Typing and timing spirituality
Commentary
You are having guests over for dinner. The meal is nearing completion. Do you (a) scurry about clearing the table and neatly organizing the kitchen for those who may later wander in for some after-dinner refreshment, or (b) sit, talk, and enjoy the guests who bring joy and life to your home?
Now, if you are a "type-A" personality, the answer is obvious. You must put things in order, for you are convinced in your very being that neither you nor your guests will be able to truly relax and enjoy yourselves until these necessary tasks are completed. If, on the other hand, you are a "type-B" personality, it is equally obvious that a host's concern that everything be "perfect" can ruin the whole evening. There comes a time in every good party when you just have to let the dishes stack up, the coffee get cold, and the butter melt, so that everyone may simply sit down and talk around the table.
It should be clear from the gospel reading appointed for this Sunday that Martha was a type-A, while her sister Mary was a type-B. But much more is going on in this story than just pop psychologizing or stereotyping. Nor is it just a quiz about the proper etiquette for hosts of a dinner party. For here the dinner guest is the Lord, and the underlying question is how to balance the competing demands of actively serving God and of being ministered to by God.
Amos 8:1-12
Chapters 7 and 8 of Amos recount a carefully balanced set of four visions, prolonged by the insertion of a narrative account regarding the prophet's sense of call. The first two visions are briefly related and result in Amos's successful intercessions to turn back God's impending judgments on the people. In the case of the third and fourth visions, there is no intercession (is Amos cut off by God before he can intercede, convinced that third and fourth interventions would be pointless, or simply weary of the effort?), and judgment is consequently not foreclosed. The lesson appointed in the lectionary for the previous week includes the third of the visions and the priest Amaziah's objections about Amos to King Jeroboam II of Israel. This week's lesson deals with the final vision and its judgment oracle.
The vision and the oracle are related to each other by means of a HeChartbrew pun (identified in the notes to the New Revised Standard Version). Amos sees "a basket of summer fruit" (Hebrew, qayits) as a sign that "the end (qetz) has come upon ... Israel" (8:2). The literary skill involved in constructing the pun is furthered in that the presence of the harvested fruit itself suggests the end of the summer season and a change in what is coming. Likewise, the season of God's gracious forbearance (7:1-6) has also come to an end, and a new season of judgment is beginning. And God makes it clear that intercession will not avert judgment this time: "I will never again pass them by."
As is most often the case in the oracles of Israel's classical prophets, the reasons for the judgment are rooted in failing to maintain social justice. Spiritual concerns imposed by cultural expectation have come to be regarded as impediments to commerce (8:5a). Corrupt business practices of short-changing the product while simultaneously inflating the price and of forcing consumers into debt-slavery in the process have become rampant (8:5b-6). The specific examples may be alien to our culture ("new moons," "ephahs," "balance" scales, and "the sweepings of the wheat"), but the economic exploitation is certainly just as common.
The harshness of references to "the Nile of Egypt" in the central verses of the oracle (8:7-8) can be easily missed. At its core, the oracle is asserting that the powerful and privileged of Israel have assumed the same posture against the masses of the population that the Egyptians had taken against their ancestors. Once more God's people have found themselves in slavery, but this time their masters are their very kinsfolk rather than foreigners. God's response will be the same as it was in the days of Moses. Using imagery evocative of the plagues upon Egypt at the time of the Exodus (8:9-12), the coming judgment will bring darkness that overcomes even the daylight. It will unleash lamentations "like the mourning for an only son," and be a time of unremitting famine.
Yet these very allusions to the Exodus make it clear that the oracle is not devoid of grace. There will be those for whom the judgment of others will ultimately be deliverance for themselves. What Amos makes clear, however, is that, in this instance, grace and forbearance are not extended to everyone. The question for those who hear the oracle is to which group do they belong? Are they those that "trample on the needy, and bring ruin to the poor" (8:4) regardless of how high or low a rung on which they may stand on the socio-economic ladder? If so, they must recognize that God's very honor (8:7) demands their judgment.
Colossians 1:15-28
If you want to see images of imperial power, then look at how Christ is described here in the opening chapter of Colossians. "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation" (1:15). Nothing visible or invisible in creation exists apart from him, not even the "thrones or dominions or rulers or powers" (1:16) that falsely lay claim to being the genuine empires in control over our world. Christ "is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (1:17). And if Christ is Lord over all creation, then there can be no doubt about who is in charge of the church. "He is the head of the body, the church; he is ... the firstborn from the dead so that he might come to have first place in everything" (1:18). Paul sums up all that it means for Christ to be Lord by saying, "in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell" (1:19). This is Christus Victor, Christ the Conqueror who establishes the empire of God.
