This week during our Summer Celebration this sign appeared in the staff and volunteers room. With the two expressions of thanks appearing on
consecutive days. It struck me that we need to give thanks for Mary and Martha, the contemplative and active lives lived in our midst.
This past Sunday The Rev’d Ed Greene, a former rector of St. Luke’s, delivered a brilliant sermon on the Mary and Martha story from Luke’s Gospel (Luke 10:38-42) this past weekend. In that sermon he stated that Mary and Martha are examples of the contemplative and active life in Christ, respectively. He went on to say that, largely based on Jesus’ response to the women in this story, that many have come to see the contemplative life as ‘better’ than the active life. Let me remind you of the brilliant words of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury during much of World War II, “at the root of all heresy lies the refusal to deal with paradox.”
We all have times when, like Martha, we feel like we’re doing all the work and life would be much better if God would inspire those around us to get with the program and lend us a hand.
At the end of the Eucharist we pray one of two prayers. The second of these post communion prayers contains this text:
And now, Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord (BCP p. 366)
It seems to me that this prayer ought to remind us that in any given day or any given week we’re called to lives of both action AND contemplation based on the context we find ourselves.
Look back to the previous week’s tale of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). Contemplation and prayer alone was not going to help the man waylaid by robbers as much as the actions of the one who had been considered ‘apostate’ by the hearers of Jesus’ story in Jesus’ time.
The long and the short of it is that we need to be contemplative activists for the sake of the Gospel and in the name of Jesus and we need to thank God and one another for the Marys and Marthas in our midst and for the times we are called to fill those roles.
