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The Rev. Scott Murray

Jesus entered a village
where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.
She had a sister named Mary
who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak.
Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said,
"Lord, do you not care
that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving?
Tell her to help me."
The Lord said to her in reply,
"Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.
There is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her."   Lk 10:38-42

When I was a young lad, my friends an dI loved to swap stories and jokes. Everyone had their own favorite, and you never told another's story. But you got to where you heard it so often that when the punch line of the joke came, everyone would join in together to say it. The story or joke actually lost its flavor for us as we waited to join in on the punch line. Ah, we thought, we know this story. Just can't wait for the end.

Mary and Martha go down in church history to the same luckless fate. Yeah, yeah, heard the story a thousand times. Martha sweating over the stove. Mary beaming at hunky Jesus. Jesus praises the batting eyelashes over the roast lamb. Yeah, we should all be like Mary, even though we all identify with Martha.

That's the century old punch line, isn't it? Being a contemplative at the feet of Jesus is better than feeding the poor? Hmmm. Does it say that?

I visited a church in the US this May. The priest celebrating the eucharist couldn't seem to get settled. As she processed up the aisle, I could see her prayer book was stuffed with various papers, probably for announcements. When she arrived at the altar, she kept trying to wave and get the attention of someone to turn the AC. She was certainly worried and anxious over many things. And the punch line was that her first name was Mary!

To me, the key to unlocking this story is in the different attitudes of the sisters, not their actions. This is what we should learn here. Martha is burdened from serving. There is no joy is her actions. Jesus correctly tells her, "you are anxious and worried." Burdened, anxious, and worried. These are emotions which come from concern for the past and the future. Jesus is asking her to come into the present. To listen. When our past weighs upon us, it becomes a burden and affects our current actions. When our eyes look to the future, which is truly something which never comes (think about that!), we become anxious and worried.  Serving others becomes a bother and unrewarding. Jesus tells Martha, and us, to stop. Stop right now. Be right now. Listen. The past does not exist anymore. The future will never exist. There is only now.

That is the better portion. And Martha, like all of us, can learn to serve in the kitchen without it becoming a burden.  How? By letting the future be "out there" and the past be "back there" and to live here in the now, the present. For example, if I serve with my mind locked into the past, I`m keeping track of who did what, how does it come out even, I did more, you did less. If my mind is in the future, all I can see are the un-forseen and uncontollable circumstances: Maybe there isn`t enough wine What if they don't like it? All points which have no bearing on the now, in fact, they have no reality.  Jesus calls Martha and us to be in reality, to be here now. That is the better portion into which we are all called to participate.