8 Pentecost, Year C

"HEARING AND DOING"
A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, Given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, July 18, 2010
Proper 11: Genesis 18:1-14; Psalm 15, Colossians 1:21-29; Luke 10:38-42

We begin this morning with a joke, a musical joke….

A man walks into a Brain Store. Once inside, he is greeted by the salesman, and they exchange pleasantries.

Eventually, the salesman asks the customer what he is interested in, to which the customer replies, “Well, I’d like to know just what you have on hand at the moment.”

With that, the salesman directs the customer to a small niche in the wall, which holds a glass container full of formaldehyde, in which is floating a brain.

The price tag below the container reads, “$100,000.00.”

The customer says, “Tell me something about the previous owner of this brain.”

The salesman says, “Well, this brain belonged to one of the world’s foremost rocket scientists.”

“That field of expertise wouldn’t be of much use to me,” the customer replies. “What else to you have?”

They go a little further, and the salesman points out yet another glass container, containing some grey matter, with a price tag of $250,000.00.

Seeing the price tag, the customer says, “This brain must’ve belonged to someone pretty important, right?”

Acknowledging the obvious, the salesman says, “Yes, this brain belonged to one of the world’s greatest and most skilled neurosurgeons.”

“Hmmm,” the customer says, “That field of expertise wouldn’t do me any good, either,” as he turns to begin to leave.

Seeing a potential sale begin to walk out the door, the salesman says, “Oh, sir, I do need to show you one more specimen, which is the highlight of our current collection.”

The customer is intrigued by this description, and is persuaded to follow the salesman to the back of the showroom, where yet another glass container sits in its niche, and the price tag reads “$500,000.00”.

“Five hundred thousand dollars,” the customer says, “What’s so special about this brain?”

The salesman responds coolly, “Oh, sir, you don’t understand. This brain belonged to one of the world’s foremost and most well known opera singers. This man’s name was a household word the world over.”

The customer says, “Well, how could this brain possibly be worth $500,000.00?”

The salesman says, “Oh, sir, you don’t understand…this brain belonged to a tenor, and it’s never been used!”

As we turn to our gospel reading for today, we hear the account of Mary’s sitting at Jesus’ feet, using her brain (and her heart), to understand the word (the Greek word is logos in the text, so the better translation would be “(Martha) had a sister who sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to his word”) of God as Jesus gives it to her.

Now, in the culture in which Jesus lived, women weren’t supposed to be able to use either their brains or their hearts to understand the ways of God.

In fact, there was a saying which circulated among Jewish men 2,000 years ago which went something like this: “Let thy house be a meeting house for the Sages, and sit amid the dust of their feet and drink in their words with thirst….but talk not much with womankind.” 1

The implication of this statement is clear: The things of God are the concern of men. Women are not to take part in these deliberations or this wisdom.

It is a mindset that seems strange to us today, doesn’t it? It is as strange as the concepts of who is ritually clean or unclean that we talked about in last week’s sermon about the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Indeed, since we have mentioned the Parable of the Good Samaritan, this might be a good place to mention that these two incidents in Jesus’ life, his telling of the parable and the encounter with Mary that we hear today, are linked together.

For one thing, the two accounts follow one another directly in Luke’s narrative.

For another, the two accounts are tied together by the word “certain.”

Let’s unpack that connection just a little:

In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus tells us that a “certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.” Unfortunately, the Revised Standard Version (RSV) translation of the Bible that we use does not translate the Greek accurately, for it simply reads, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.”

Likewise, in the account before us today, an accurate translation of verse 38 would read, “As Jesus was travelling, he entered a certain village.” Alas, the RSV omits the word “certain”.

So, the two accounts seem to be tied together by the word “certain”.

In addition, the two accounts are tied together because the hero of the parable and the heroine of the incident in the house with Mary and Jesus each turns out to be the unlikely one….the Good Samaritan in the parable is the one who “goes and does likewise”, while Mary is the one who has chosen “the good portion”.

The Good Samaritan isn’t supposed to be capable of the kind and generous act of helping the beaten man, and a woman isn’t supposed to be capable of hearing God’s word and receiving it in the manner of a teacher and disciple.

What we are seeing in these two accounts is a theme which is consistent throughout Luke’s gospel account: The normal, expected tables of expectation and behavior are overturned.

Put another way, this is a complete reversal of roles!

Biblical scholars have long noticed how fond Luke is of including incidents and teachings from Jesus’ life that turn our normal expectations upside down!

Another key theme which we find in Luke’s gospel is the prominent role that women play in his recording of Jesus’ life and teachings. Women are to be found everywhere in his writing.

Yet another theme which Luke seems to be fond of is the theme of eating and drinking. People are always eating or drinking, or are getting ready to do so, in Luke.

Here, we see Martha, Mary’s sister, getting into a tizzy (actually, the Greek seems to suggest that she is not only distracted, as the RSV translates it, but she is also getting into an uproar – a stronger word than the RSV’s translation of “troubled” - over the many tasks she is trying to manage in getting the meal before her guest).

What should we make of the incident we read about and hear today, and the one we considered last week? What are the implications?

May I offer the following for your consideration:

1. The kingdom of God is all about “going and doing likewise.” This emphasis on living out the Good News of God that Jesus Christ comes to proclaim has everything to do with practical, visible actions which benefit others, out of the mandate that stems from Jesus’ teaching as we hear it in the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

But, if the Parable of the Good Samaritan and Mary’s sitting at Jesus’ feet are, indeed, linked by Jesus use of the word “certain”, then there is also another implication:

2. The kingdom of God is also all about “sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to the ‘Word’.”

A balanced walk with God in Christ involves both doing and hearing. It involves practical action and the theoretical instruction which informs and motivates our action.

One cannot have one without the other. Writing later on in the New Testament period, St. James says this about faith and action, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if any one is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who observes his natural self in a mirror; for be observes himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But he who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer that forgets, but a doer that acts, he shall be blessed in his doing.” (James 1: 22 – 25)

And to underscore the point, St. James drives the point home in yet another way, saying, “What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?...Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works, will show you my faith.” (James 2: 14, 18b)

Why are acts of love and kindness so important? Perhaps it is because it is in these sorts of things that others can see and notice quite easily that others will see something different about us. And perhaps seeing those acts of love and generosity, those with whom we come into contact will be prompted to ask why we give of ourselves so freely and generously. It is then that we can answer that we do so because of Jesus Christ’s example and command.

And that, dear friends, has everything to do with hearing Jesus’ words and learning from His example. For it is by hearing His words and learning from His example that we are guided in our actions.

AMEN.
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1 Taken from M Abot 1, 4,5. See Herbert Danby, ed. and trans., The Mishnah (Oxford University Press, 1933) 446, as it is reported in The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX (Abingdon: Nashville, 1995), 231.