But that is not the only image of Christ presented in this passage. Right after announcing that the fullness of deity dwells in Christ, we read about the use to which that divine power was put: "Through him God was pleased to reconcile to the divine self all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of the cross" (1:20). The Lord Christ was not building an empire, but reconciling creation with God. The church was not to be on a crusade to force submission to Christ's lordship, but was rather to join with the apostle in "rejoicing in sufferings ... completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church" (1:24). It is a "mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to God's saints" (1:26) that the Messiah came not to restore a lost empire to the people of God, but rather to urge the loss of empire as the goal.
There were those who believed that the Messiah's role over against the "Gentiles" would be to destroy them as God had brought judgment against Egypt and other empires that had oppressed God's people. Yet God's purpose for the Christ had always been to reveal to all peoples the fullness of God's glory -- not as a means of destruction but of reconciliation. The revealing of the Messiah was to be an occasion of hope, not of fear.
Luke 10:38-42
This familiar story about Mary and Martha is full of interpretational pitfalls. The first trap to avoid is importing what we (think we) know about these women from John's Gospel here into Luke's story. In John 11-12, Mary and Martha are sisters of Lazarus who live in Bethany, a village on a hilltop just to the east of the Mount of Olives, itself immediately to the east of Jerusalem. According to the Fourth Gospel, Jesus had a previous relationship with this family (see esp. John 11:5) that led the sisters to summon him when their brother became ill. Jesus of course ultimately raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:38-44; cf. 12:9-10). And it was this Mary who subsequently anointed Jesus "with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair" (John 11:2; 12:1-8).
The Gospel of Luke reflects none of this information. There is no mention at all of Lazarus, and it is even doubtful that it presumes that this "certain village" was Bethany. The story is related as part of Luke's "travel narrative" of Jesus' journey from the Galilee to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51--19:28). There are few geographical references within the travelogue (e.g. "a village of Samaritans" [9:52] and general references to passing through towns and villages in Galilee and Samaria [13:22; 17:11]), but since his arrival in Jericho near the end of the journey is mentioned (18:35), as are Bethphage and Bethany at point of his entry into Jerusalem (19:29), there is no narrative logic in placing the story about Mary and Martha that occurs so early within the travelogue in Bethany. Even the story about Jesus' anointing has come earlier in the Lukan narrative and involved an unnamed woman (7:36-50).
The significance of these differences from the Johannine stories center primarily around the role of Martha. When Luke reports that "a woman named Martha welcomed [Jesus] into her home" (10:38b), she is being presented as the head of the household not just as a hostess acting on behalf of her brother. Martha thus becomes one of a number of women in Luke's Gospel "who provided for [Jesus and the Twelve] out of their resources" (including Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna; 8:1-3), and by these actions has already stepped out of the so-called "traditional woman's role." Whatever the contrast drawn by this story between the sisters Mary and Martha, it is not that one does "women's work" and the other breaks the gender barrier and becomes a disciple learning at the feet of the master (10:39-40a). Both these women have stepped outside the gender-restrictive cultural expectations in the ways they relate to Jesus.
If too much attention has been given to the broader context established by John's Gospel, perhaps too little attention has been paid to the immediate context of Luke's Gospel itself. The evangelist has placed this story right after the parable of the Good Samaritan. As is well-known, that parable contrasted the actions of religiously respected individuals with those of a religiously despised person. Perhaps motivated by purity concerns (contact with blood or a dead body was ritually defiling) that would have prevented them from performing their duties, a priest and a Levite had "passed by on the other side" of the road when they came upon the beaten man. The Samaritan, by contrast, had met the man's physical needs by attending to his wounds and even paying for his lodging during his recovery.
With that story fresh in their minds, the initial readers of Luke's Gospel might well have sided with Martha when she raises her objection to Jesus. After all, isn't she doing precisely what the Samaritan had done? Someone in need of hospitality had come to her home, and she was acting as "a neighbor" by "showing him mercy" (cf. 10:36-37) through meeting his physical needs rather than focusing on her own religious needs to hear from the teacher. Shouldn't Mary help her with this important work just as the priest and Levite should have helped the man assaulted by robbers? But the evangelist has signaled the reader that identifying with Martha will lead one astray. She had raised her objection because she "was distracted by her many tasks" (10:40a). Ministry to physical needs is, in this instance, not a proper focus but rather a distraction.
