Choose one thing

Amos 8:1-12
Psalm 52
Colossians 1:15-28
Luke 10:38-42

Last week, Meg, Risa, and I went on vacation with Meg’s family, as we do almost every summer, to Hatteras Island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  It’s a long journey there and back, but while we’re there, life is pretty simple.  We’ve rented the same two houses by the beach for ten years or more, and we all settle quickly into a familiar rhythm: get up, do what you do first thing in the morning--run, do yoga, whatever—have some breakfast, and then carry the umbrellas and folding chairs and body boards and surfboards and whatever is required for a day of fun at the beach, over the dunes.  We set up our spot, spend a couple of hours playing in the water or on the sand, beachcombing, or just hanging out talking or reading, until it is time to go in for lunch.  Rinse off in the outdoor shower, eat lunch, take a nap.  Go back out to the beach for a couple more hours, and then haul everything back in for the night.  Take another shower and gather at the big house for dinner and games and conversation until bed.  Repeat.

As I say, it’s wonderfully simple, and while there is always sunburn to contend with, and insect bites, jellyfish stings, or swimmer’s ear, and the odd strained muscles, scrapes, and bruises from playing long and hard, it is for all of us, a happy time in a happy place.  So that’s why I’m always a little surprised, and a little chagrined, when I find that I’ve been there for two or three days and I’m still worrying.  I worry a little bit about the weather, about how windy it will be tomorrow, and whether it will rain, or if a fork of lightning will suddenly appear in that cloud on the southern horizon.  But mostly I worry about the logistics of getting everybody what they need: about whose turn it is to make dinner, and who will do the dishes, and whether it’s time to go get Grandpa Peter and push him out to the beach in his special wheelchair with the balloon tires.  And I worry about what’s fair, about whether I’m doing my share or doing more than my share.

Of course, there are fewer people to worry about, when I’m at the Outer Banks, than when I’m at my post here in Petaluma.    And the relief that comes from pulling back from my usual obligations and responsibilities is welcome and needed.  So I think I understand why people who can afford it go on luxury vacations where there’s someone paid even to haul the umbrellas to and from the beach, and to cook the meals, and clean up afterward, so one can focus entirely on rest and relaxation.  But, personally, I think I would miss the kind of companionship that comes from pitching in together to get things done, if it were entirely absent.  This is especially true now that the younger generation is mature enough to make a significant contribution to the team.  My nephews Nick and Chris helping me push Grandpa’s chair to the top of the dune was as meaningful to me as helping them get out on the Stand-up Paddleboard.  Not only that, but I imagine that even on a luxury vacation I would still find something to worry about, like whether I’d paid too much, or was tipping enough, or whether the staff secretly resentment me.      

Luke, more than the Gospel writers, recognizes that there was a logistical aspect to the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.  It didn’t just spontaneously and miraculously unfold, but it required planning, organization, and management.  There was a message to share, and healings to perform, and unclean spirits to vanquish, but there were also beds to make, and dinner to cook and dishes to wash. So I think it would be a misreading of today’s story of Mary and Martha to say that following Jesus should be a kind of luxury vacation, where we don’t concern ourselves with anyone else’s needs.  And I don’t think that Jesus is saying here that there is one kind of discipleship, one oriented toward study and contemplation, which is better than another kind that is more about active service and social solidarity.  But Jesus is saying to Martha that scattering her attention on a multitude of tasks, and constantly worrying about how they are all going to get done, and resenting her sister for not helping out, isn’t bringing her any closer to what really matters. 

There is an element of the whole complex business of our lives that is not just one part among many.  It is not just one more of the things that we have to try to “fit in” along with all the others on our to-do list.   Jesus, you will notice, is reticent about even naming it, as if to do so would play into our eagerness to grasp on to one more thing to worry about and to try to accomplish.   He just cagily calls it the “better part” of life.  But he says it’s the only thing that we really need.  He also says that it is a choice, the choice that Mary has made. 

