The Eighth Sunday Pentecost
July 22, 2007
Homily for the Anglican Usage Mass
of the
St. Thomas More Society
celebrated at
St. Anthony of Padua Church, 1013 Wood Street
Scranton, PA
Luke 10:38-42
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
A little more than two and a half years ago my family and I made known our intention to be reconciled to Mother Church. One of the precepts of the Church, we knew, is that a faithful Catholic must go to Mass each Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation. We immediately began attending St. Clare Church in Green Ridge, because it was there that we had found shelter after leaving the Episcopal Church and Anglicanism behind.
Going to Catholic Mass week after week we noticed a curious phenomenon, one we had never encountered in all our years in the Episcopal Church. We saw that after receiving Holy Communion many of the people at Mass would not return to their seats but walk out of the church. If this were not bizarre enough, we noticed that after the priest gave the dismissal, even more people left their pews and walked out. Still more people left in the middle of the concluding hymn, waiting just long enough for the priest to walk past their pew before heading for the exits. As the hymn ended my wife and I would look around and just a few people would be left in the church.
Among those who stuck it out to the end were some nuns with whom we became familiar during the 28 months we were at St. Clare’s. As my wife and I would get our children together and turn to leave, we saw that they remained. This, too, we had never seen. Worship for us in the Episcopal Church had always ended with the conclusion of the hymn, but for these nuns worship ended some time after everyone else had left the building. Kneeling silently in the church they offered private devotions, even as those about them shuffled towards the doors, greeted their neighbors, or otherwise occupied themselves with tasks to prepare the church for the next Mass.
We didn’t know it, but these nuns were setting an example that most people at church never got to see. These nuns had taken on the role of Mary from today’s Gospel, and everyone else, to one degree or another, was doing his best to imitate Martha.
In the Gospel today we heard the story of these two women whom Jesus came to visit. Martha was the busybody, taking care of Jesus, making sure he had a cold drink and everything else that might make him comfortable. Mary was the contemplative, sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to him speak. To Martha it looked like Mary was being lazy and inconsiderate. Not only was she not helping, she was allowing Martha to do all the work by herself. This was too much for Martha to bear, so she complained to Jesus. She should have just said something to her sister, but maybe she figured she’d get further if she had Jesus give the orders. At any rate, Martha asked Jesus to tell Mary to be as concerned with serving the guests, to be as concerned with the busy work, as she was.
As my experience as a newly minted Catholic demonstrated, most of us are like Martha. We have places to go and people to see, things that have to get done. We don’t have time to sit at the feet of Jesus, when we’re about to have twelve people over for dinner. People that sit around when there is work to be done are lazy. After all, didn’t St. Paul say, “If any one will not work, let him not eat” (2 Thes. 3:10)? And there’s nothing worse than people who won’t contribute their fair share, people who find other ways to occupy their time while we slave away in the heat getting the really important stuff done.
But then, we see, Jesus surprises us. He tells Martha that she’s wrong and Mary is right. Martha, he says, is anxious and troubled. And Mary; well, she’s chosen the good portion. This is contrary to our very nature as Americans. There is no one esteemed less in this country that some one who will not work. Americans work more hours each week than people from any other industrialized nation, even Japan. And there is nothing more despised in this country than having nothing to do. If you doubt this, just talk to a teenager. We occupy ourselves with every manner of entertainment, rush in our cars from place to place, and have such a hard time taking a rest that we need sleeping pills to knock us out at the end of the day. This is perhaps an exaggeration, but you get my point. We have a hard time as a people relating to what Jesus here is trying to tell us. Why else would we be in such a rush each week to leave church?
What Jesus is trying to tell us has to do with the distinction between what is temporary and what is eternal. What Martha concerned herself with are things that are passing away. They weren’t here yesterday and they won’t be here tomorrow. Do we know what Martha served Jesus that day at her house? Of course we don’t, because it isn’t important when we put it beside what he was saying to Mary. That is, we have four Gospels filled with the things that Jesus said and did. Indeed St. Luke recorded what Jesus said to Martha that day at her house. But we have no menus in the Gospels, no descriptions of what Jesus looked like, no details about how big Mary and Martha’s house was. And we don’t know exactly what Martha was doing that she so thought she needed Mary’s help. We only know that she ‘…was distracted with much serving’.
On the other hand we have Mary concerned with the eternal things. She sits before the eternal High Priest, listens to the eternal wisdom of the Word of God, and receives from our Lord the life that cannot be taken from her. Whereas everything Martha was concerned with is long forgotten and will be burned up on the last day, Mary’s concerns are ours: What must I do to inherit eternal life? How can I grow closer to him who is the means to that life? How will listening to Jesus help me to pursue and fulfill my purpose in life? Jesus puts the lie to the assertion of Martha that spending time with him is a waste of time. If we think about it, did we really expect Jesus to make Mary get up and go do something as insignificant as wash the dishes? Can we really imagine Jesus saying, “Martha’s right. Get up and help your sister. You don’t have to listen to me.”
If it is difficult to imagine this we know that this is because Jesus’ words are more important than our priorities. We know that being in the presence of Jesus is more important than being on time to the Yankees game. Imagine then how painful it is for Jesus when we flee from his presence right here in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. He longs for us to sit at his feet so he can impart his wisdom to us, and we have on our minds all the chores we have to get done.
All of us, then, could use to be more like those nuns I first encountered thirty months ago at St. Clare Church. We should imitate them because when we begin to make more time for Jesus while we’re at church, this priority will manifest itself in our lives apart from church. When we have important decisions to make, we’ll listen to Jesus. When we’re tempted to sin, we’ll listen to Jesus. When we need someone to comfort us, we’ll listen to Jesus. Rather than filling our lives with things that don’t matter, we’ll place before our gaze him who matters most.
And if we need any more incentive not to rush out of church to resume our busy lives, we can remember this: The only apostle who left Mass early was Judas.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.