The Better Part

(Scriptures: Amos 8:1-12, Psalm 15,
Colossians 1:15-28, Luke 10:38-42)

St Benedict founded his first community of Benedictine monks around the year 529 AD. As with most monastic communities, the Benedictines live under the rule of St Benedict. While this guideline for monastic living goes into great detail, it can be summarized in phrases: the word “pax”, or peace, and the phrase “ora et labora” – pray and work. I mention this because these concepts – that of peace, and that of a balance between prayer and work – are lenses through which we can view both last week’s and this week’s readings from Luke’s Gospel.

Remember that last week, we had the parable of the Good Samaritan. Asked by a lawyer what he should do to inherit eternal life, Jesus referred him to the Scriptural injunctions to love God and neighbor. Asked by the lawyer, “and who is my neighbor?”, Jesus unfolded the parable of the man - the Jewish man - who fell among robbers, the Jewish religious authorities who passed him by without helping him, and the despised Samaritan foreigner who took compassion on the man. Clearly, Jesus’ concept of “who is our neighbor” transcends all the political, religious, socioeconomic, and other markers we use to distinguish and create divisions among ourselves. And welcoming all as neighbors is work – hard work.

This week we see the “prayer” side of Benedict’s “pray and work” rule of life. After Jesus’ day of teaching, he went to the home of Martha, who welcomed him to dinner. Jesus began to teach, and Mary sat at his feet, listening with rapt attention to Jesus’ words. Martha was trying to pull together dinner and asked Jesus to encourage Mary to pitch in. Jesus said that Martha was distracted over many things, but only one thing was needed, which Mary chose.

If this brief texts has you scratching your head in puzzlement, don’t feel bad, because I have a similar reaction. After Jesus had just gotten done teaching his followers to practice hospitality to neighbors, he turns around and chides Martha for seemingly following Jesus’ instructions. So do you want us to be hospitable or not, Jesus – which is it? We may wish Jesus would make up His mind!

Bible scholars speculate that perhaps Luke’s inclusion of this passage, which is unique to Luke’s gospel, was, in part, his way of responding to questions about the proper role of women in the church. What ministries were women permitted to carry out? In the passage, Jesus is breaking a number of Jewish cultural taboos – for a man to go to the house of an unrelated (and especially unmarried) woman would have raised eyebrows at the very least; Martha, a woman, served him; and Mary, a woman, is taught by him – and traditionally women would have done neither. The Greek word used by Luke to describe “serving”, diakonein , refers to Christian service; it’s the word from which we get our English word deacon. And there were both male and female deacons in the early church – Romans 16:1 refers to a deacon named Phoebe. And yet, at least in Luke’s telling, the better part was, not to scurry around setting out dishes, but rather to sit at Jesus feet and listen to him.

As I said, this seemingly short passage has layers of meaning and layers of complexity, and I don’t want to understate the ambiguity of the message. And yet, I think we’ve all had situations where we’ve been with someone, but he or she was so busy that it seemed like our presence was a distraction at best. Maybe we went out to dinner with a friend, and they were so busy on their blackberry or cell phone texting or taking calls from work that feel like we may as well have stayed home. And sometimes our prayer life with God is like that. Perhaps we’re just sending up a quick prayer to God now and then. And that’s certainly better than nothing. But even if we set time aside for prayer, it can be hard to focus – the day’s distractions have a way of crowding in. And my prayer life is no different – I try to focus on my prayers, and soon I’m thinking of ideas for next Sundays’ sermon and remember a parishioner I need to call, and a paper that’s due for a class, and grimace thinking about some upcoming boring meeting at my day job, and on and on. But like a spouse or partner or a good friend, God wants our undivided attention at least some of the time. It’s not too much for God to ask.

Our reading from Amos speaks of the much grimmer situation that can take place when we’re not even trying to maintain any kind of prayer or worship life. We met Amos last week, when he was prophesying against the social injustices of the northern kingdom of Israel, and the court prophet told Amos to put a cork in it, to shut up and prophesy elsewhere. Today we hear God’s response as prophesied by Amos. Amos recognizes that while his society goes through the motions of religious observance, their minds are focused on getting back to their work. “When will the new moon be over, so we may sell grain, and the Sabbath, so we may sell wheat?” Or in today’s terms, “boy, I hope pastor keeps the sermon and the prayers short today, so I can get out early….I have a million things to do at work this afternoon.” But then Amos’ description of this “work” turns downright sinister: “We’ll make the ephah small and the shekel great” – we’ll charge top dollar – “and practice deceit with false balances” – butchers put their thumbs on the scale back then too – “buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.” And, in our day in which we read stories of toothpaste adulterated with chemicals found in antifreeze, and periodic recalls of meat and vegetables laced with salmonella and other dangerous contaminants due to sloppy quality control and lack of regulation, and other abuses of industrialized food production, we can reflect that some things never change: “we’ll sell the sweepings of the wheat!” - hey, we’ll scrape up the husks of the wheat off the floor – along with whatever crud gets mixed in - and we’ll sell that! Ka-ching!

Remember that in last week’s reading from Luke, we were reminded that the two great commandments were to love God and love neighbor. These two commandments are inseparable. If our relationship with God suffers, our relationship with neighbor will suffer as well. Conversely, if we neglect or exploit our neighbor – generically, if we treat the people around us like dirt – it’s not unlikely that our relationship with God is out of kilter, that we’re treating God like dirt as well.

So God’s response to Israel’s neglect of God and exploitation of neighbor sounds a lot like the motto for Burger King – “Have it your way”. “The time is surely coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but of hearing the word of the Lord.” Praying is too much trouble for you? Spending time in worship too much of a burden? Treating your neighbors like human beings too much to ask? Alrighty then – have it your way. I won’t take up any more of your time. “They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east, they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but shall not find it.” God loves us, infinitely, eternally, but God will not force Godself on anyone unwillingly. Or, as you’re driving, you may now and then pass a church sign bearing the message, “If you feel like God is far away, guess who moved.” A word for the wise.

The United Church of Christ places a high value on radical inclusion of all sorts and conditions of people in congregational life, and on social justice as a way of showing love of neighbor to those who are too distant for us to know personally. We’re known as a social activist denomination. But this radical inclusion and social activism – this hands-on style of love of neighbor – must be firmly rooted and grounded in a prayer, in worship, in the development of a spiritual life. Our love of neighbor must be firmly, deeply rooted in love of God. "Ora" must come before "labora"; prayer before work. Otherwise we’re little more than a political action committee with organ music – which is exactly how our denomination’s critics see us. Let’s prove our critics wrong.

But the Lord answered her, "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 away from her." May we here at Emanuel Church likewise choose the better part, as our congregational life is rooted and grounded in love for Emanuel – God with us. Amen.
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Come spend some quality time with God on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street, off Thompson. www.emanuelphila.org