Pray and work; activity and rest

There is an old joke about a man and woman dancing at a Catskills singles resort. “I’m only here for the weekend,” the man says. To which the woman responds, “I’m dancing as fast as I can!”  

Many of us can relate. We live in a time where we are expected to do as much as we can with as little as we can as quickly as we can. So here we see Jesus’ friend Martha dancing around her house as fast as she can, trying to get things ready for her honored guest, and trying, in her own way, to make the most of their time together.

My hunch is that Mary’s was not normally in the habit of entertaining visitors by sitting at their feet while her sister does all the work. Martha’s complaint to Jesus suggests that Mary’s behavior was not normal for her. It sounds to me as if Martha was saying to Mary by way of Jesus “snap out of it!”

We identify with Martha because she is in the business of activity… and anxiety: the two chief preoccupations of our age! People who call themselves “Marthas” often wear this title as a kind of badge of honor. And that is a good thing: it shows that they are interested in doing the right and good thing at the right and good time.

What’s different is that Mary apparently stopped what she was doing to attend to Jesus.  In speaking to Martha, Jesus does not deny the value of who Martha is, or of what she is doing. He does not placate her by saying everything is all right and that there is nothing to do or to worry about. Jesus’ solution to Martha’s anxiety is to offer a different way to approach the moment.

Jesus is not against activity or work or even going out of one’s way—otherwise he would not have told the story of the Samaritan who stopped to care for the injured stranger that we just heard last week, a story which comes right before this. What Jesus cares about the focus and center of our activity.

The anonymous 14th-century author of a spiritual discourse called The Cloud of Unknowing, speaks about Mary and Martha as repre­senting the Two Ways of Prayer. The author says:

“My friend, do you see that this whole incident concerning Jesus and the two sisters was intended as a lesson for active and contemplative persons of the Church in every age? Mary represents the contemplative life and all contemplative persons ought to model their lives on hers. Martha represents the active life and all active persons should take her as their guide.”

This is a very helpful commentary for me. Instead of pitting the two sisters against each other, the usual approach to this passage, we see the two sisters serving Jesus in two different kinds of prayer. One active and one restful, both serving Jesus. And this is the lesson the two sisters, these important followers of Jesus, gives us: in our walk with Christ, we all have periods of activity and rest.

The healthy Christian life depends on being active some of the time and having periods of renewal at other times.  That’s why we set aside a Sabbath Day…a day of rest, yes, but more important, a day of renewal that reminds us that we are God’s people animated by God’s spirit living in a world of God’s creation. In setting aside at least a day a week to focus on the worship of God, we take a break from the usual rat-race and we remind ourselves of who the center and source of our living, work and play is.

Have you ever noticed how Episcopalians and other Christian traditions divide up time? Our day (grounded in prayer—Morning Prayer, Noonday, Evening Prayer, and Compline), our week (grounded in the Sabbath… and organized around a daily and weekly calendar plus Saint’s Days) and our year (organized by the seasons of the Church year) are all built around prayer and work, or as the Benedictines say, ora et labora... prayer and work. Our Prayer Book way of organizing time teaches us that God’s time is a rhythm of activity and renewal. That means that to be balanced and healthy we will have Martha-time and Mary-time.

I call this the “do-be cycle.” Instead of saddling Martha with the guilt and shame of working through Jesus' visit, or secretly shaming Mary for abandoning her post, let’s look instead at the “do-be cycle.” We need to do. And we need to be. Doing without being is empty. Being without doing is wasteful. We need to both do and to be. Sing it with me.

Do-be to the left.

Do-be to the right.

Do-be, do-be, do-be with all your might!

Do-be, Do-be!

Society has forgotten both the tune and the rhythm! When so much is open or available 24/7, every day and every night is the same. Our world is one of endless media input and for many people a forty-hour week is a baseline for work not the limit!

Recently, I saw a New Yorker cartoon of two people in bar who are chatting and holding their drinks. The man, who is talking to a woman through one of those doggie cones you get at the vet, says “It keeps me from checking my phone every two seconds.”

The busiest shopping day in all those big box stores is…right now! Sunday morning! For many, Sunday becomes the free day to catch up…catch up on the chores, catch up on the laundry, catch up on the shopping, catch up on some sleep, catch up on some football—and that does not even count the work we bring home whether it is grading papers or checking our e-mail…because in our day and age, we are expected to be efficient and productive, all the time!  

Jesus and the author of The Cloud of Unknowing assume something quite radical. And that is everything we do can be (and is) prayer! Jesus enters our living, he feeds us, meets us where we need him the most and helps us rest.

Everything—or work or our rest—can be an offering so that in all things God may be glorified. Everything can reveal God’s love, power, presence, and grace to us and those around us. But for ora et labora, “Pray and work,” to function, for our work to truly become prayer, we must hold God at the center of all that we do, and we have to keep Christ at the heart of who we are.  We have to do and be!

If we are to make Christ the center of our work, we must take the time to let Christ be at the center of our renewal. Martha may be setting the table for Jesus, but the other part is when we, like Mary, take the moment to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen. Both are acts of service.

An ancient custom of hospitality in England holds that when a sovereign comes to your house, while in your home, it is no longer yours but hers. A sovereign becomes the host under any citizen’s roof.  So, remember that, should Queen Elizabeth ever pop over to your house for tea, your house literally becomes her house. Think about that. The idea shows up in a common table grace that many of us learned as children where we invited Jesus to be our guest, but if this ancient royal custom teaches us anything it is that when let Jesus sit at our table, we invite him to be our host and for us to be his guest!  We invite him to let him feed us. We invite him to care for us and our needs. We invite him to refresh us and teach us and treat us as the honored wayfarer, so we can continue the journey renewed, refreshed, and reoriented.

Let’s take that image a step further: in our baptisms, we invited Christ into our lives, into us. Jesus our guest is now Jesus the host: he enters our living, he feeds us, meets us where we need him the most and helps us rest. In our Eucharist, Christ sits at the head of the table. We allow him to nourish us in our common life, in our worship, in our times of quiet and prayer, in times of retreat, and even in a few minutes reading Forward Day by Day or saying the daily devotions found in the prayer book, and in how we order our schedule and our common life.

So, we need not choose between the image of, productive Martha or the prayerful Mary if we remember the Benedictine motto of “ora et labora”—pray and work, we can embrace both! When we daily recall that our work is our prayer, and our prayer is our work, then we will recover the balance required to sing (and live!) “do-be, do-be, do-be.” 

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Here is a link to the bulletin for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost  at St. John's Episcopal Church, Clearwater

Here is a link to the Scripture readings.

Here is a link to a video of the sermon.

Here is a link to a video of the liturgy.