NRS Luke 10
38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to what he was saying. 40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me." 41 But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."

Sisters and Brothers in Christ, may the blessing of the Lord rest and remain upon you always; for the sake of Jesus the Messiah. Amen.

There are two kinds of Christians. Not Protestant and Catholic, not Eastern and Western, not conservative and liberal, not even devout and lax. But in all forms and expressions of Christianity, no matter where you go or what kind of church you attend, there are always (!) the Martha's and the Mary's.

As we hear in today's gospel, the Martha's are the busy Christians. They head the committees. They lead the work days. They take charge of the kitchen and they make sure that everything is put exactly back from where it was taken. They chair the building campaigns and they balance the books. They run the Sunday School, assemble the newsletter, and count the offerings, and when they don't have anything else to do, they ride their sister Mary's back to sign up for this, join that, or at the very least, look busy.

The Mary's, though, don't respond well to lists, especially lists of things to do. They are not what you would call linear people. They like taking the long way home. The very idea of a task force makes them physically ill, and before they'd sign up for an ad hoc committee they'd rather eat glass. They like to sit and talk, and talk, and talk. It's not that they like the sound of their own voices so much as they just love being with people. They tell funny stories, they dream big dreams, and when they are hornswoggled on to, say, the church picnic committee, they come up with these wild ideas, like, dressing everybody up in Reformation costumes and serving Luther burgers and Melanchthon dogs. And of course, the more the Martha's ride them, the longer they sit and the more they talk.

In the language of ancient Christian spirituality, Martha and Mary represent two different, but complementary ways of following Jesus. Martha represents the via activa, or the active way. In the history of the church the Martha's are the reforming bishops, the wide-ranging missionaries, the church planters and cathedral builders. Even as students of the Word, they're the ones who compile the big Bible dictionaries and assemble the multi-volume concordances. They are on fire for the Lord, and sometimes they burn so hot and bright that they burn themselves out and in the process singe everybody standing within twenty yards of them. They are so focused on doing that they are prone to forget how just to be. Among the church's all-star Martha's I would count the Apostle Paul, Pope Leo the Great who pretty much single-handedly saved the people of Rome when the city fell to the Vandal hordes, and that genius behind so many Lutheran missions to America, the untiring, unrelenting Wilhelm Loehe.

If Martha represents the vita activa, then Mary is the embodiment of the via contemplativa, the way of contemplation. More inward and intuitive, the Church's Mary's are typically the visionaries and mystics who combine holiness and humility in a life of prayer and reflection. They sit at the feet of Jesus, and from there speak with true spiritual authority to inspire the Church to new ministries, new ventures, and new heights of service. The Mary's of the Church often turn out to be the deep souls and wise heads that remind us why we're here in the first place. Speaking from the depths of their own relationship to Christ, they keep the Church from getting lost in the trees of dead ritual and stifling routine. On the other hand, these are not the people you want to file your taxes. They are not detail people; they couldn't organize a Christmas pageant or an Easter program if their lives depended on it. Ask them the directions to the bathroom, and they're likely to launch into a meditation on the two natures of Christ without ever telling you just exactly how to get to the men's or women's room. When I think of the Church's best known Mary's, I would include the Evangelist John, the little brother of the poor St. Francis of Assisi, and in some respects Martin Luther, who, if it hadn't been for his wife Katie, would have, I think, had a very hard time surviving outside the monastery.

Martha and Mary are sisters, and as often happens with sisters, they sometimes don't get along. Like in today's story from Luke, Martha complains that her sister leaves her with all the serving, while Mary, I think, secretly likes reminding Martha that she's chosen the better part. And of course, they're both right. The church needs both its Martha's and Mary's, but that's also true for our own spiritual well-being as individuals, We all have a Martha side, and likewise everybody has a Mary side. But in our culture today it frequently happens that Martha pushes Mary around, putting her down and downplaying her gifts. We are these days, you know, so task-oriented and agenda-driven that we can and often do lose ourselves in all our doing. After meeting a person, the first thing we typically ask is, "What do you do?" That's because so often we assume that all a person is is what he or she does.

I have a pastor friend who not so many years ago retired from a long, distinguished ministry at a large, big-steeple church in the Midwest. But within a couple of months of his retirement he was right on the edge of a nervous breakdown. He had plenty of things to do, but his identity had become so entwined with being a pastor that he didn't have the vaguest idea of who he was when he wasn't doing the pastor thing. He was all Martha, and no Mary. Or as he would comment later, he had become a human doing instead of a human being.

This summer's confirmation camp Bible study was titled "Listen! God Is Calling," but before exploring God's call to gratitude, faith, love, and sharing, the study began with God's call simply to be loved. Well, that hit me right between the eyes, because when I think of God calling I automatically assume that God is calling us to do something - preach, teach, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, evangelize the nations. But before God calls us to do any of those things, God calls us first just to be - to be his child, to be his heart's desire, to be the apple of his eye. Called to be loved is really at the heart of our baptismal theology. Before we can respond to God or decide for God, God is in Christ showering us with love, flooding us with grace, and bathing us with mercy beyond all human telling just because we are.

Now I have to tell you that I'm talking a pretty good game here, but in real life I spend a lot more time taking orders from Martha than listening to Mary. I preach all the time about grace, but I typically act as if I still have to prove to God that I'm worthy of a place at his table. My Martha needs to let my Mary get in a word edgewise every once in a while, and that's where we really need each other. We need to give each other permission both to be and to do, to serve when it's time to serve, but also to sit and listen and just be when the Master speaks. There will be a time when we can't do, but the time we have to be in the presence of the Lord will never be taken from us.

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.