The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, July 18, 2010
Solemn Mass
By the Reverend Stephen Gerth
Year C: Genesis 18:1-10a*; Psalm 15; Colossians 1:21-29; Luke 10:38-42

“Iconoclast” is a word that refers to Christians who didn’t want anyone to venerate icons or statues. An iconoclast destroyed icons. This was a huge issue in Byzantine Christianity in the eighth century. The word in English has also come to mean a person who questions what appear to be settled questions, especially questions of religion.

I have known one genuine iconoclast. The late Edwin Friedman was an ordained rabbi and practicing family therapist – he also worked for the Johnson White House. I studied with him for six years before his death in 1996. He was an original thinker, more than willing to question beliefs, institutions and leaders.

A serious article called “The Myth of the Shiksa” got him into real trouble with the leadership of his religious tradition.[1] I was at one of his presentations where he, a lifelong liberal democrat, drove nearly everyone in the room crazy by analyzing approvingly Ronald Reagan’s clarity of leadership, as he hoped a new President Clinton could be as clear – and to Friedman’s mind in terms of leadership – as good.

One thing I heard him say – assert – more than once was that if you drop into a counseling clinic you will find most of the clients are women, and most of them are there not because their husbands are abusive, but because they are passive. Again, Friedman the iconoclast.

I want to speak about today’s gospel lesson. But I found myself remembering Ed’s observation about the passive when I realized the gospel would be Luke’s story of Martha and Mary, with the familiar contrast between the active and the contemplative – and not because Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to Jesus – that’s not a passive thing. But passive is how most people related to Jesus then – and how a great number of people relate to him now.

The story of Martha and Mary involves two women who are genuinely in relationship with Jesus. Joseph Fitzmyer in his commentary on Luke calls Martha “the perfect hostess”, but Mary “the perfect disciple”.[2]  In the gospels, a very few people who heard Jesus tried to stay with him, to follow him. Martha and Mary received him in their home.

Jesus speaks very kindly to Martha when she asks him to send Mary to assist her with the meal. He repeats her name, “Martha, Martha.” She is worried about many things, when only one thing – one dish – is needed. And in the gentle elegance of the way Luke writes in this passage, the one thing that is needful changes from being one physical food to Jesus’ word.

On this very warm day, I want to share briefly about two things. First, something about Luke’s theology of salvation. Second, something about women in Scripture.

I am still looking for Luke’s theology of salvation. That may surprise, but there’s nothing in Luke that makes as much sense to me, is as straightforward, as Saint John’s very simple, very direct invitation for people to believe in Jesus.

In Luke, the kingdom of God appears in the person of Jesus himself. Luke does not identify Jesus as John does, as the Word made flesh, but Jesus and his preaching contain the word of God. Matthew, Mark and Luke all suggest those who hear the Word are called to repent and believe the Good News. Okay, but at that point it doesn’t feel like salvation, it feels like a test, a performance. John’s invitation to believe feels like an invitation to receive love and to respond with love.

Luke is certainly a gospel of gentle forgiveness, compassion and grace. Luke is a gospel where the poor matter. But in Luke[3] and in Matthew,[4] those who are invited to the marriage feast but don’t realize it’s a test, get left out. In Matthew, those who were not invited by who are compelled to come to the feast who are not dressed right are cast out.[5] Even if you don’t know something is wrong, and you happen to do it, you are a sinner in this theology. It doesn’t sound to me as if Christ has set you and me free from “the law of sin and death.”[6] It’s still a test.

The role of women in Scripture and the Church remains very much on the minds of Christians today. It is amazing that there is no really good translation of the Bible in English which respects the text and the language. But it might someday get us an English Bible where the language is correct.

Then there is the large question of how women have been used by a patriarchal tradition – Mary Magdalene being a prime example. In John’s gospel, she is the premier messenger of the resurrection. Pope Gregory the Great in 591 identified her as the repentant prostitute of Luke 7, who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears. But there is absolutely no evidence of this beyond the speculations of those who lived long after Mary had died.

Back to the gospel. What we can say about today’s lesson is the priority of listening to Jesus as we can – in hearing his gospel and by breaking the bread.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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