Jesus himself reinforces this interpretation of the situation. Martha has been "worried and distracted by many things" (10:41b), but just how her focus should have been more limited is obscured by variants in the Greek manuscript traditions. In some textual witnesses, Jesus tells Martha, "There is need of only one thing" (so NRSV) -- presumably the spiritual teaching "Mary has chosen [as] the better part" (10:42). Other manuscripts, however, report Jesus' correction to Martha as, "There is need of few things, or only one" (so NRSV notes), suggesting that Martha has simply gone overboard in her hospitality. In either case, Jesus is underscoring the fact that Martha has the same need for the "better part" that Mary had chosen.
Application
Perhaps the greatest pitfall, then, in interpreting Luke's story about Mary and Martha is the tendency to want to pick one to the exclusion of the other. Like type-A personality types who find it almost impossible to relate to the type-B experience of the world in terms of responsibilities and values (and type-B personalities have just as much trouble relating to the values and responsibilities of "A" types), we want to say one is right and the other is wrong. But the overall context of this portion of Luke simply precludes making an either/or choice.
Recall that Jesus had related the Parable of the Good Samaritan in order to illustrate one aspect of the twofold requirement to "inherit eternal life": "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself" (10:25-27). If the Good Samaritan and Martha stand as ready examples of what it means to "love your neighbor as yourself," then Mary illustrates what it means to "love the Lord your God with all your heart ... and with all your mind."
A type-A spirituality that is all about service for others, even as motivated by a desire to establish the rule of God's justice in the world, will sooner or later burn itself out. Unless Martha takes time to "sit at the Lord's feet and listen" she will have neither the rest she needs to energize her for her work nor the insight and instruction she needs to know what is truly required even in her service for others.
A type-B spirituality that is all about communing personally with God, soaking up into one's self all the "better part" of a relationship with the Divine, will sooner or later become so consumed with itself that it will, like the priest and the Levite, no longer be able to recognize the need to minister to others. The very reason we commune with and learn from Christ is so that we can continue in others the ministry he has begun in us.
The question is ultimately not whether we should have a Martha-type or a Mary-type of spirituality, but learning to recognize the appropriate times when we should exercise our Martha- or Mary-type spiritualities.
Alternative Applications
1) Amos 8:1-12. The underlying logic of this judgment oracle against Israel is that if its society has adopted the attitudes and practices of the Egyptians at the time of the Exodus, isn't it inevitable that God will respond toward them in the same way? Although I cringe every time I hear someone say, "If God doesn't judge the immorality of modern American culture then God will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah," I nevertheless have to concede that at one level they have a point. The correctness does not lie in the homophobia that is almost always latent in so many assertions about "Sodom and Gomorrah" or even in the underlying theology that sees God as primarily an angry agent of judgment. The point is that we cannot blithely wrap ourselves in an identity as God's people and assume that there will be no consequences for our own acts of injustice. If Israel faced judgment for following the oppressive practices of early societies, why should we think we are immune to negative consequences for our failings at social justice when God acts as God must to deliver the oppressed?
2) Colossians 1:15-28. From at least the time of Constantine, through the Crusades, the Holy Roman Empire, and up to the modern age, Christus Victor was the dominant image of Christ in the church. The progress of European civilization and the expansion of Western cultural influence around the globe were considered to go hand-in-hand with the spread of Christendom. Christ was Lord of all, and that dominion would be recognized by individuals and whole cultures alike -- at the tip of a sword if necessary.
But the church's very desire to use its power to build an empire has unleashed a cultural backlash. We are now living in a time that is, as Stanley Hauerwas has described it, "after Christendom." The European nations from which Christendom launched its spread around the world are now full of empty churches. Our own nation, whose motto "In God We Trust" is still struck on our coins, wrestles with not only the question of how but even whether religion has a function in the public square.
