SINGING IN THE KITCHEN WITH MARTHA

 

A Reflection and Poem for 6^th Sunday after Pentecost      July 17, 2010

St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Ahoskie, NC                     Thomas E Wilson, Guest Celebrant

Amos 8:1-12 Psalm 52 Colossians 1:15-28 Luke 10:38-42

Singing In The Kitchen With Martha

When I reflected on the Gospel lesson for today about the behavior of Martha and her sister Mary. I got into my mind's Time Machine and was wisked back in time to somewhere in 27 AD. I saw the place of women that Jesus knew in Judean society. My imagination saw the configuration of the house in the story, for the courage it took from Mary to sit with the men, to the bitterness of Martha harbored while working in the kitchen alone. Martha was doing all the right things; she was in charge of her kitchen, she was making a wonderful meal but she was filled with resentment because she thought it was all about her. She was, as the editor of Luke writes, “distracted”.

I wrote my poem, “Singing In The Kitchen With Martha” and suddenly I was put back in the Time Machine back to the spring of 1965 and I heard the word “adequate”. Oh, so many years ago, I was an 18 year old, second semester Freshman at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I was a Drama major and was cast in my first Carolina Playmakers play. It was not a major part, but I was filled with the desire to make my part stand out. When the newspaper review came out, I was mentioned, by name as playing that Character's name, and there was a one word discription of all my work; “adequate”.

I was devastated, while my friends tried to comfort me by telling me that at least I was not reviewed as “inadequate”. In my shame I went back over my work. I knew that I had done the part right. I had said the words clearly and distinctly, got the accent right, got the emotions right, made the right moves on the stage; but I missed the point. I was so busy trying to prove my competence, that I did not enter into the fullness of the play. All my hard and good work was all about me. I was filling myself up rather, than empting myself out. I was, as the editor of Luke writes, “distracted”. Only when an actor empties him or herself out, dies to one's own ego, entering fully into the new community, can the character, he or she plays, come to life.

Plays are not about talented single actors getting on a stage with other talented single actors, saying written lines and not bumping into the scenery. A play is about people joyfully coming to share their particular talents to work together to create a new reality. The play is not about the lines or action but about the creating a new space between the people in the cast and then sharing that space with an audience. At its best, it is the creation of a community which comes together to invite people to join them.

Jesus tells Martha that Mary has chosen the better part. The part is not the part/role you play; which was Mary as a “student” and Martha as a “hostess”, but about the joy from being the inside of a community instead of being “distracted” in the inside of your own ego. Jesus was in the process of creating a community of a new reality for the world and inviting people to join them in living a different kind of life. A different kind of life, where one dies to one's own ego in order to create a new community. Martha gets busy, which is not a bad thing to do; Work is not a bad thing. The problem is when the work is an excuse to build up one's ego; in order to earn praise, or a sense of worth. Then it is not a relationship, but only a commercial exchange; from where we never seem to break even. That is what Martha is complaining about when she accuses Jesus of not caring enough, paying her enough attention, giving Mary more.

In the Bible we have a theme that keeps coming back, over and over again. In the beginning in Genesis; it starts with God, the community within God's very self, makes a decision to enlarge the infinite love. The Divine community creates and molds forth a human, from the humus. God then says that “it is not good for a human to live without a community'. So a mate is created by losing a part of the human self in order to be in a community, a community united and living into the sacred space between them. So what do the these two humans do to live in a community with God? They become distracted and find a way to distance themselves from God, by not telling the whole truth, by blaming others and by hiding. The story goes on as the couple tries to continue community by having two children, Cain and Abel. Except, Cain gets distracted, kills Abel and then says, “Am I my brother's keeper?” The answer is, of course, “Yes, in God's community, you care for one another, for the sacred space between us is what community is all about.”

This is what Amos, thousands of years later, is thundering about. The people have gotten so distracted they have forgotten that the care for one another is the hallmark of community. The Psalmist for today decries our loving words that hurt, which undermines community. The writer of the Letter to the Colossians urges the people to remember that they are being brought together by a power greater than themselves into a community and not to be distracted from the love that binds them.:

And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him-- provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel.

The theme of scripture from, beginning to end, is that we are meant to live in a community where we take care of God's Garden, God's children, together. We are cast in God's play to care for each other and our neighbors.. But somehow, in our moments of distraction we create, and take parts in, other improvisations of comedies and tragedies to find so many ways to get distracted and to pick arguments with each other and our neighbors.

Imagine what life would look like if we began each day, not with a rehearsal of our disappointments of the previous day but with a Thanksgiving for the day to come, such as with the last verse of the Psalm for today:

I will give you thanks for what you have done *
and declare the goodness of your Name in the presence of the godly.

Or with the thought expressed by a Buddhist Monk,Thich Nhat Hanh;

“Waking up this morning, I smile.
Twenty-four brand new hours are before me.
I vow to live fully in each moment
and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.” 
— The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching (Broadway Books, 1998), p. 102.

You are members of St. Thomas Church, you live in Ahoskie and you are looking for a new Rector. One of the questions you will need to ask yourself is: “What is the community into which you are called to tend the garden of souls with and for each other together through eyes of compassion?” My hope is that whenever, you find yourself having cast yourself in one of those improvisations, “Singing In the Kitchen with Martha”, which in my experience seemingly only happens in days ending in the letter “y”. Which means every day! I pray you stop and listen to Jesus who is inviting each of you with a smile in his voice as he says your personal or corporate name: “ Oh, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. There is a better part, which need not be taken away from you."

Singing In The Kitchen With Martha

Over the stew, Martha continued stewing;

each paddle stroke thudded at the pot's edge,

spilling on fire sizzling! She made her pledge;

Mary'd be shamed at the dinner; have her ruing

how she had neglected to help out her good sister,

who was so faithful. She'd opt to stay in the kitchen,

muttering away quietly so they'd not hear bitchin,

then play a put upon martyr showing a big blister.

Martha longed to have Mary hear Jesus scold

Mary for her selfish pursuit of a soft life, lounging

with lazy disciples, while in hot kitchens scrounging,

Martha's earning her right to be in Jesus's fold.

How distracting it is to look down on others,

almost forgetting we are sisters and brothers.