Martha and Mary

The problem with the story of Martha and Mary is that we are almost bound to feel we have to side with one or the other.  And we will most probably identify with whichever sister we feel sympathy for, which in turn points to the one we are most like.

Origen, St Augustine and many other authorities have speculated about what Jesus was teaching in this story of the two much loved disciple friends vying for who was doing right, and the comparison and relative merits of being action woman versus contemplative.  And naturally the feminist theologians have their own opinions about whose behaviour Jesus was preferring in the story.

Another way of looking at it is that this story continues the theme of Jesus' conversation with the smart young lawyer last week, where Jesus begins to set out the priorities required for being a disciple and inheriting the kingdom:  loving God and taking care of your neighbour.

Leaving aside the temptation to go down these interpretive paths, the story of Mary and Martha can probably best be seen as one which reveals and illustrates the very nature of God.  Because it invites us to stand up for one sister or the other, the action woman or the contemplative, it can push us to wonder if a contemplative focus on stillness is somehow incompatible with dutiful and busy engagement in the responsibilities of daily life.

But while on the face of it we might think we are being asked to make a choice between Mary and Martha, maybe we are actually being asked to resist preferring one above the other.

In our world of polls and questionnaires, it won't surprise you to hear that among all women retreat attendees surveyed, 83%  identified themselves to be Marthas, and I suspect most of us might feel more comfortable with Martha’s practical “doing” than with Mary’s reflective “being”.  But resistance to an either/or assessment of what God asks of us is really what is essential for our overall spiritual health.

Those of us who are familiar with the Rule of St Benedict, are familiar with the importance placed on the value of manual work, the Martha stuff, which the rule believes sustains the appetite of the human mind and spirit for God — the listening to the word of God, or lectio divina — which was Mary's chosen way, the Benedictine Rule thus neatly making even -handed sense of the equal and blessed virtues of both of Jesus' friends.

And so it seems that Mary and Martha might represent two sides of a single person.  So the lesson for us in today's world seems to be the challenge of how any of us can sustain a healthy and spiritual balance between activity and a still, listening attentiveness to God.

Advice on this challenge should not be rigidly specific, since people’s needs and circumstances differ so greatly.  But these are among the important things we would want to say:  Every human being has some capacity for a degree of spiritual awareness as chosen by Mary.

As Christians, we believe that this capacity leads us specifically to God, whom we know as Trinity — the creator, revealed in Jesus Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit.

It is characteristic of us as human beings that this search for God often involves using a variety of media — music, poetry, art, even drama and dance.

We generally seek wise advice and encouragement from each other, especially from those who have an obvious gift of spiritual awareness.

And the regular practice of any spiritual discipline that is attentive to God’s presence deepens the appreciation of our capacity for God.

And beautifully consistent with the intersection between the unseen, unchanging character of the life of God, and the visible, mutable world is the statement from the second reading from St Paul's letter to the Colossians where he says confidently, “He is the image of the invisible God,”  We ourselves then might seek illustration of this through whichever media we find we are able to relate to.

Martin Warner, Bishop of Beverly, illustrates this graphically himself in his description of the new font in Salisbury cathedral in the South of England, a medieval masterpiece of perpendicular architecture, now with this spectacular modern and abstract concept of a font imposingly installed in the centre of the nave. He writes:

“The new font in Salisbury Cathedral, is designed by William Pye.  If ever you get an opportunity, go and see it for yourself.  It is astonishingly beautiful.  It has a quatrefoil shape, like the tracery of a medieval window.  The surface of the water forms a mirror in which the image of the pillars and vaulting of the nave are captured, bringing heaven, which is what the architecture of the ceiling depicts, down to earth.

Of course, when this still mirror of water is disturbed by the activity of being used for baptism, the life of heaven does come down to earth.  The image of the risen, ascended and glorified Jesus is then indelibly marked upon us.  The elemental matter of water is used in symbolic and ritual action to reveal something invisible:  disturbance of the mirror begets the mystery of new being in Christian identity, so that heaven can be reflected in us.

In this working symbol, the Salisbury font shows us a vital relationship between activity and identity, “doing” and “being”.  But there is further instruction on the character of stillness that captures the reflection of invisibility — heaven.  The mirror is formed on water that overflows the font through its four ends.  Its stillness is dynamic, moving, or, we might say, living.  This seems to me to come close to what we want to say about God, whom we might describe as dynamic stillness.

Nor is this simply a question of theory or playing with words.  If stillness can be understood as dynamic and not simply dead inertia, then the activity of our restless minds, imaginations, and bodies can also be allowed, with care and direction, to reflect heaven”.

We might discover this fusion ourselves also through nature, looking out from a mountain, the ocean, perhaps, or prayer, or meditation; stepping from our daily round of urban living or the corporate world we might find our own way to embrace both the activity and the still attentiveness that lead us to a deeper experience of God.  So we need not make a choice between serving, doing, honouring through doing, or sitting and listening actively and attentively.  Each is good, each is right.  Both – if we can manage it – is maybe best.

AMEN

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