There are those who would say that the answer is for Christians to reassert the image of Christus Victor, to once again wage war against evil cultures with divine power. But is that why are we here as a church? Are we to rebuild a lost empire of the former glory of Christendom? We can only survive as the people of God if the notion of empire is lost to us. Christ's divine power is for nurture and sustenance, not for empire building.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 52
We are not surprised when we learn about crooks and robbers boasting about "mischief done against the godly" or "plotting destruction" all day long. The image we have in our minds about who "bad" people are and how they conduct themselves make such accusations completely plausible. We are less inclined to believe such things about leaders, especially respected leaders among us. We have difficulty believing someone with wealth and power would deliberately plot to do someone harm. That's why political scandal is front-page news and convenience store hold-ups are found in the metro section on page eleven.
But the psalmist will not allow us this misinformed luxury. The "mighty one" of whom he writes has wealth and power, but is every bit a crook and thief as even the most humble pickpocket.
This was startling in ancient Israel. Wealth was viewed as the proof of the blessing of God. God conferred power on those who deserve it. But the prophets, and many psalmists, did not embrace this accepted wisdom. The wealthy and powerful, because they have greater resources, also have greater responsibility. Their wealth and power are not just for their private use. God expects them to use their resources to care for the weak and the vulnerable among them. The failure to do so amounts to stealing from the poor what God intends for their care. The rich are merely caretakers and stewards of God's bounty.
Wealth and power are powerful lures. It takes great integrity to deal with these resources faithfully. Because there is so much power involved with these resources, it is easy to begin trusting in wealth as the true source of life and security. Or as the psalmist puts it, "See the one who would not take refuge in God, but trusted in abundant riches and sought refuge in wealth!" (v. 7).
Once we lose the perspective created by a commitment to God and God's way, all ethical bets are off. When having and keeping power and wealth become the goal of life, a mindset develops that believes it is acceptable to do whatever it takes to maintain a privileged position. That's when the mischief against the godly begins to take form.
The remedy is not to live in poverty, but rather to live in dependence on God's truth. That's the meaning behind the psalmist's use of the imagery of the olive tree. "I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever" (v. 8). A life that is rooted in God's truth, in the practices of worship ("in God's house") and in the ethical practices growing out of worship is a life that is alive, vital, and growing -- green!
But a life rooted in wealth, power, and self-gratification is a life going nowhere. It is life dependent on constantly manipulating circumstances in order to maintain the status quo. Life rooted in God does not grapple for life or sustenance or standing. God's care flows into our life freely and abundantly. We stand in freedom and peace and proclaim the goodness of God's name because "it is good" (v. 9).
Now, if you are a "type-A" personality, the answer is obvious. You must put things in order, for you are convinced in your very being that neither you nor your guests will be able to truly relax and enjoy yourselves until these necessary tasks are completed. If, on the other hand, you are a "type-B" personality, it is equally obvious that a host's concern that everything be "perfect" can ruin the whole evening. There comes a time in every good party when you just have to let the dishes stack up, the coffee get cold, and the butter melt, so that everyone may simply sit down and talk around the table.
It should be clear from the gospel reading appointed for this Sunday that Martha was a type-A, while her sister Mary was a type-B. But much more is going on in this story than just pop psychologizing or stereotyping. Nor is it just a quiz about the proper etiquette for hosts of a dinner party. For here the dinner guest is the Lord, and the underlying question is how to balance the competing demands of actively serving God and of being ministered to by God.
Amos 8:1-12
Chapters 7 and 8 of Amos recount a carefully balanced set of four visions, prolonged by the insertion of a narrative account regarding the prophet's sense of call. The first two visions are briefly related and result in Amos's successful intercessions to turn back God's impending judgments on the people. In the case of the third and fourth visions, there is no intercession (is Amos cut off by God before he can intercede, convinced that third and fourth interventions would be pointless, or simply weary of the effort?), and judgment is consequently not foreclosed. The lesson appointed in the lectionary for the previous week includes the third of the visions and the priest Amaziah's objections about Amos to King Jeroboam II of Israel. This week's lesson deals with the final vision and its judgment oracle.
The vision and the oracle are related to each other by means of a HeChartbrew pun (identified in the notes to the New Revised Standard Version). Amos sees "a basket of summer fruit" (Hebrew, qayits) as a sign that "the end (qetz) has come upon ... Israel" (8:2). The literary skill involved in constructing the pun is furthered in that the presence of the harvested fruit itself suggests the end of the summer season and a change in what is coming. Likewise, the season of God's gracious forbearance (7:1-6) has also come to an end, and a new season of judgment is beginning. And God makes it clear that intercession will not avert judgment this time: "I will never again pass them by."
