To begin the Spring 2011 semester and to welcome our new students, an opening convocation and communion service was scheduled on Monday, January 31. The service, held at 11 am, was both a celebration of our unity in Christ and as a reminder of the context of our life together. Following convocation, students, faculty and staff enjoyed a time of fellowship over a pizza lunch in the lounge.
Chaplain Hopeton Clennon presided and the Rev. Dr. Craig Atwood, Charles D. Couch Associate Professor of Moravian Theology and Ministry and Director of the Center for Moravian Studies, offered the following sermon, entitled "Lessons from Bethany," based on the reading from Luke 10:38-42:
I live in two worlds, both of which I love. I live and serve in both the church and the academy, Athens and Jerusalem. Today we are opening the school term with a service that combines aspects of the academy and the church because here at Moravian Theological Seminary we believe that we love and serve God in the classroom as well as in the sanctuary. Not everyone understands or appreciates what we professors do. Shortly before I completed my Ph.D. I was talking to my late grandmother, who looked at me reproachfully and said, “You were a Moravian minister and now you’re just a schoolteacher.” Talk about bursting your bubble. I’m afraid that she never understood that in becoming a professor I was not leaving the Moravian ministry or rejecting my calling, but fulfilling that calling. Sadly, she died before I became a professor at her old alma mater, Salem College. Now I am honored to be a member of the faculty of one of my alma maters where I serve under call to the Moravian Church.
For hundreds of years, the Moravians had the surprising idea that if Jesus Christ was the Word of God made flesh; then Jesus must have shown us how God wants us to live in this world. In the four authoritative Gospels, we see a Lord who values women and encourages women’s education and leadership. In a few moments we’ll look our Gospel lesson for today in light of Jesus’ attitude toward women as disciples, but first a little history. Bethlehem, PA was founded by people who had a long heritage of educating women as well as men, and they chose women to serve as leaders. Some of the most effective evangelists and missionaries in the 1700s were women. The old Moravians had a good grasp on the radical implications of the gospel, but somewhere along the way even the Moravians forgot the fundamental truth that God values women as much as men and calls them to be pastors. As Moravians became more like other Americans, we stopped ordaining women and granting them an education on par with men. This theological seminary, like most seminaries, for many years was just for men, and as a result too much Christian doctrine and practice reflects “male pattern blindness.” The good news is that if you look around you will notice how much things have changed. Year after year about half of our students have been women, and half of the full-time faculty are women.
That is not all that has changed about this institution. Did you know that until World War II seminary students were not allowed to be married because it was assumed that you could not devote time to a family and books. It was also assumed that you should not begin this educational journey if you were older than 30. That has changed to. Look around you.
We are anticipating the coming term with excitement and trepidation, but the truth is that faculty, students, and staff all face multiple obligations, multiple identities these days. Each of us, in different ways, is juggling school, work, calling, and family. I have no doubt that there are days when coming to class seems like a distraction and a waste of time. Many of you feel a burning call to serve God with your whole heart, mind, body, and strength, and it can be frustrating when other obligations seem to stand in the way. I bet that sometimes you wish you could just go out and serve the Lord without taking all this time to prepare. Do you ever ask why are we just sitting here when there is so much to DO? Are there days when it feels more like a burden than a privilege to study in this building? Are there times when you ask “what does all this have to do with the Real World?”
This morning as we share in a time of Holy Communion, I implore you to take a moment to reflect on Scripture and ponder the example of the earliest disciples and apostles. Earlier we heard a brief but profound story from the life of Jesus that illuminates something important about discipleship. The gospels tell us that Jesus had close friends in the little town of Bethany near Jerusalem. There is something beautiful in the idea that Jesus had a place of refuge in the home of Martha where he could sojourn with friends. Martha was the sister of Lazarus, but Luke clearly indicates that she was the head of the household. It was her home, and she was the one who had to make Jesus and his motley crew of traveling disciples welcome. Luke depicts Martha a bit like Abraham who welcomed strangers by providing them sustenance for their journey. Abraham, you remember, received a blessing in return for his hospitality, but this vignette is a little different from tales in the Torah. Martha does all that could be expected of her and more, but she receives a rebuke instead of a blessing.
I know many conscientious and helpful people, including my wife, who do not like this anecdote, and I can understand why. Put yourself in Martha’s sandals for a moment, or perhaps in her apron. She has an important guest who has come for dinner, along with his posse. It is possible that Jesus arrived unannounced. We can picture Martha flying around the house getting everything ready for dinner. She is working hard making sure that there is food and drink on the table, that everyone’s feet and hands get washed, and the lamps are lit. Martha is in the Real World doing real work. She is breaking her back to impress her impressive guest, and what is her sister Mary doing? She’s sitting on the floor, like a child, listening to Jesus teach.