Martha also has made a choice, the choice to welcome Jesus into her home, but she seems to feel that having taken that step, she also took on a whole set of attendant duties, obligations and demands, that are no longer really optional.  And I imagine many of us can recognize something like this in our own experience.  At one point or another we made a choice that defined our lives--the choice of a spouse, of a profession, the choice to have children, the choice of a place to live, of a particular standard of living—and the consequences of those choices are so profound in terms of the responsibilities they entail that we have a hard time remembering that they were ever choices at all.  It seems like a funny paradox that more decisively we embrace the possibilities of our particular destiny--in other words, the more choices we make, the less “free” we are, if by “freedom” we mean having all options open. 

And this might be a clue to understanding the second thing that Jesus says about Mary’s choice of the “better part,” which is that it will not be taken away from her.  Because the only thing we fear more than losing the freedom to do whatever we want, is that we might make a whole-hearted commitment, and then lose what we’ve chosen.  Just because we’ve chosen a particular spouse, or career, or home to live in, doesn’t mean that now we get to keep it forever.  The choice to have children feels at times like such a gut-wrenching risk because there is no guarantee that they will outlive us, or even want to associate with us when their grown.  And that is where the anxiety comes in, the kind of anxiety that drives Martha to keep trying to juggle all the balls and not to drop any of them, even at the cost of her peace of mind; because to do so would be to fail.  She’s afraid to disappoint Jesus, maybe because she's afraid to lose the privilege of serving him.

But if Martha had chosen to welcome Jesus, not only into her home, but also into her heart, and had stopped, and sat, and listened to what he said, she might have heard something that put all of her anxieties into perspective.  She might have seen that the freedom that makes all the difference for our lives does not depend on finishing the chores, or taking a vacation, or retiring from our jobs.  It’s not a freedom we get for ourselves, and so there are no required steps for hanging on to it.   

It’s the freedom that enables us to rejoice when we are suffering, and to hope when we are grieving, to turn homeward when we are lost, and to stand up when we’re oppressed.   I’m talking about the freedom of God, who chose to dwell fully in the human person of Jesus Christ.  I’m talking about the freedom of Christ, who chose to offer his life and death to the mission of reconciling all things to God.  I’m talking about the freedom of the Holy Spirit in the saints, who broke through every barrier of ignorance, hostility, indifference, and incomprehension, to proclaim the riches of Christ’s glory to the whole creation.  All this, so that you and I might have the freedom to choose Christ.  

Rest and Relaxation

2 Samuel 7:1-14a
Psalm 89:20-37
Ephesians 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

I’ve just come back from a week with my wife’s family at Cape Hatteras, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  My father-in-law first drove down there with Meg and her sister Cathy forty-three years ago this summer, and it has been his summer vacation destination ever since.  I myself have gone twelve or thirteen times, including every summer but one since our daughter was born, so the place has become deeply familiar, and infused with happy memories.  The rhythm of our days there is a simple one.  By family custom, television and radio are not allowed, and our days revolve around eating, sleeping, reading, games, and conversation, and being on the beach or in the waves.  It is a place where I let go of responsibilities, where the deadlines and demands of being a parish priest and householder and citizen drift away and I can rest.

I am grateful to have had this opportunity once again, and I thank everyone who helped hold down the fort here at St. John’s while I was away.  I know that not everyone is as fortunate as I am, and there may be some of you here today whose financial strictures or work or family responsibilities make it impossible for you to take a real vacation.  So I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining when I say that for everything that is idyllic about our annual trip to the Outer Banks, it is not all rest and recreation.  There is also a fair amount of stress and strain involved, most of which has to do with getting there and back again.  There are two days of travel on either end, one day each way at crowded airports, and one on crowded highways, days of long lines at the security checkpoint, at the boarding gate and the car rental counter, days of waiting for a turn in the bathroom on airplanes and in gas stations and convenience stores; days of traffic jams on I-95 and the Capitol Beltway, and at the Hampton Roads Bridge and Tunnel.

And in the midst of so many thousands of complete strangers, when you, like every one of them, is thinking only of getting where you want to go as quickly as possible, it’s easy to stop thinking of them as persons just like yourself.  It’s easy to relate to them only as obstacles, as particles of interference that are causing friction and slowing you down and standing in the way of the few precious days of rest and solitude that you so need and deserve.  It’s easy to forget that each of them only wants the same thing you do—to get to a place where they can stop moving and lay down their burdens and rest.