As is most often the case in the oracles of Israel's classical prophets, the reasons for the judgment are rooted in failing to maintain social justice. Spiritual concerns imposed by cultural expectation have come to be regarded as impediments to commerce (8:5a). Corrupt business practices of short-changing the product while simultaneously inflating the price and of forcing consumers into debt-slavery in the process have become rampant (8:5b-6). The specific examples may be alien to our culture ("new moons," "ephahs," "balance" scales, and "the sweepings of the wheat"), but the economic exploitation is certainly just as common.
The harshness of references to "the Nile of Egypt" in the central verses of the oracle (8:7-8) can be easily missed. At its core, the oracle is asserting that the powerful and privileged of Israel have assumed the same posture against the masses of the population that the Egyptians had taken against their ancestors. Once more God's people have found themselves in slavery, but this time their masters are their very kinsfolk rather than foreigners. God's response will be the same as it was in the days of Moses. Using imagery evocative of the plagues upon Egypt at the time of the Exodus (8:9-12), the coming judgment will bring darkness that overcomes even the daylight. It will unleash lamentations "like the mourning for an only son," and be a time of unremitting famine.
Yet these very allusions to the Exodus make it clear that the oracle is not devoid of grace. There will be those for whom the judgment of others will ultimately be deliverance for themselves. What Amos makes clear, however, is that, in this instance, grace and forbearance are not extended to everyone. The question for those who hear the oracle is to which group do they belong? Are they those that "trample on the needy, and bring ruin to the poor" (8:4) regardless of how high or low a rung on which they may stand on the socio-economic ladder? If so, they must recognize that God's very honor (8:7) demands their judgment.
Colossians 1:15-28
If you want to see images of imperial power, then look at how Christ is described here in the opening chapter of Colossians. "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation" (1:15). Nothing visible or invisible in creation exists apart from him, not even the "thrones or dominions or rulers or powers" (1:16) that falsely lay claim to being the genuine empires in control over our world. Christ "is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (1:17). And if Christ is Lord over all creation, then there can be no doubt about who is in charge of the church. "He is the head of the body, the church; he is ... the firstborn from the dead so that he might come to have first place in everything" (1:18). Paul sums up all that it means for Christ to be Lord by saying, "in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell" (1:19). This is Christus Victor, Christ the Conqueror who establishes the empire of God.
But that is not the only image of Christ presented in this passage. Right after announcing that the fullness of deity dwells in Christ, we read about the use to which that divine power was put: "Through him God was pleased to reconcile to the divine self all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of the cross" (1:20). The Lord Christ was not building an empire, but reconciling creation with God. The church was not to be on a crusade to force submission to Christ's lordship, but was rather to join with the apostle in "rejoicing in sufferings ... completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church" (1:24). It is a "mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to God's saints" (1:26) that the Messiah came not to restore a lost empire to the people of God, but rather to urge the loss of empire as the goal.
There were those who believed that the Messiah's role over against the "Gentiles" would be to destroy them as God had brought judgment against Egypt and other empires that had oppressed God's people. Yet God's purpose for the Christ had always been to reveal to all peoples the fullness of God's glory -- not as a means of destruction but of reconciliation. The revealing of the Messiah was to be an occasion of hope, not of fear.
Luke 10:38-42
This familiar story about Mary and Martha is full of interpretational pitfalls. The first trap to avoid is importing what we (think we) know about these women from John's Gospel here into Luke's story. In John 11-12, Mary and Martha are sisters of Lazarus who live in Bethany, a village on a hilltop just to the east of the Mount of Olives, itself immediately to the east of Jerusalem. According to the Fourth Gospel, Jesus had a previous relationship with this family (see esp. John 11:5) that led the sisters to summon him when their brother became ill. Jesus of course ultimately raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:38-44; cf. 12:9-10). And it was this Mary who subsequently anointed Jesus "with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair" (John 11:2; 12:1-8).
The Gospel of Luke reflects none of this information. There is no mention at all of Lazarus, and it is even doubtful that it presumes that this "certain village" was Bethany. The story is related as part of Luke's "travel narrative" of Jesus' journey from the Galilee to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51--19:28). There are few geographical references within the travelogue (e.g. "a village of Samaritans" [9:52] and general references to passing through towns and villages in Galilee and Samaria [13:22; 17:11]), but since his arrival in Jericho near the end of the journey is mentioned (18:35), as are Bethphage and Bethany at point of his entry into Jerusalem (19:29), there is no narrative logic in placing the story about Mary and Martha that occurs so early within the travelogue in Bethany. Even the story about Jesus' anointing has come earlier in the Lukan narrative and involved an unnamed woman (7:36-50).
