Benefice Blog

Trinity 7

Pentecost 8

Year C

+ May I speak in the name of God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN

Mary and Martha

I don’t know if any of you have watched the comedy drama ‘Rev’ on the television recently… As the title suggests its about a Vicar working in the East End of London with a very small congregation – I was a bit suspicious about watching it, when someone religious turns up on telly they are usually strange or dangerous. Dot Cotton in Eastenders seemed bad enough until the bloke who is a part time minister/part time serial killer turned up.

It was with a degree of trepidation that I turned the computer on and watched an episode of ‘Rev’ – I’m a week or so behind….

Last week the episode had another church coming in to use the parish church building – it was ‘all singing all dancing’ TV screens, rappers and a ‘personality’ running the show. The Church was packed and lots of money was collected – lots of which was donated back to the usual church and its’ congregation.

In the older congregation there were all sorts of characters, and they didn’t all really fit in to the ‘new’ service. One of them did something to upset one of the helpers in the new congregation and the minister of the new congregation insisted that he be excluded from the Church.

The Vicar refused and the Archdeacon agreed – they pointed out that nobody could be excluded from the Church… It is open to all – and that sometimes mean people who are very different from those we would choose to spend time with…

At this stage I was waiting for the Vicar to turn out to have a dark sinister secret that no one knew about…but it didn’t happen….thankfully.

Whilst this was an episode of a comedy programme there were all kinds of realistic incidents, this particular episode seemed to relate well to the readings we have today.

In the Gospel the reported event in the lives of Mary and Martha is an important one, we have the busy Martha, distracted by her many tasks, trying to make things perfect, and we have Mary, who would rather choose to sit at the feet of Jesus, just listening.

It isn’t as easy to split their tasks up by saying it’s all about faith and works, Mary having faith without works and Martha having work without faith, because that does a great disservice to the them as people. It’s not a case of two women getting it completely wrong in two different ways.

I think it’s a lesson to us all, as are all the recorded events, parables and allegories in the Bible. They are all there for a reason. This lesson, once again, has a wide-ranging and deep message. The thing about Mary and Martha is that Martha was so busy ‘doing the right thing’ in the sight of God she forgot to check what ‘God’ actually wanted. God incarnate is sat on her sofa, and she still knew best – but it was hardly her fault.

The Pharisees and the Scribes and the religious officials of the day couldn’t see Jesus as the Son of God either, because they were too busy dealing with the day-to-day business of what they felt was ‘God’s work’ even when he was hanging on the cross and all the prophesies were being fulfilled, they couldn’t see the real event that was happening.

Abraham in the reading from Genesis is sat at the doorway to his tent in the heat of the day, and God talks to him. St. Paul in the letter to the Colossians talks about his mission to ‘make Christ known’ he who is the ‘image of the invisible God’, so that we can all be ‘mature in Christ’. What a fantastic phrase and thought. To be growing towards a maturity in Christ. Taken together, we could say that the readings are inviting us to grow more mature in Christ by waiting for him to speak to us in the quiet, in the peace and in the calm. It’s only then can we actually say we are doing his work.

The first image was that of the apparently incredibly successful Church – lots of people came, most of them were young too. I’m sure they were learning about God, the stories of the Bible and even how we are expected to live. But faced with a problem, faced with someone who didn’t actually want to do things their way, they couldn’t cope with it – the other person had to be wrong.

Lots of people believe that their way is the right way, and excluding others, questioning the motives and integrity of others – as the Archdeacon in the series pointed out, we can exclude nobody from our Churches however different they may be… And the fact is that it’s not our place to be judge.

The second image was of an apparently unsuccessful Church, with money problems and a small congregation – but for all the faults associated with it, it was this group, this Church, that best understood Jesus’ command to love their neighbour… they accepted everyone just as they are. Here is Mary, patiently waiting on God and then having a clearer understanding of what makes success, what makes us mature in Christ.

What is our vision then? Is it to build a church on strict rules and regulations that excludes people from our worship and fellowship? Is it a vision to mould people to be like us, because we are always right? Or is our vision to join with everyone in the kingdom of God – because the reality is that as we seek to do our bit to build the kingdom of God, so we will face challenges as to the type of people we meet… and welcome…

Here we go again worrying about the churches – even during the sermon, I’ve forgotten to think about the man. Well, a woman called Barbara Johnson wrote a little parable that is a perfect commentary – it tells us a lot about the man in the episode of ‘Rev’ who found himself outcast in his church, by people who didn’t find him quite right.

A man fell into a pit and couldn't get himself out.

A subjective person came along and said, "I feel for you down there."

An objective person came along and said, "It's logical that someone would fall down there."

A Pharisee said, "Only bad people fall into a pit."

A mathematician calculated how he fell into the pit.

A news reporter wanted an exclusive story on his pit.

A fundamentalist said, "You deserve your pit."

A tax inspector asked if he was paying taxes on the pit.

A self-pitying person said, "You haven't seen anything until you've seen my pit."

A charismatic said, "Just confess that you're not in a pit."

An optimist said, "Things could be worse."

A pessimist said, "Things will get worse."

Jesus, seeing the man, took him by the hand and lifted him out of the pit!

That is what Jesus does, and that is what he calls us to do… AMEN

Rev Mark Lawson-Jones

2010