3-24-19 Sermon “Tuning In”
I had a small, battery-powered, pocket-sized, gray Radio Shack AM/FM transistor radio when I was kid, and it came with an ear plug - how cool was that? And in those days everything you wanted to listen to was on the AM side of the dial; FM was a dark, broodingly mysterious place that played deep dark cuts of guitar and synthesizer-heavy music called “hard rock” that only hippies listened to. Everybody else listened to AM and its over-caffeinated jabbering DJs who perfectly timed their patter over top of the intros to the latest Top 40 Hits to end just as the song’s vocals began.
Our local radio station in Madison, WORX, was what might be called an adult-contemporary station I guess. During the day they broadcast news on the half hour, had a daily farm report, Paul Harvey’s commentary, and music by Dean Martin, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra and the like. At night they moved to less news and more contemporary soft rock and pop music. My mom listened to WORX - I didn’t. Like most of the other really “cool,” non-parent types,
I listened to a station out of Louisville, KY, WAKY - wacky radio - with DJs like Bill Bailey in the Morning, the Weird Beard, and Gary Burbank. They played a mix of Top 40 hits, oldies - which back then were almost exclusively from the 1950s - and did funny comedy bits, keeping listeners glued to the station. I was glued.
Except, that is, at night. At night, when I could find a strong enough signal, I could listen to the New York Yankees broadcast on WABC out of New York - that is, if the weather was good, the cloud cover was just right, and I was in the perfect location or holding the radio in the correct position. Tuning in to the AM signal from New York was only possible at night, when the signal would “bounce” from the far away from the New York metro area. There were times I had to sit in my closet, or go outside, or even sit on the roof of my house in order to pick up the game. And even then, I had to hold the radio just right and listen very intently, focused on what the Yankees play-by-play announcer was saying. When I was older and could drive, I would sometimes pull to the side of the road if I was able to tune in to the game on the car radio, because I knew I might lose the signal if I kept driving.
Tuning in to stations from New York or other faraway places was a way of connecting to something bigger than myself, bigger than my world as I knew it then, in community, if you will, with thousands and thousands of people I didn’t know from places I’d never been, but with whom I had something in common. Tuning in meant connecting. And like listening to those bounced radio waves from the roof of my house, it meant focusing very intently. There could be no distractions, nothing else going on, or I might inadvertently move the radio and lose the signal, or I would chance falling off the roof. Paying close attention - being fully present to what I was trying to do - was vital to a successful and clear connection.
In our story today, Jesus has just begun his journey to Jerusalem when he comes to the town where two sisters, Mary and Martha, live and they invite him into their home. The writer Luke tells us that Martha was very busy and distracted, but that Mary sat attentively at Jesus’ feet to listen to him teach. Now, I don’t know about you, but as I shared at Dinner with Friends last week, I used to struggle to keep Mary and Martha straight - which was the busy one and which the mindful one. At some point it, though, it dawned on me: Martha was busy in the kitchen, like Martha Stewart would be, and Mary paid close attention to Jesus, just like his mother Mary would do. From then on I never got them confused again.
There’s more to this simple five verse story than meets the eye. Luke provides a narrative here that is reflective of ancient Mediterranean customs around hospitality and inhospitality. At the same time he challenges some stereotypes about the “proper” role of women, and also suggests that Jesus is not always a very polite or kind houseguest. So let’s look at each of these ideas a little more closely.
The travel narratives in Luke begin late in chapter 9, following Jesus’ transfiguration and the feeding of the five thousand. It is then that Jesus sets his sights on Jerusalem, displaying a sense of urgency that he pushes onto his disciples and other followers as well. Sending out seventy to do ministry, he instructs them to take nothing with them and to not waste time in a city or home that isn’t receptive. When two other people engage with Jesus and he invites them to follow him, they agree but say they have other things they need to take care of first, including burying a recently deceased father. Jesus rebukes them for these distractions, for putting earthly things - like burying the dead and family - ahead of kingdom priorities. Jesus has a laser-like focus on the work ahead and expects the same of those around him.
