a Martha,
 she just works and works and works."

Anyone ever heard that phrase before?
 That someone is a "Martha"
  and wishes they could be a "Mary?"

Well, I wonder where on earth that comparison came from?
 It seems so familiar,
  almost as if it's been told for a long time...
   (turn to the side, pick up cell phone)
    Wait, what's that, Holy Spirit?
     Oh! This comes from the story from St. Luke's Gospel,
      right! The one we just read this morning!

Martha and Mary, the sisters in the town of Bethany.
 In this one story,
  are sometimes treated as if they are ONLY like this particular passage describes them.

 Martha, being the one who just works away
  and Mary the one who humbly sits at Jesus's feet while he teaches.

Martha, who worries about the details and gets irritated at her sister for not helping out.
 And Mary, who sits humbly at the feet of Jesus, learning to be a disciple.

Martha, overcome with working working working.
 And Mary, who "has chosen the better part."
  [c.f. Luke 10:42 NRSV]

II.

Now, how would you like it if you and your siblings
 were forever memorialized as a moral story
  based upon ONE single story of your lives?

It's kind of if I only remembered that one time
 that my two best friends from childhood,
  Ron and Sasha*, [names changed for privacy]
   raced each other down the street,
    with Sasha being the winner,
     and just assumed that for the rest of their lives,
      Sasha was the fast one,
       and Ron was the slow one.

No! Sasha's not forever the "fast one"
 nor is Ron forever the "slow one."
  That completely ignores the fact that their lives are larger
    than just one story about them.

So also, friends,
 Martha and Mary's story is larger than just this one account.
  Because, friends, did you know
   there is another, MUCH longer story involving Martha and Mary
   in our Gospels?

And it is when Jesus raises their brother, Lazarus, from the dead.

So, if you are stuck with Martha the workaholic
 and Mary the angelic disciple in your head,
  listen to the account of the Gospel of St. John
   when Jesus is going to the tomb after Lazarus has died.

"When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’

When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you.’ And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’"
  [John 11:17-32 NRSV]

Now think of this account of Martha and Mary's life.
 In this part of the Gospel story,
  Martha is the one who has the clearest faith in Jesus Christ
   and the resurrection of the dead!

Mary, in this passage,
 doesn't even get up out of the house to go see Jesus
  until Martha comes to get her!

And, of course, the end of this story is that both sisters,
 both Martha and Mary,
  witness the power that Jesus Christ our Lord has over even death itself
   when Lazarus is raised from the dead!

III.

Friends,
 this Martha who was worried about her work in the Gospel of Luke
  is the same Martha who has deep and abiding faith in the resurrection
   and who loves her sister enough to go and get her and bring her to Jesus in the Gospel of John!

This same Mary who sits and learns from Jesus in the Gospel of Luke,
 is the same Mary who couldn't even bring herself at first to get up and see Jesus,
  for the weight of her sorrow was too great.

Martha and Mary are the same sisters in both stories.
 And the point is that both have shortcomings,
  both have their own personalities,
   but the point is not these things.

The point is that they are BOTH disciples of Jesus!

In both accounts,
 two snippets of their lives with Jesus,
  the unifying factor of both of them,
   is that they were faithful followers of Jesus.

And thanks be to God, friends,
 because that's what unifies us as well.

We who are gathered here together have all kinds of stories,
 big and small,
  tragic and triumphant
   that sometimes can seem to define us a little too completely.

Some of us here today are widowed or widowers,
 whose stories seem to carry with it only an absence of our loved ones passed on.

Some of us here today are the black sheep of our families,
 the ones whose stories are marked with tragedy of some sort.

But friends,
 Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
  those parts of your lives are not the important part of your story.

The unifying part,
 the essential part,
  is that we are followers of Jesus Christ
   who loves every single part of us,
    warts and all.

God loves us so much,
 that he sent Jesus Christ His Only Son our Lord
  to defeat death by his own sacrificial death,
   and to rise again on the third day for our salvation.

And that means no matter who you are,
 whether you think you are a Martha,
  or a Mary,
   or a Steve,
    or a James,
     or whatever you want to call yourself,
      know this:

The only part that matters is that we,
 along with Martha and Mary,
  are followers of Jesus Christ.

In the name of the +Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.