The significance of these differences from the Johannine stories center primarily around the role of Martha. When Luke reports that "a woman named Martha welcomed [Jesus] into her home" (10:38b), she is being presented as the head of the household not just as a hostess acting on behalf of her brother. Martha thus becomes one of a number of women in Luke's Gospel "who provided for [Jesus and the Twelve] out of their resources" (including Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna; 8:1-3), and by these actions has already stepped out of the so-called "traditional woman's role." Whatever the contrast drawn by this story between the sisters Mary and Martha, it is not that one does "women's work" and the other breaks the gender barrier and becomes a disciple learning at the feet of the master (10:39-40a). Both these women have stepped outside the gender-restrictive cultural expectations in the ways they relate to Jesus.
If too much attention has been given to the broader context established by John's Gospel, perhaps too little attention has been paid to the immediate context of Luke's Gospel itself. The evangelist has placed this story right after the parable of the Good Samaritan. As is well-known, that parable contrasted the actions of religiously respected individuals with those of a religiously despised person. Perhaps motivated by purity concerns (contact with blood or a dead body was ritually defiling) that would have prevented them from performing their duties, a priest and a Levite had "passed by on the other side" of the road when they came upon the beaten man. The Samaritan, by contrast, had met the man's physical needs by attending to his wounds and even paying for his lodging during his recovery.
With that story fresh in their minds, the initial readers of Luke's Gospel might well have sided with Martha when she raises her objection to Jesus. After all, isn't she doing precisely what the Samaritan had done? Someone in need of hospitality had come to her home, and she was acting as "a neighbor" by "showing him mercy" (cf. 10:36-37) through meeting his physical needs rather than focusing on her own religious needs to hear from the teacher. Shouldn't Mary help her with this important work just as the priest and Levite should have helped the man assaulted by robbers? But the evangelist has signaled the reader that identifying with Martha will lead one astray. She had raised her objection because she "was distracted by her many tasks" (10:40a). Ministry to physical needs is, in this instance, not a proper focus but rather a distraction.
Jesus himself reinforces this interpretation of the situation. Martha has been "worried and distracted by many things" (10:41b), but just how her focus should have been more limited is obscured by variants in the Greek manuscript traditions. In some textual witnesses, Jesus tells Martha, "There is need of only one thing" (so NRSV) -- presumably the spiritual teaching "Mary has chosen [as] the better part" (10:42). Other manuscripts, however, report Jesus' correction to Martha as, "There is need of few things, or only one" (so NRSV notes), suggesting that Martha has simply gone overboard in her hospitality. In either case, Jesus is underscoring the fact that Martha has the same need for the "better part" that Mary had chosen.
Application
Perhaps the greatest pitfall, then, in interpreting Luke's story about Mary and Martha is the tendency to want to pick one to the exclusion of the other. Like type-A personality types who find it almost impossible to relate to the type-B experience of the world in terms of responsibilities and values (and type-B personalities have just as much trouble relating to the values and responsibilities of "A" types), we want to say one is right and the other is wrong. But the overall context of this portion of Luke simply precludes making an either/or choice.
Recall that Jesus had related the Parable of the Good Samaritan in order to illustrate one aspect of the twofold requirement to "inherit eternal life": "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself" (10:25-27). If the Good Samaritan and Martha stand as ready examples of what it means to "love your neighbor as yourself," then Mary illustrates what it means to "love the Lord your God with all your heart ... and with all your mind."
A type-A spirituality that is all about service for others, even as motivated by a desire to establish the rule of God's justice in the world, will sooner or later burn itself out. Unless Martha takes time to "sit at the Lord's feet and listen" she will have neither the rest she needs to energize her for her work nor the insight and instruction she needs to know what is truly required even in her service for others.
A type-B spirituality that is all about communing personally with God, soaking up into one's self all the "better part" of a relationship with the Divine, will sooner or later become so consumed with itself that it will, like the priest and the Levite, no longer be able to recognize the need to minister to others. The very reason we commune with and learn from Christ is so that we can continue in others the ministry he has begun in us.
