Sermon of Martha, Mary, Jesus, and the Big Claims of Christian Orthodoxy

Sermon. St Christopher’s Walworth, 21 July 2013

Epistle:            Colossians 1.15-28

Gospel:            Luke 10.38-42

The Gospel reading today is short, and not a lot happens. So I’d like to ask you to do something that I hardly ever ask. I’m asking you to close your eyes and imagine yourself in the scene. Please, close your eyes. 

You see Martha. She is a worrier, and she is worrying now. You know how hard it is actually to put on a big feast for an important guest. Everything has to be ready just on time. So much to do at the last minute. Martha.  

And Mary. Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet, and listening to him. We usually think of Mary as a ‘contemplative’, someone who is just absorbed in Jesus’ wisdom and in perfect peace because of it. But maybe she was not. Maybe she was a worrier herself, but maybe there was something about Jesus and that moment that made her realise she just had to stop, then and there, whatever happened to the meal, because she had a sudden – maybe almost violent – conviction that Jesus had the very words of life for her. Mary. How do you see Mary?

And then there is Jesus, who is talking and teaching. How do you see Jesus? Since Martha and Mary were good hosts, they’d have offered him some water to clean the dust of the street from him. But maybe there’s still a bit of dust and dirt of the day on him. Maybe there is – I say this in all reverence – the shine of sweat on his forehead still. (Remember he lives in desert country.) