Faith and Works

Well I’m here to start this conversation today with a confession. I messed up. An astute listener will recognize that we already read this part of Luke’s gospel last week. When we got the resource of Everything in Between and the info sheet said that it followed the Narrative Lectionary I was excited and didn’t even think to look at the texts because they were following the lectionary we use. Well it was pointed out to me that that they changed some things. Including splitting last week’s Gospel into two the part we heard last week and the conversation about Mary and Martha this week. I messed up. I had faith but I didn’t follow it up by doing the work of looking closely at the readings each week.

When I was reading this text my very first thought that popped into my mind was a scripture we heard just a few weeks ago about Simon the Pharisee who invited Jesus to his house for a meal and Jesus essentially scolded him for his lack of hospitality. He used the woman who was at his feet as an example of what it meant to be a good host and that the faithfulness of this woman had saved her. The reason that came to mind is because we now have a story of two women who are also in this host/hostess role and now Jesus seems to prefer the person listening over the person acting.

So which is it? Is it faith or is it works? Are we to be the busy body in the kitchen like Martha? Are we to be the listener at the feet of Jesus like Mary? Are we to be the woman at the feet of Jesus crying and bathing his feet with perfume in the other story I mentioned? So often we have heard from this scripture people constantly comparing themselves to Mary and others to Martha. If we do that then we have a tendency so see one as a doer and the other as a listener…or in the words of today’s theme: one person focuses on works and the other on faith.

To be completely fair there have been lots debates over the centuries that still continue today about faith and works. By the work of the Holy Spirit we even had that conversation in our Coffee Theology group this last week. While it can be a very serious and heated discussion with some people it tends to be a conversation not too dissimilar to: which came first? The chicken or the egg? For me the bottom line is that you can’t have one without the other. There has to be an egg to turn into a chicken and there has to be a chicken to lay an egg. Both are necessary. Faith and works…both are necessary.

So while this passage from Luke is typically interpreted to be that Mary chose the right option and that Martha did not, there is a lot more of a nuance to it than that. Let’s take a look at those nuances. Martha is busy in the kitchen. We have already talked about in the past about how important the role of a good host is in this society. We need people to do good work to have things happen in this world. In the scripture we heard last week we heard that the proper way to love God and neighbor was to show mercy toward the stranger even if the stranger is someone who we would consider an outsider and an enemy. Or another way to put it is that the faith of the Samaritan drove him to show the man which involved the work of bandaging the man and making sure he was cared for. The Samaritan’s faith drove him to do good works. The faith of the woman forgiven in the story of the dinner at Simon the Pharisees house, drove her to be the good hostess to a party she was not even invited to be at.

In the story of the woman at the dinner party Jesus says that her faith has saved her and tells her to go in peace. Faith and action. In the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus tells the legal expert who asked the question about eternal life that he needs to go and do likewise in response to the fact that the Samaritan was the person who showed mercy. That is how to love God and love neighbor. Faith and works.

So let’s take all of what we just talked about and apply it to Jesus encounter with Mary and Martha and let’s re-evaluate some of the words to help us get to a fuller understanding of this scripture. First let’s take a look at the work of Martha. While our translation tells us that she was preoccupied with the tasks and preparation, the Greek tells us that word is diakonia which is the word we, in the church, talk about as the word ministry. The act of ministry is diakonia. Now we know that Greek words have lots of ways to be translated into English depending on context, etc. but I don’t think we can ignore the fact that Luke chose to twice use Martha’s work as ministry. In fact, here at Bethlehem we have a whole team of people who’s ministry is to provide hospitality for all of us after worship. So Martha as hostess, minister, hospitality provider is important work.

Mary has chosen to do something different. She has chosen to sit and listen to Jesus. She represents the importance of faith. Again, if we look at the Greek we see that this quote that she has chosen the ‘better part’ is actually literally translated as ‘good portion’. So to say that Mary chose the better option is probably a little misleading, which skews our minds into thinking that Mary is right and Martha is wrong. While I do believe that Mary represents faith and Martha works, I don’t believe there this black and white judgement of one person over the other.

What I do believe is key to understanding this passage and the idea of faith and works is that Martha is distracted by the work she is doing. Her ministry is a distraction to the faith that is happening right in front of her. And how many times can we count in our own lives that we have been distracted by the work that we are doing that we forget to enjoy what we are doing and remember why we are doing it? In the literalness of the story, how many times have you been so focused on being a good host/hostess that you missed out on the actual conversations and reason for why you had the party in the first place. I know I have.

I honestly believe that good works which Jesus is implying here needs to be first established in having the good portion of faith. Mary has chosen to feast on the good portion of faith and when the need to do works arises she will assist in that work as well. Again looking back at the other two scriptures I tied in we see that the woman who was a sinner had faith, received forgiveness and then did the work of thanking Jesus. The Samaritan had faith in God even though it looked different than that of the Priest and the Levite and his faith moved him to do the good work of caring for the wellbeing of the man who was beaten and left for dead on the side of the road.

It is faith and works, not faith or works. While we may talk about salvation by grace through faith, that does not mean that our faith is devoid of works. On the contrary our faith inspires us and compels us to respond as all these other people in scripture have to do good works. We do good works in response to the faith we have thanks to the grace that God first gave us. So what do you say? Is it faith or is it works? It is both our faith and our works that makes our life as a follower of Christ whole. We fully live into the greatest commandment when we love God with our faith, our worship and then we live out that faith by loving our neighbor as ourselves through the good works we do for them and with them in response to the great love God has first shown us. Amen.