Will Someone Please Notice Martha?
Sermon
SPECTATORS OR SENTINELS?
Sermons For Pentecost (Last Third)
Martha is an overlooked and underrated saint. The gospel lesson prescribed for this particular Sunday begins with the words Mary spoke to Jesus as she met him. I have taken the liberty of enlarging the reading to include the prior conversation between Martha and Jesus. In this whole chapter she shares the spotlight with Lazarus. The summons that will call Lazarus forth from his tomb is already working in Martha to elevate her into new and larger life.
When you and I hear the name, Martha, my guess is that we think of her the way she is introduced to us by Luke, as a household drudge. (Luke 10:38-42) Martha was "distracted by many tasks" while her sister, Mary, "sat at the Lord's feet and listened." She is gently chided by Jesus. "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken from her."
Luke's endorsement of female passivity here is strangely out of keeping with his admiration of active and independent women that emerges elsewhere. Lydia of Thyatira, the independent woman who opened her home to Paul and Silas, gets admiring mention. (Acts 16:14) Joanna left the court of Herod where her husband held high office, travelled with the suspect Jesus movement and even funded it. She gets favorable mention from Luke along with Susanna and "many others." (Luke 8:3) Luke's downgrading of household tasks is also out of kilter with the many parables he lovingly reports that have the household as their setting as well as the faithful way he reports the egalitarian approach to women on the part of Jesus.
The approach of Jesus to women was inclusive, radical and liberating, and the gospels reflect that as do the glimpses we get of life in the earliest church. Such a community moving out into a misogynist culture would encounter critical comment and outright opposition and persecution. It is not to deny the worth of the contemplative posture of Mary to wonder if Luke was trying to cool the enthusiasm of the more extreme women activists in the church. The hard truth revealed in the larger history of the church is that the male leadership has in practice felt more comfortable with women who listen passively than with those who speak up.
It is quite a different Martha that we meet in the fourth gospel. She is one of the heroines of this gospel. She stands out as a woman of spunk and faith. The prominence of women in this gospel suggests that in the community gathered around John women had equal roles with men as teachers, preachers and missionaries. The cutting edge scholarship of the church today is suggesting that John was fighting for women's rights in a male dominated church that was putting a damper on the radicalness of Jesus. The highly visible heroines of the fourth gospel proclaim that there were women who confessed Jesus as the Christ and bravely followed him.
Keep this in mind as we review this story of Jesus' visit to his friends at Bethany. Jesus goes because he receives the urgent message that Lazarus is ill. We would start packing right away. John tells us that when Jesus heard the message he delayed going for two days. There is no use in our asking why. The Jesus of John's gospel does not move to human orders. He walks in unison with a cosmic purpose. John wants us to know that this Jesus of whom he writes is the Lord and Giver of Life whose glory will be revealed in the midst of death.
When Jesus does go, the disciples remind him that this is a high risk journey. The last time Jesus was in Judea his enemies wanted to stone him. The plans of Jesus are always running up against the disciples' instinct for self preservation. Ours too! "Hey, Lord, we're quite comfortable here. Don't ask us to move out with you into some high risk area." Jesus gives an enigmatic reply about walking in the light and not stumbling. He was on a different wave-length. They did not understand this Lord who believed there was a lot more to living than just surviving. But they reluctantly follow him.
In the reluctance of the disciples John sees the fears of the members of his community who were facing public threats, intimidation and possible martyrdom. We can see our own fears in a threatening world. It is John's purpose here to revise our thinking about what it means to live and die. He wants to bring that thinking into line with resurrection faith. He wants to equip us for high risk journeys. The home in Bethany is probably just like the little house churches in his own community. It can be any home where death has intruded to cancel hopes.
So the story unfolds. By the time Jesus arrives in Bethany he learns that Lazarus has been dead for four days. Martha hears of his arrival and goes out to meet him. Mary stayed at home. Standing face to face with Jesus, Martha speaks words that reveal both irritation and utter trust. "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." Would any of us face Jesus so bluntly. Martha reminds me of Sophie in The Color Purple.
