There is an old Persian folktale about a rich merchant of Baghdad who sent his trusted steward to the marketplace. In a little while the steward came back trembling with fear. “My master,” the merchant said, “while I was buying in the market place this morning, I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned, I saw it was Sister Death who jostled me. She looked at me with a threatening gaze and raised her hand in an arresting gesture. Please, lend me your fastest stallion so that I may escape my fate and ride to Samarra.”
So the master lent his steward his fastest horse and the steward took off in lightning speed. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and seeing Sister Death standing in the crowd, went up and asked, “Why did you threaten my good steward this morning?” “Oh, I did not mean to threaten your steward this morning,” replied Sister Death. “I raised my hand in complete surprise to see him here this morning in the marketplace, for tonight I have an appointment with him miles away in Samarra.1
I suspect we all know people who rush and rush about, seemingly never catching up with themselves, as if they could outrun death. If we were completely honest, most of us have tried it, too. One person in particular sticks in my memory, a friend of long ago, a lovely person who said yes to every request to be on a committee or to be involved in a project. Yet she was always late, never completed her assignments on time, and had to always apologize for not getting things done. Yet by saying yes to practically everything and running real fast, she never had to take responsibility nor was accountable for anything. Her extreme busyness covered up an even more extreme nothingness.
Last week, the Gospel reported Jesus telling a person, an ivory tower intellectual, learned in the law, to be a doer. Don’t just analyze, but act like a neighbor. Be a verb person, like the one who happened to be a Samaritan who came upon the one beaten by robbers on the Jericho Road. In Luke’s Gospel, the story of Martha immediately follows, and perhaps serves as a deliberate contrast to the previous one. Like the person who asked Jesus who was his neighbor, Martha is not singled out or scolded by Jesus. Jesus doesn’t accuse Martha of any particular fault. Jesus merely states a given, Martha was distracted by her many tasks, and came to Jesus complaining. Jesus saw that she was worried and in an agitated state of mind. Her spirit was simply not in a good place. I wonder if Jesus did not take her two hands and say, “Martha, I know that the disciples and I have caused an intrusion into your house, and that you are anxious to provide gracious hospitality to us all. But we all have gifts to share and to enjoy in each other’s company. Relax, we all want to be here together, and anyway Peter, James, John and the rest of the guys can be taught to open the bags of chips and even to put them into bowls. They can also take off the tops of the wine skins, and help clean up the kitchen. You are only upsetting yourself. We are not expecting you to serve us until you are exhausted. Really, guys can be more helpful than you think. I bet you Peter would sweep the floor and John take out the garbage, if you asked.”
Jesus knew that life is not just running faster, but is a pattern of listening and talking, of being still and taking action, of learning and teaching, and quite often what appears to be contrasts are really intertwined. That is why doing is not merely anxiously rushing from one thing to another, and distracted by everything.
I’ve been reading a book entitled “The Civility Solution: What to Do When People Are Rude” by P.M. Forni. The author observes that our society is increasing in stress that in turn begets rudeness and violence. At one point he says, “We can either escape from the moment or stay with it as it unfolds and do something good with it. It is by doing justice to time that we begin doing justice to people.”2 I suspect that is a lesson Jesus might have been teaching in both his reply to the intellectual who wanted to know who Jesus defined as a neighbor, and with busy, busy Martha going from task to task and never catching up. “It is by doing justice to time, that we begin doing justice to people.”
May those of us who fancy ourselves Mary people and those of us who fancy ourselves Martha people, understand that in gathering together and growing together in Christ we need to make time for each other rather than simply rushing and becoming too distracted to perceive who is our neighbor and too exhausted to hear what the Spirit is saying to us.
And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
1 Adopted from "The Appointment in Samarra" as retold by W. Somerset Maugham
2 P.M. Forni, The Civility Solution- What to do When people are rude, St. Martin’s Press, p. 31