And then immediately before today’s passage is the well-known story of the Good Samaritan, in which Jesus presents to his followers the expectation of a level of hospitality and love that greatly exceeds what many were willing to provide. The radical hospitality provided by the hated Samaritan for a man beaten, robbed, and left for dead along the road - who was previously ignored by two religious people - is lifted up by Jesus as the model of love of neighbor expected within God’s reign. It is in this context, in the midst of Jesus’ strong-willed, laser-focused, expectation-busting determination that our story unfolds.
When Jesus’ entourage arrives at Martha and Mary’s house, Martha extends the customary hospitality to a stranger that their society and culture calls for and expects. She does what one does when encountering a stranger or a traveler; she invites them in and provides for their needs. Hosts were expected to give food, shelter, amenities, and protection to traveling strangers, who, as the story of Abraham in Genesis reminds us, sometimes turned out to be gods or angels in disguise.
So to look at this section of Luke more broadly, this series of stories portrays a broader Christian social ethic of hospitality and care for others, both those who are like us and those unlike us. For those within our community, Luke says, our responsibilities for care and hospitality are limitless - there is nothing that we are not called to do or provide, if possible, for the believer in need.
For those unlike us in faith, nationality, ethnicity, or any other differentiating characteristic, or those in immediate crisis, we are called to provide Christian hospitality to the greatest degree that we are able. So Christians, as followers of Jesus, are called to extend hospitality both as hosts and guests, and to believers and non-believer alike. And this hospitality calls us to a level of personal and intimate engagement that a mere tolerance for the “other” does not. We are not called to simply “tolerate” or “endure” those not like us; rather the ancient “Christian virtue” of hospitality demands that we engage and interact with the Other, whether we are guest or host. So in our story today, Martha, we come to understand, is between the proverbial rock and a hard place - finding it difficult to both serve and provide hospitality AND engage directly with her guest.
Mary, on the other hand, is credited with having “chosen the better part,” by sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to him teach. While Martha has assumed the expected role of host when Jesus arrives, Mary asserts herself into a role not normally given to or shared by women in this period: that of disciple. Mary is seated at the feet of Jesus, tuned in and having assumed a position of learning and devotion, on par with Peter, John, James and the Twelve. So, the key to understanding this passage comes down to what Jesus means by the “one thing.” The “one thing” in Jesus’ logic is the “best part” which Mary has chosen. And what is that? According to Jesus, hearing the word of God’s messenger is the one thing needed, not providing for his physical needs. However important hospitality is in Luke as a broad social context for the spread of the Christian message, he says it’s even more important for followers to tune in to, be present to, be mindful of Jesus’ message and messengers.
So, Jesus’ response to Martha, while seemingly harsh to us, is less a condemnation of her frenzied activity and more a commendation of Mary’s posture as a disciple. Jesus’ repetition of her name, “Martha, Martha,” is a rhetorical device used to indicate compassion or pity, making it difficult to imagine that Luke’s audience understood Jesus’ praise of Mary to be an implicit criticism of Martha’s hospitality, even as we know that Jesus had the capacity to level such criticism. We see this in the story of Simon the Pharisee, who, when he fails to follow proper hospitality protocols (Lk. 7:36-50), is called out and publicly rebuked by Jesus. That suggests that another approach to this text would be to focus on the presence of Jesus as both guest and host.
Jesus is frequently a guest in someone’s home - the recipient of hospitality. And sometimes even he doesn’t always exhibit good manners. As a dinner guest, he criticizes his host and other guests in three other places in Luke’s gospel. (5:29ff; 7:36ff; 14:1,7ff). When his host is a Pharisee, we don’t notice his criticism so much, or if we do, we justify it because, well, he’s Jesus and they’re Pharisees. His criticism of Martha, though, gets our attention, it makes us a little bit uncomfortable, even offends us. She’s trying to fix him a meal, after all, she’s trying to be a good host. The narrative doesn’t distinguish between hosts, though. Whether Jesus is the guest of a Pharisee or Martha, he has dual roles as both a guest as well as host to those who have come to be with him, to be in his presence. Jesus' presence points to the coming of God's realm and the reordering of what is customary and expected. Martha does the right thing, she does what is customary and expected of her as a host, yet misses the presence of Jesus and the good news he represents. Mary risks the contempt of her sister, and perhaps that of the gathered disciples, in order to be fully in the presence of the guest, to tune in to what he is saying to all of those gathered. This brief encounter within Luke’s gospel purposely disrupts expectations and disturbs our sense of propriety. But as is sometimes the case, we get too comfortable with our ideas of a Jesus “meek and mild,” forgetting that Jesus is said to have come to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
Theologian and scholar Elisabeth Johnson suggests,
“The problem with Martha is not that she is busy serving and providing hospitality…but rather that she is worried and distracted. The word translated “distracted” in verse 40, periespato, has the connotation of being pulled or dragged in different directions.