And now, here begins the dialogue that John reports to change everyone's way of thinking about what it means to live and die. "Your brother will rise again," snaps Jesus. "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day," replies Martha. That is the solid Jewish orthodoxy of the day. You live, you die, you go to the grave and then rise in the general resurrection to receive reward or punishment. Jesus forcefully explodes that understanding. "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will never die. Do you believe this?" Martha says she does. "Yes, Lord, I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world."
Please take notice, in John's gospel, Martha's confession occupies the pivotal point of Peter's confession in the other gospels. Martha does not understand any more fully than Peter did. Full understanding awaits subsequent experience. We cannot miss the point that Martha stands here as a representative disciple just as Peter is singled out by the other gospel writers.
Martha goes into her typical take-charge action. She goes to get Mary who in turn comes out to meet Jesus. True to her own nature, Mary kneels at the feet of Jesus. She repeats the words of Martha to Jesus, but the mood and temperament are quite different. One cannot escape the conclusion that John is more drawn to the strength of Martha, yes, and even her feisty character.
When Jesus sees the tears of Mary and the others who had come out with her, he is deeply upset, so upset that he himself is moved to tears. Why is he upset? That is not too clear though he might well be moved to tears over some of our own funeral practices. It is more to the point though to believe that he wept at the thought of his own approaching death. He steps up to the tomb, orders the stone removed and summons Lazarus, "Come out!" Woven by the inspired artistry of John the whole scene foreshadows the time when the Lord and Giver of life will enter his own tomb to conquer death that all the sisters and brothers of Lazarus might have eternal life now in his name, a life with God of such quality that physical death cannot destroy it.
This narrative is called the raising of Lazarus. But please note, in a way Martha is also being raised. The Lord who commanded the unbinding of Lazarus had liberated Martha from the restraints imposed upon her and all her sisters by a thoroughly male-dominated culture. Anyone ghettoized by gender or ethnic bias has been placed in a tomb. And Martha as representative disciple signals for all of us a gracious liberation to become truly the sons and daughters of God.
Whatever happened to Martha in Christian memory? Did a male-dominated church find Luke's portrait of Martha more congenial? Elizabeth Moltmann-Wendel argues convincingly for that conclusion in her book, The Women Around Jesus. She points out that the activist Martha of John's gospel did find her place in Christian lore and tradition. In the middle ages she was rediscovered as a mature, active woman who cared for the world. From the 12th century to the end of the middle ages feminist movements were afoot in Europe. A new self awareness was in the air. Sisters were coming out of the cloistered life. A new veneration of Martha coincided with these movements.
Martha became a theme in art and legend and she was no longer the housewife depicted by Luke. A painting of the times shows Martha holding in one hand a pitcher of holy water and a cross. In the other hand she holds her girdle, the symbol of purity and courage, with which she has bound a dragon, the embodiment of evil. In one of the Martha legends the people around Arles and Avignon ask Martha for help. A man-eating dragon called Tarascus is submerged in the Rhone and eats anyone who crosses. Martha goes forth against the dragon, finds him in the forest eating a man, and sprinkles holy water on him as she holds the cross before him. Then she binds him with her girdle and the people come out and kill him. This is ancient legend, but note the point. Martha, the first to hear that Jesus is the resurrection and the life and to confess this, shows a new way of facing the power of evil and threats to life.
Martha as the unconventional dragon slayer was displaced in Christian lore by Saint George, the slayer of dragons. At some time we've all seen a picture of him as a mounted knight with his lance in hand, killing a dragon. The image of the dragon-killing knight stands behind the crusades. The figure of George was no doubt more compatible with macho mascuunity. So was the image of Mary, subdued, cloistered, passive. How many fairy stories do you recall where the knight goes forth to rescue the helpless maiden?