When the book of Second Samuel says that the Lord gave David rest it doesn’t just mean he got a break from work and travel.  It means that he won a lasting victory that brought an end to violence, danger, and insecurity.  That is how a people weary of constant war and oppression think about rest.  We hear how when David had defeated all his enemies, and was settled in his palace and on his throne, he thought of the God who had won all this for him and decided to build him a place of his own.  It’s something any pious person might have done, not unlike those who, 159 years ago a week from Friday, finding themselves safely and prosperously settled here in Petaluma, decided to found St. John’s Episcopal Church.

But then God comes into the story and tells David that his thinking is too small.  David wants to put a punctuation mark on his success with this grand gesture of piety, to say to the world “here is David’s temple, where we worship David’s God.”  But God wants it understood that the rest that he is working for is not for David, but for the whole nation of Israel.  God knows that the politics of nations and the fortunes of kings are built on shifting sands.  So God will keep working, keep building, making a house where his holy name will be established forever.  It will not be an edifice of cedar and stone, but of flesh and blood, the royal house of David, and the sons of David will also be the Sons of God.  Their glory will not be in their personal power and accomplishments, but in their embodiment of God’s covenant promise to the whole people of Israel, the promise of rest.

This is one of the great guiding ideas of the Hebrew Scriptures, and in its essence it is not about David or his offspring.  We don’t even get out of Second Samuel before it becomes clear that they are not going to come close to living up to the ideal.  What it is is an idea about God, about God’s determination not to sit on the shelf in some little sideshow tent called “religion” but rather to stay involved in Israel’s politics.  God promises to keep showing up in the nitty gritty places where human beings work out their differences, and address their shared problems, and shape their institutions, gently, firmly, unwaveringly coaxing, and cajoling, and enticing, all of us together toward rest. 

As time went on, it became harder, not easier, to see how God is working to establish his kingdom in human affairs.   But the idea didn’t fade out, it just got more nuanced.  The prophets revealed that the keynote of God’s politics was not power, but justice and compassion for the poor and suffering.  The Hebrew sages developed the notion of wisdom, the art of bringing one’s own actions and thoughts into accord with God’s ongoing work of creating the world.  And it is this nuanced picture of God’s steadfast love, working through a chosen person to move the whole society, even the whole world, toward its long-awaited rest, that comes suddenly and startlingly to life when people encounter Jesus.       

The stories of the Gospel of Mark show Jesus confronting things about being human we would rather avoid.  And today we have another case of this, illustrated by the fact that when you try to go away on vacation, there’s a whole crowd of other people who go with you.  There is ultimately no peace, no rest for us, apart from the rest of everyone.  Jesus manifests this deep truth when he looks on the crowd and sees that they are like sheep without a shepherd.  His is not a detached observation, much less a calculation of opportunity—it is a realization of divine compassion, compassion that moves Jesus to the very core.

It is compassion that stirs him to act, to do something for these souls who are forgotten by their rulers and have lost their faith in God.   But he doesn’t organize them into an army, or a party, or a cult.  He doesn’t stir them up to violence or promise them power.  What he does do is to teach and to heal.  His teaching, according to Mark, is about the Kingdom of God, and he teaches it in parables.  He shows what the work of God in the world is like by comparing it to daily actions and ordinary things—a sower goes out to sow, a woman mixes leaven into the dough.  And in his healings Jesus doesn’t so much reach out to the sick as welcome them to him.  He goes among them, and they recognize the healing presence of God; they reach out in faith to touch it, even if it is only the fringe of his cloak, and by that faith and that touch they are healed.

As a community that carries on the work of Jesus, we are called to be more than a sanctuary, more than a quiet place apart from the world.  Which is not to say that we should not cultivate an atmosphere of prayerfulness and peace.  But the purpose of this sacred space is to be an arena for the practice of a deeper kind of politics than what usually passes for the word.  It is where we learn from the nitty-gritty of our relationships and the work we do together, to see the traces of God’s wisdom, justice, and compassion, so that we can teach others to see God’s work wherever it may appear.   We come in search of healing from the sickness of our souls, especially the illusions that we are separate from others, or in control of our salvation.  And when we touch the healing we seek, we sense in it a compelling invitation to the rest of the world, a call to live with all people as those with whom God dwells—a call to lead the world to its rest.