The injustice of this scene still stings two thousand years later. Of course Martha is angry. We would be angry. It looks like Mary is not doing any work at all. She’s just sitting there at Jesus’ feet and listening. What a waste of time! There is so much TO DO, and Mary is sitting there with the men instead of working like a woman should. Of course Martha turns to Jesus for support. Luke and John tell us that Martha was not afraid to talk with Jesus and even challenge him. In this case she tries to manipulate him into helping her with a family conflict. She asks Jesus to take charge and order Mary to get to work.
Most of us, I bet, agree with Martha here: Mary should pitch in and do her share. Oddly enough, we rarely question why Lazarus or Peter or James or John isn’t pitching in to help Martha. We assume, even today, that it is okay for the male disciples to sit and listen to Jesus teach, but that Mary should be serving them their food. Even though we’ve heard this passage many times, Jesus’ answer still comes as a surprise. We still expect him to act like a man and tell Mary to get up and help her sister get dinner on the table.
But, no. Jesus gently rebukes Martha instead of getting on to Mary. It is not a harsh rebuke like he gives to Pharisees and priests, but he does gently criticize the hardworking, overachieving Martha. “Martha, Martha, you are troubled by many things, but only one thing is needed.” Martha, you are anxious; Martha, you are compulsive; Martha you are working so hard to impress me and please me that you are in danger of missing the whole point of my visit. You are so worried about what Mary is doing or not doing that you are missing what is truly important in this life. Martha, your Real World is an illusion, and the things you think are important are not as crucial as you think.
When we think of Martha today, we can imagine her with her cell phone, laptop, and calendar. We can picture her juggling a dozen responsibilities, commitments, and appointments and somehow managing to get it all done. In Martha we see ourselves with our drive to succeed and need to be needed. She is like so many of us in this room, with our multiple responsibilities and our burning desire to make a difference in the world. There is no doubt that Martha was a good person: responsible, hard working, and effective. She fits our ideal of the servant leader and should be the patron saint of the overcommitted age.
But Jesus criticizes Martha, not Mary. He is gentle, and it is clear that he loves Martha, but his words must have stung. Martha, you’re giving away your happiness. You are so busy trying to impress me that you’ve forgotten how to love me. You’ve forgotten the One Thing Necessary. Personally, I like to picture Jesus telling her all this while washing the dishes with her.
But what about Mary? She has been sitting at the feet of Jesus during the dinner. What Martha did not understand was that Mary wasn’t avoiding work; she was doing a different kind of work. The phrase “Sitting at Jesus’ feet” meant more than a description of where she was. In ancient Judaism, to sit at someone’s feet meant that you had become a disciple. Mary is in the position of an attentive student who is working hard at thinking, at listening, at understanding what Jesus is saying. She is presented here as the model disciple, the student who has made a sacrifice to sit and think. This was not a role for women in the ancient world. There are very few women in ancient literature who are shown sitting at the feet of a teacher. The church was so amazed by Mary’s behavior and Jesus’ words that they were remembered for many years until they were written into the sacred scrolls to be read year after year in worship. I wonder whether it was Mary or Martha who kept the memory alive.
It seems evident to me that we should count Mary as one of the original disciples as surely as Peter, Andrew, or the other ten men. Jesus recognized her as such and valued her labors as a student. He commends her for laying her busyness aside for the moment in order to learn and grow and understand. I do not think that it is stretching the text too far to offer Mary up as the first female theology student. Jesus affirms Mary as a student even though most people share Martha’s criticism of her sister.
For me, this little passage of scripture summarizes what theological education is all about. Students take the time to sit with teachers and develop their minds and characters before they take on the tasks of leadership. This idea that some women and men should take time to think, read, reflect, listen, and learn is not a concept that is widely accepted in our society. It is not even valued in most churches, which is odd, because the heart of discipleship is learning. We need to remember Jesus’ words here. Mary, he says, has chosen the better part. Learning, listening, teaching, reading, and asking questions are part of the Lord’s work and an essential part of the church’s ministry. During these years in seminary, look to the example of Mary. Take the time to be learners, to deepen your understanding and your faith before you take on the challenges of ministry. Take time to sit at the feet of the Lord and seek what is most important. You have the rest of your life to be Martha, troubled by many things. For now, take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to be a disciple, to learn and grow.
