Martha and Mary

Sermon preached by Revd Ray Anglesea at Howden le Wear Methodist Chapel, 21^st July 2013

 On the wall above my dining room table is this copy of a painting painted by the Spanish artist Diego Velazquez in1618. It was painted when the painter was 19 years old. The painting is called “Kitchen Maid with the Supper at Emmaus.”  Here we see not simply a kitchen maid, but a young African woman who is in all probability a slave, in a kitchen - the kitchen of the inn where two disciples and Christ have stopped for their evening meal. The painting depicts a moment in the Emmaus house before the disciples have recognized Christ; the maid looks to be in a state of arrested attention, does she have any idea who the guest is?
       

What I didn’t know is that Velazquez painted, in the same year, another painting where a kitchen maid is the subject of his painting. This second painting is entitled Kitchen Scene with Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, the subject of today’s gospel reading. Velazquez realistically depicts a 17th century Seville kitchen; the foreground is dominated by the face and demeanor of a woman who we take to be a cook; she is about her tasks, hands busy beating or whisking; sea bass lie on a plate, garlic on the table, eggs and red chilies, a flagon of water or wine on the table nearby; the foods are shown prepared in ways typical of Spanish cookery at the time.
 

In the background of the painting is a biblical scene, generally accepted to be the story of Martha and Mary. In it, as we discovered in our Gospel reading Christ goes to the house of a woman named Martha. Her sister, Mary, sat at his feet and listened to him speak. Martha, on the other hand, went to "make all the preparations that had to be made."Upset that Mary did not help her, she complained to Christ to which he responded: "Martha, Martha, ... you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.^” In the painting, Christ is shown as a bearded man in a blue tunic. He gesticulates at Martha, the woman standing behind Mary, rebuking her for her frustration.
 

The plight of Martha, worried and upset, clearly relates to that of the maid in the foreground. She has just prepared a large amount of food and, from the redness of her creased puffy cheeks, we can see that she is also upset. Emotion scuds across the woman’s face. Resentment, anger, tearfulness, so near to the surface that in the next moment we imagine she might throw to the ground the bowl she holds, turn to the old woman behind her and just let rip. To comfort her (or perhaps even to rebuke her), the elderly woman behind the maid seems to point out the scene in the background reminding the maid that she cannot expect to gain fulfillment from work alone. The maid, who cannot bring herself to look directly at the biblical scene and instead looks out of the painting towards us, meditates on the implications of the story.
 

Some scholars suggest that the whole painting is set in Christ’s time; the National Gallery say that following cleaning and restoration in 1964, it is now clear that the smaller biblical scene in the background is framed by a hatch or aperture through the wall, one looks into a dining room from the kitchen’s serving hatch. Some scholars suggest that the maid in the foreground is actually Martha herself and the lady standing in the background is just an incidental character.
 

But for me the moment captured in the painting is of the kitchen maid pondering on the words of Jesus to Martha that she has heard, reflecting on their implication in and for her own life. I have every sympathy for the Martha’s of this world – who like me, I suspect, have Type A  personalities –proactive people, always on the go, impatient, can multi-task, we push ourselves with deadlines, hate delays and ambivalence, we are organised and ambitious – compared to Type B personalities, rather like the Mary’s of this world  who generally live at a lower stress level and typically work steadily, who are in the main reflective and think about the outer and inner worlds, enjoy exploring ideas and concepts.
 

And so if like me you have a Type A personality what is it like to hear the words of Jesus when you are up to your eyes with work, e-mails to respond too, gardening to do, friends to visit, visits to the gym, soup to make, minutes to write, a rota to be filled and the many household tasks  that have to get done, when what is really needed if we are to understand the gospel story is stillness and focus and attention on Jesus? Being and doing, contemplation and action. It’s a very present tension in the lives of many people, both in the church and outside, whether we lived in17th century Seville, or 21st century Howden. The problem of where our focus lies  - the balance between actively doing and waiting and stillness doesn’t go away. We are distracted by our many tasks. No time to dwell on the word – the written word, and the word that God speaks to us in the life of his Son.
 

 

In the Gospel story that comes immediately before the story of Mary and Martha we heard how the lawyer was told by Jesus to model the actions of the Samaritan who helped his neighbour. ‘Go and do likewise’ he is told.  Almost in the next breath we hear Jesus telling Martha that Mary’s choice to ‘stay and be and listen’ is the best path. Jesus himself models this tension throughout his ministry. Times of activity and engagement with crowds, healing and teaching, are contrasted with time set aside alone or with his closest followers; to listen to his father, to contemplate and pray.
 

I think it is rather comforting to reflect that the early church struggled to find this balance too. In Acts we hear the disciples voice this dissonance, ‘It is not right that we should neglect the word of God to serve at tables’. As a solution they re-structured the community, choosing some to serve at tables, while we hear, they devoted themselves to prayer and serving the word. It is interesting that those chosen to serve were chosen because they were full of the spirit and wisdom and that the decision made to create this balance in the church pleased the whole community. They knew their need for both forms of ministry.
 

In his reply to Martha, is Jesus exalting contemplation over action, or saying that true disciples leave menial tasks to others? If Martha and Mary are both being hospitable in their own way it may be better to see different kinds of hospitality competing with each other for the limited resources. Jesus commends Mary for her desire to be hospitable to his teaching. By comparison, Martha’s anxious preparation of the meal is a distraction that falls short of what, in this instance, is her sister’s “better part.”
 

Earlier in the Gospel when Jesus sent off the seventy disciples he told them to receive the hospitality they are offered as they entered people’s homes; to eat and take what is given. He also tells the disciples to cure the sick and to say that the Kingdom of God has come near.  As he comes to this home of Mary and Martha, Jesus does the same. Jesus is a guest in their home, the Kingdom of God, in the form of Jesus is beside Mary and Martha, talking to them. But Martha is restless. Jesus repeats her name, as if to get her attention and steady her. We get the impression that she is working too hard, doing too much, so much so that her resentment, like the kitchen maid’s face in our painting is overflowing, consumed by what she is doing. There is no space around or within her; so that her activity is a barrier to the kingdom of God coming close, she cannot hear, she cannot respond, she sets us barriers to Christ’s love and to ways of receiving the kingdom at that moment – she thanks that these gifts will be given to her when everything else is done.
 

So what happens when we Martha’s of the world with our varied active personalities eventually stop and listen for God’s word? How can we achieve a balance of doing and being, of being active and submissive, still and attentive. How can we make space in our daily lives to be with God? Well, if you are like me, all sorts of distractions cross our minds and generally we would not wish to be in that place because we know we will be in unchartered waters and somewhat out of control and out of our comfort zone.
 

But to ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind’ is not submissive or passive, it is an active process; listening and stilling oneself requires attention and focus and desire. If we are able to still our souls, centred and listening then out of that listening and stillness and being known before God for who we are and not for what we do, then out of that will flow the deep concern for the well-being of other people and for all that is around us. That place of listening then becomes the wellspring from which we find life, not the place where we hide from it, which is good news for the Martha’s of the world. That space may be the source of great activity. But whatever comes from it, if we live from that place, we won’t be skimming through life, living at the surface but engaging deeply, with what we are about, with what is around us, and with who is around us. What you notice if you look at the original of the Velazquez painting, which is in room 30 at the National Gallery is that it is the product of a deep contemplation on life. Fish, garlic, eggs, the reflection off the glaze on the jug, as well as emotions on a woman’s troubled face, are an engagement with what is real, in that moment. If we take time to sit before God, listen to his word and gaze upon him, in the person and actions of Christ, we will find that when we pick up the ordinary things with which we have to do, engage with the people whose faces we contemplate, the activities that are on our lists, it will be with a sense that Christ is there, at the heart of it all.