Staying Close to Jesus

Every three years on this Sunday we hear this brief story of Martha and Mary. We hear it every year in the daily celebration at Mass and usually during the first full week of October.

Maybe we find this event in the lives of Martha and Mary a little confusing. Are we supposed to spend our lives as followers of the Lord sitting at the feet of Jesus? That sounds like the advice we get. Set aside your work and sit down with Jesus. It sounds like a beautiful invitation, and it is. But it’s not the only invitation and example we have.

Abraham and Sarah served the Lord in service and hospitality. The meal was carefully prepared, and the hosts attended to the visitors’ comfort. That was our first reading today. Moses led the people from the slavery in Egypt and gave them the law of God. David was a warrior and a king. Jeremiah spoke words of truth to the powerful and words of hope to the faithful. Paul served the Lord in preaching, prayer, travel, suffering, and writing. We have lots of examples of people of faith who were active in the service of the Lord in the Scriptures. We have lots of examples of great saints in our history who were active is so many things. We have lots of examples of people in our community who share their lives and share their faith serving the poor, teaching those who want to learn, caring for the sick, and welcoming the stranger. With the great examples from the Scriptures, the saints, and our own community, we could be still a little confused about the story of Martha and Mary. What are we supposed to do?

Maybe we can look at it differently. Maybe we can look at Martha and Mary and focus not on what they are doing, but simply on where they are. Martha and Mary are close to Jesus. Serving and sitting, they are close to Jesus. Sitting and serving, Mary and Martha are near the Lord. And whether we are sitting or serving, whether we are busy about many things or focused on only one thing, we are near the Lord Jesus.

In the celebration of the Eucharist, we are close to Jesus. We admit our faults and meet his mercy. We listen to his Word and we offer our prayers. We bring the sacrifice of our lives, the offering of the many things we are busy about, and we unite them to sacrifice of Jesus. And the Lord Jesus gives us the gift of himself. He feeds us with his Body and Blood and strengthens us to sit with him and to serve him. Sitting or serving, we will stay close to Jesus.

There is no comparison between Martha and Mary here. We should not play out Martha against Mary, or Mary against Martha, neither when judging the lives of others nor our own life. The ideal is to combine the two attitudes Mary and Martha symbolize. “Ora et Labora” is the old saying you often see in monasteries and convents: “Pray and Work.”

We need both Martha and Mary; both action and contemplation. The most important word in this is neither action nor even contemplation, but “and.” There is no apostleship (sending out) without discipleship (being with Jesus).

Even in our dynamism, we need to keep a listening or contemplative heart. Jesus never asked Martha to come and sit down with Mary and himself. But only one thing was missing in Martha. She was most likely not present to herself, she was not present to her own feelings of resentment, perhaps her own martyr complex, her complaining attitude. If she was not present to herself, Martha could not be present to her guests in any healing way, and spiritually speaking, she could not even be present to God. Presence is of one piece. How you are present to anything is how you are present to everything. How you are present to anything is how you are present to God, loved ones, strangers, those who are suffering. To repeat, unless you are present to yourself, you can’t be present to others, or to God.

Aren’t we many times like Martha “distracted” with all our serving? We are serving the Lord, but we are distracted. Martha is doing the reasonable, hospitable thing—rushing around, fixing, preparing, and as the text brilliantly says, “distracted with all the serving.”

Jesus doesn’t lose the occasion to affirm Mary, “who sat at his feet listening to him speak.” Mary knows how to be present to him and, presumably, to herself. She understands the one thing that makes all other things happen at a deeper and healing level. Prayer is not one of the ten thousand things, but it is the one thing necessary to see all those ten thousand things. It is the presence that is needed to live those ten thousand things in a healing way.

There should be a balance between word and deed, between talk and action, between prayer and work. Both are important. The two belong together; they are interwoven. Yet, let us not lose sight of the priority of prayer or contemplation. Our actions should rather be an overflow of our contemplation, our communion with God and the world. The quality of our lives should define the quantitative activities of our lives. Otherwise it may be mere restlessness or impatience, and a presence that may not be healing.

Without a Mary’s attitude we can land into an idolatry of words and actions. Without a Mary’s attitude we can be serving ourselves instead of serving Jesus.

That is the one thing necessary! To have a listening heart even in our active moments. To stay close to Jesus. To stay close to Jesus we need both serving and sitting. And let them be done in a healing way.