The Necessity of Wet Toes
As an only child who is now the mother of three girls, I find myself drawn to stories about sisters. I suppose I am always seeking knowledge about the sibling experience to aid in my parenting as my kids continue to grow and live into their relationships with one another, considering I never had to share my toys or argue about who really got the bigger cookie!
About six months ago, I had an occasion to preach on an interesting (and short) encounter that Jesus has with a sibling pair, Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42). Many have said that this Biblical account in the Gospel of Luke is a classic example of the “faith vs. works” argument that is as old as Christendom - the big question of which is really more important. Are faith (how we believe) and works (how we act) equal in their necessity? Or, is one really more important as a mark of a “true Christian.?” If what we “believe” about God and what we “do” because of our belief in God are both needed to live a faithful life, then what is the appropriate ratio? I’ve searched the Bible, and this exact formula for being a person of faith is not in there in any clear format. On different occasions, Jesus highlights and applauds both the faith of a follower and at other times the work of a follower, but never explicitly says how much of each we are to do in a day, or a year, or a lifetime. How many hours do I need to spend in prayer, in worship, in conversation with God vs. how many hours do I need to spend feeding God’s sheep, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned?
Like so many topics in the Bible, Jesus has a lot of big things to say about faith and works. But also, as is the case in much of our scripture, Jesus doesn’t do a lot of filling in the details. There is no fine print that accompanies Jesus’ most important teachings. I sometimes imagine myself in the biblical stories as that person in the crowd where Jesus is teaching, standing somewhere in the middle with my arm perpetually raised as everyone around rolls their eyes because I want to be clear that I understand the assignment.
I confess that sometimes as a pastor, I feel a little like Moira from the iconic “Fold in the Cheese” scene from the sitcom Schitt’s Creek (spelled Schitt because that’s the name of the town where the show takes place). Moira is trying to teach her son David how to cook her mother’s infamous enchilada recipe, even though it becomes clear that Moira has never actually cooked in her life. She is reading the instructions from the recipe card as David is doing the work of cooking, and tells David that now is the time to fold in the cheese. He turns to her and says, “I don’t know what that means.” She says, “You fold it in.” And he says, “What, like in half? Like a piece of paper?” And she keeps just responding louder and louder with “You just fold it in!” until David finally walks out of the kitchen in frustration. People frequently ask me questions about what exactly a faithful life should look like. If I answer with quoting the the words of Jesus alone, I sound a lot like Moira saying, “You just fold in the cheese.” The big statements are clear. The finer details require some extrapolation and additional mining for meaning.
But in all seriousness, in my 13 years of ministry, I am most often asked the question, “How do I know if I am doing enough?” There is so much need in this world. So much hurt. So much injustice. It feels like we could spend all of our waking hours working to “do” in the ways that Jesus taught us. How do I know if I am doing what God expects of me?
In contrast, I don’t know if anyone has ever asked me, “How do I know if I believe enough?” Or “How do I know if I have enough faith?” This is probably a function of spending my entire life in Christian communities that don’t usually have strict prescriptions for testimonies or proof of spiritual gifts that serve as outward demonstrations of sufficient faith. But even as a hospital chaplain, where I spent a lot of time sitting at the bedside of folks from so many different Christian traditions, I was usually asked questions like “How do I know God loves me or God sees me?” Not usually questions of whether one has enough faith.
When I look at this story of Martha and Mary, I bet a lot of us might see ourselves as the Martha. Jesus, this very special teacher, has entered YOUR home, so your hospitality skills are probably kicked into high gear – tidying up, preparing food, filling everyone’s cup, making sure the setting is perfect. I can imagine getting irritated at Mary, who simply sits at Jesus’ feet, listening to everything he has to say, and not lifting a finger to help out. How rude! I’m sure that Martha wanted to listen to Jesus too, but someone has to be the hostess with the mostess! And when she can’t take it another moment, Martha turns to Jesus and asks him to reprimand her sister for her lack of initiative in helping with these many tasks. But then Jesus comes back with a surprising response:
“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
I can only imagine how this took the wind out of Martha’s sails. “WHAT?! Here I’ve been running around, taking care of everything, being a servant of everyone. I mean, isn’t that what this teacher, Jesus, has been telling us to do?!” Meanwhile Mary just continues to sit at his feet, taking it all in.
So what are we to make of this exchange between Jesus and Martha? Well, as usual, watching my children be children has given me some helpful thoughts on this.