George, the dragon slayer, is not past history. The tank has replaced the horse and the missile the lance, but George still goes forth to bring redemption through violence. How many wars have been undertaken with the promise that this time the dragon will die? If this 11th chapter of John proclaims anything, it proclaims redemption and liberation through the way of the dying and risen Lord. Please take note of Martha, the representative disciple, equipped by the Living Word for a high risk journey.
When you and I hear the name, Martha, my guess is that we think of her the way she is introduced to us by Luke, as a household drudge. (Luke 10:38-42) Martha was "distracted by many tasks" while her sister, Mary, "sat at the Lord's feet and listened." She is gently chided by Jesus. "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken from her."
Luke's endorsement of female passivity here is strangely out of keeping with his admiration of active and independent women that emerges elsewhere. Lydia of Thyatira, the independent woman who opened her home to Paul and Silas, gets admiring mention. (Acts 16:14) Joanna left the court of Herod where her husband held high office, travelled with the suspect Jesus movement and even funded it. She gets favorable mention from Luke along with Susanna and "many others." (Luke 8:3) Luke's downgrading of household tasks is also out of kilter with the many parables he lovingly reports that have the household as their setting as well as the faithful way he reports the egalitarian approach to women on the part of Jesus.
The approach of Jesus to women was inclusive, radical and liberating, and the gospels reflect that as do the glimpses we get of life in the earliest church. Such a community moving out into a misogynist culture would encounter critical comment and outright opposition and persecution. It is not to deny the worth of the contemplative posture of Mary to wonder if Luke was trying to cool the enthusiasm of the more extreme women activists in the church. The hard truth revealed in the larger history of the church is that the male leadership has in practice felt more comfortable with women who listen passively than with those who speak up.
It is quite a different Martha that we meet in the fourth gospel. She is one of the heroines of this gospel. She stands out as a woman of spunk and faith. The prominence of women in this gospel suggests that in the community gathered around John women had equal roles with men as teachers, preachers and missionaries. The cutting edge scholarship of the church today is suggesting that John was fighting for women's rights in a male dominated church that was putting a damper on the radicalness of Jesus. The highly visible heroines of the fourth gospel proclaim that there were women who confessed Jesus as the Christ and bravely followed him.
Keep this in mind as we review this story of Jesus' visit to his friends at Bethany. Jesus goes because he receives the urgent message that Lazarus is ill. We would start packing right away. John tells us that when Jesus heard the message he delayed going for two days. There is no use in our asking why. The Jesus of John's gospel does not move to human orders. He walks in unison with a cosmic purpose. John wants us to know that this Jesus of whom he writes is the Lord and Giver of Life whose glory will be revealed in the midst of death.
When Jesus does go, the disciples remind him that this is a high risk journey. The last time Jesus was in Judea his enemies wanted to stone him. The plans of Jesus are always running up against the disciples' instinct for self preservation. Ours too! "Hey, Lord, we're quite comfortable here. Don't ask us to move out with you into some high risk area." Jesus gives an enigmatic reply about walking in the light and not stumbling. He was on a different wave-length. They did not understand this Lord who believed there was a lot more to living than just surviving. But they reluctantly follow him.
In the reluctance of the disciples John sees the fears of the members of his community who were facing public threats, intimidation and possible martyrdom. We can see our own fears in a threatening world. It is John's purpose here to revise our thinking about what it means to live and die. He wants to bring that thinking into line with resurrection faith. He wants to equip us for high risk journeys. The home in Bethany is probably just like the little house churches in his own community. It can be any home where death has intruded to cancel hopes.
So the story unfolds. By the time Jesus arrives in Bethany he learns that Lazarus has been dead for four days. Martha hears of his arrival and goes out to meet him. Mary stayed at home. Standing face to face with Jesus, Martha speaks words that reveal both irritation and utter trust. "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." Would any of us face Jesus so bluntly. Martha reminds me of Sophie in The Color Purple.