The question is ultimately not whether we should have a Martha-type or a Mary-type of spirituality, but learning to recognize the appropriate times when we should exercise our Martha- or Mary-type spiritualities.
Alternative Applications
1) Amos 8:1-12. The underlying logic of this judgment oracle against Israel is that if its society has adopted the attitudes and practices of the Egyptians at the time of the Exodus, isn't it inevitable that God will respond toward them in the same way? Although I cringe every time I hear someone say, "If God doesn't judge the immorality of modern American culture then God will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah," I nevertheless have to concede that at one level they have a point. The correctness does not lie in the homophobia that is almost always latent in so many assertions about "Sodom and Gomorrah" or even in the underlying theology that sees God as primarily an angry agent of judgment. The point is that we cannot blithely wrap ourselves in an identity as God's people and assume that there will be no consequences for our own acts of injustice. If Israel faced judgment for following the oppressive practices of early societies, why should we think we are immune to negative consequences for our failings at social justice when God acts as God must to deliver the oppressed?
2) Colossians 1:15-28. From at least the time of Constantine, through the Crusades, the Holy Roman Empire, and up to the modern age, Christus Victor was the dominant image of Christ in the church. The progress of European civilization and the expansion of Western cultural influence around the globe were considered to go hand-in-hand with the spread of Christendom. Christ was Lord of all, and that dominion would be recognized by individuals and whole cultures alike -- at the tip of a sword if necessary.
But the church's very desire to use its power to build an empire has unleashed a cultural backlash. We are now living in a time that is, as Stanley Hauerwas has described it, "after Christendom." The European nations from which Christendom launched its spread around the world are now full of empty churches. Our own nation, whose motto "In God We Trust" is still struck on our coins, wrestles with not only the question of how but even whether religion has a function in the public square.
There are those who would say that the answer is for Christians to reassert the image of Christus Victor, to once again wage war against evil cultures with divine power. But is that why are we here as a church? Are we to rebuild a lost empire of the former glory of Christendom? We can only survive as the people of God if the notion of empire is lost to us. Christ's divine power is for nurture and sustenance, not for empire building.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 52
We are not surprised when we learn about crooks and robbers boasting about "mischief done against the godly" or "plotting destruction" all day long. The image we have in our minds about who "bad" people are and how they conduct themselves make such accusations completely plausible. We are less inclined to believe such things about leaders, especially respected leaders among us. We have difficulty believing someone with wealth and power would deliberately plot to do someone harm. That's why political scandal is front-page news and convenience store hold-ups are found in the metro section on page eleven.
But the psalmist will not allow us this misinformed luxury. The "mighty one" of whom he writes has wealth and power, but is every bit a crook and thief as even the most humble pickpocket.
This was startling in ancient Israel. Wealth was viewed as the proof of the blessing of God. God conferred power on those who deserve it. But the prophets, and many psalmists, did not embrace this accepted wisdom. The wealthy and powerful, because they have greater resources, also have greater responsibility. Their wealth and power are not just for their private use. God expects them to use their resources to care for the weak and the vulnerable among them. The failure to do so amounts to stealing from the poor what God intends for their care. The rich are merely caretakers and stewards of God's bounty.
Wealth and power are powerful lures. It takes great integrity to deal with these resources faithfully. Because there is so much power involved with these resources, it is easy to begin trusting in wealth as the true source of life and security. Or as the psalmist puts it, "See the one who would not take refuge in God, but trusted in abundant riches and sought refuge in wealth!" (v. 7).
Once we lose the perspective created by a commitment to God and God's way, all ethical bets are off. When having and keeping power and wealth become the goal of life, a mindset develops that believes it is acceptable to do whatever it takes to maintain a privileged position. That's when the mischief against the godly begins to take form.
The remedy is not to live in poverty, but rather to live in dependence on God's truth. That's the meaning behind the psalmist's use of the imagery of the olive tree. "I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever" (v. 8). A life that is rooted in God's truth, in the practices of worship ("in God's house") and in the ethical practices growing out of worship is a life that is alive, vital, and growing -- green!
But a life rooted in wealth, power, and self-gratification is a life going nowhere. It is life dependent on constantly manipulating circumstances in order to maintain the status quo. Life rooted in God does not grapple for life or sustenance or standing. God's care flows into our life freely and abundantly. We stand in freedom and peace and proclaim the goodness of God's name because "it is good" (v. 9).