Every summer, my family goes on an annual beach week vacation on the gulf coast. This past year, I was watching the girls from the edge of the water one morning, and I noticed my tiny, two year-old adopting a routine. She would run out into the water and then stop, turn around, run back up on the beach, stop, turn around, nod at the water with a big head motion, and then take off running toward the water again. It was so cute, and I have no idea where the big head nod to the water came from. It was almost like she was acknowledging the vast body of water from the beach each time before she would take off running toward it again.
As I watched her, I saw that she had to learn exactly how far out into the water she could run, and still have the ability to turn around and run back. When she ran too far, the waves would come up too high on her little body and knock her down. Then she learned that once knocked down, the massive body of water has a way of tugging on you as the waves retreat, making it even harder to stand back up and return to the beach. It took her several trips into the water and being knocked down before she realized exactly how far out she could go and still be able to turn around and run back without the waves taking her down. Finally, after about 20 trips into the water and back onto the beach, she sat down in the sand at a spot where the waves only came up onto her legs. And she sat there and giggled each time a wave approached and her toes would end up underwater.
It's funny how God finds little, totally ordinary moments to teach us some big things. Because watching my little one on the beach that morning offered me a lesson from God that I really needed. And I believe it’s the same lesson that Jesus offered to Martha that day as she was too busy with her tasks.
For me, and maybe for you as well, life has felt like a series of really big, ominous, and scary crashing waves lately. One after another. Seemingly endless, big waves. Violence that hits close to home. CRASH. Mass shootings. CRASH. Global wars. CRASH. Political turmoil. CRASH. Financial woes. CRASH. I’m sure that like me, you can keep naming waves that feel as though they are crashing in your life. The waves feel so big, so numerous, that we can even feel that pull of the undertow trying to pull us out into the deep water - into a sense of despair where we lose the safety of the sandy ground under our feet.
Life is a lot right now. There is so much to be worried about. There is so much that makes us feel helpless. So how do we go on? How do we keep doing the work that God calls us to do when it all just feels like so much? What are our limits for faith and works in this life?
Maybe we all need to take a little more time being a Mary instead of a Martha. So many people of faith are used to heeding the call for justice, for seeing need around them and springing into action to render aid. What a blessing it is to hear the cries of our neighbors and be moved to rapidly respond. Just like my little two year-old, we nod at the challenging waves as we dash out into them to meet them head on, trying to be careful not to run in too far so we can’t turn and make it back to shore. The work, the “doing” of our faith is so important, and there are times when we must run at the waves, with confidence and bravery.
However, just like my child showed me as she sat at the edge of the water, sometimes we must take a moment to sit at the edge and marvel. We need to see God’s handiwork around us - to be awestruck at the vastness of God and God’s creation. We need to learn how to take in the beauty and wonder of God, and simply sit, and feel God’s presence with us – making us smile, or giggle, feeling bliss. How wonderful it feels if we simply sit on the edge of all the crashing waves and let only our toes get wet as we take in all of the awesomeness of God, and feel the sense of true peace that comes with that sense of awe.
That’s what Mary did, and Jesus commended her for it. She sat at the feet of God, hanging on every word he said, with no other distractions. She sat and let her faith be fed and renewed, without needing to be doing anything else.
When it comes to challenging times, there will always waves. And just like in the ocean, sometimes they are larger and rougher when there is stormy weather. Well friends, it’s pretty dang stormy and the waves feel very large and very dangerous these days. There will always be a need for the “doing” of our faith. For running out into those waves and facing them head on. But the energy, the drive, and understanding for running into those waves has to come from the very faith that compels us to face them in the first place. Faith may be an inexhaustible resource but it dwells within exhaustible human vessels. Our faith must be fed, renewed, restored, and multiplied by carving out the time and intention to be undistracted by the many things that pull at our attention. We have to prioritize making time to simply sit at the feet of Jesus, or at the edge of the sea, and give our undivided attention to God - fighting every impulse to say “I’m too busy for that.”
I want to leave you with a quote from activist and author Adrienne Marie Brown, which reminds us that sometimes to simply “be” with God is as important as all that we seek to do for God.
She writes:
“Do you already know that your existence--who and how you are--is in and of itself a contribution to the people and place around you? Not after or because you do some particular thing, but simply the miracle of your life. And that the people around you, and the place(s), have contributions as well? Do you understand that your quality of life and your survival are tied to how authentic and generous the connections are between you and the people and place you live with and in?”
Brown’s words remind me of Jesus’ words to Martha. They are his words to us. Just sit down sometimes. The waves are big, there is lots of hard work to be done, but just sit for a little while. Just sit and be with God. With God’s fellow children. Sit and marvel. Take it all in. And from that place of rest and awe at all that you have taken in – then and only then, turn to the waves, give them a big, confident nod like my two year-old….and then take off running toward them.
Amen.