And now, here begins the dialogue that John reports to change everyone's way of thinking about what it means to live and die. "Your brother will rise again," snaps Jesus. "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day," replies Martha. That is the solid Jewish orthodoxy of the day. You live, you die, you go to the grave and then rise in the general resurrection to receive reward or punishment. Jesus forcefully explodes that understanding. "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will never die. Do you believe this?" Martha says she does. "Yes, Lord, I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world."
Please take notice, in John's gospel, Martha's confession occupies the pivotal point of Peter's confession in the other gospels. Martha does not understand any more fully than Peter did. Full understanding awaits subsequent experience. We cannot miss the point that Martha stands here as a representative disciple just as Peter is singled out by the other gospel writers.
Martha goes into her typical take-charge action. She goes to get Mary who in turn comes out to meet Jesus. True to her own nature, Mary kneels at the feet of Jesus. She repeats the words of Martha to Jesus, but the mood and temperament are quite different. One cannot escape the conclusion that John is more drawn to the strength of Martha, yes, and even her feisty character.
When Jesus sees the tears of Mary and the others who had come out with her, he is deeply upset, so upset that he himself is moved to tears. Why is he upset? That is not too clear though he might well be moved to tears over some of our own funeral practices. It is more to the point though to believe that he wept at the thought of his own approaching death. He steps up to the tomb, orders the stone removed and summons Lazarus, "Come out!" Woven by the inspired artistry of John the whole scene foreshadows the time when the Lord and Giver of life will enter his own tomb to conquer death that all the sisters and brothers of Lazarus might have eternal life now in his name, a life with God of such quality that physical death cannot destroy it.
This narrative is called the raising of Lazarus. But please note, in a way Martha is also being raised. The Lord who commanded the unbinding of Lazarus had liberated Martha from the restraints imposed upon her and all her sisters by a thoroughly male-dominated culture. Anyone ghettoized by gender or ethnic bias has been placed in a tomb. And Martha as representative disciple signals for all of us a gracious liberation to become truly the sons and daughters of God.
Whatever happened to Martha in Christian memory? Did a male-dominated church find Luke's portrait of Martha more congenial? Elizabeth Moltmann-Wendel argues convincingly for that conclusion in her book, The Women Around Jesus. She points out that the activist Martha of John's gospel did find her place in Christian lore and tradition. In the middle ages she was rediscovered as a mature, active woman who cared for the world. From the 12th century to the end of the middle ages feminist movements were afoot in Europe. A new self awareness was in the air. Sisters were coming out of the cloistered life. A new veneration of Martha coincided with these movements.
Martha became a theme in art and legend and she was no longer the housewife depicted by Luke. A painting of the times shows Martha holding in one hand a pitcher of holy water and a cross. In the other hand she holds her girdle, the symbol of purity and courage, with which she has bound a dragon, the embodiment of evil. In one of the Martha legends the people around Arles and Avignon ask Martha for help. A man-eating dragon called Tarascus is submerged in the Rhone and eats anyone who crosses. Martha goes forth against the dragon, finds him in the forest eating a man, and sprinkles holy water on him as she holds the cross before him. Then she binds him with her girdle and the people come out and kill him. This is ancient legend, but note the point. Martha, the first to hear that Jesus is the resurrection and the life and to confess this, shows a new way of facing the power of evil and threats to life.
Martha as the unconventional dragon slayer was displaced in Christian lore by Saint George, the slayer of dragons. At some time we've all seen a picture of him as a mounted knight with his lance in hand, killing a dragon. The image of the dragon-killing knight stands behind the crusades. The figure of George was no doubt more compatible with macho mascuunity. So was the image of Mary, subdued, cloistered, passive. How many fairy stories do you recall where the knight goes forth to rescue the helpless maiden?
George, the dragon slayer, is not past history. The tank has replaced the horse and the missile the lance, but George still goes forth to bring redemption through violence. How many wars have been undertaken with the promise that this time the dragon will die? If this 11th chapter of John proclaims anything, it proclaims redemption and liberation through the way of the dying and risen Lord. Please take note of Martha, the representative disciple, equipped by the Living Word for a high risk journey.