“Martha’s distraction and worry leave no room for the most important aspect of hospitality -- gracious attention to the guest. In fact, she breaks all the rules of hospitality by trying to embarrass her sister in front of her guest, and by asking her guest to intervene in a family dispute. She even goes so far as to accuse Jesus of not caring about her. Martha’s worry and distraction prevent her from being truly present with Jesus, and cause her to drive a wedge between her sister and herself, and between Jesus and herself. She has missed out on the “one thing needed” for true hospitality. There is no greater hospitality than listening to your guest. How much more so when the guest is Jesus! So Jesus says that Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.
“Jesus’ words to Martha may be seen as an invitation rather than a rebuke. Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.
"The one thing needed is for Martha to receive the gracious presence of Jesus, to listen to his words, to know that she is valued not for what she does or how well she does it, but for who she is as a child of God.”
It is in Christ’s gentle reminder to Martha (and to us), that Mary’s is the better part that we are both invited and encouraged to set aside regular time to “tune in” to God and to “tune out” the worries and distractions. Actions, even acts of Christian charity and hospitality, if they are to be sincere, if they are to be sustainable, if they are to bear “withness” to our faith in the ever-present God through Jesus Christ - always, always follow being; that is, what we do flows naturally from who we are. Who we are has already been decided for us: we are beloved children of God. How we are as the beloved of God is determined by how “tuned in” we are to God and God’s presence in our lives.
In the 1960s, psychologist Timothy Leary and LSD advocate is famously quoted as saying we should all, “Turn On, Tune In, and Drop Out.” That is actually a ridiculously abbreviated and out of context representation of what he really said. And understanding that he was advocating for the large-scale use of LSD - something that I would never support - what he saw as the benefit of that is, ironically, in tune with what we’re talking about today. So here’s what Leary actually said, and I invite you, if you can, to set aside the drug context in which this was first heard, and listen, if you will, through the lens of what our message suggests today.
Timothy Leary actually said:
“TURN ON to contact the ancient energies and wisdoms that are built into your nervous system. They provide unspeakable pleasure and revelation.”
My take on that is that in our context we might think of those “ancient energies and wisdoms built into our nervous system” as that seed of God that is planted within each of us, that make us one with God in Creation. We should turn on to, be aware of the fact that we are one with God as beloved children of God.
Then Leary said,
“TUNE IN to harness and communicate these new perspectives in a harmonious dance with the external world.”
To me this suggests that once we’re aware of who we are in God, we can tune in to what that means for how we live together in unity with others in the world, whether they’re like us or not.
And finally, Leary suggested we should:
DROP OUT. Detach yourself from the tribal game. Current models of social adjustment - mechanized, computerized, socialized, intellectualized, televised, sanforized - make no sense to the new… generation who see[s] clearly that…society is becoming an air-conditioned anthill.” (i.e. on-going busyness)
This sounds similar to Jesus’ admonition to be “in the world, but not OF the world.” We’re to detach ourselves from how the world tells us to be, what the world tells us is important, so that we can attach ourselves to God’s reign, God’s vision for the world, which is love.
Henri Nouwen, the late Roman Catholic theologian and psychologist, reminds us that an apple seed grows into a tree and produces apples. Likewise, a pear seed grows and begets pear. The seed of God planted within us, if fed and watered, if connected to a source of light and nutrition, grows to produce within us something of the fruit of God. It is because of that of God which is planted within us, that we are called to strive to cultivate a deep connection with Jesus, to both tune in to and to live out his teachings about love of God and love of neighbor; because that is who we are in God. We actively work to feed and care for our neighbors as a sign of our love for God, and because God’s seed of radical hospitality grows within us and within this place. Tuning in to that, cultivating that, living into that, Jesus tells us, is the “one thing,” the better part. Amen.
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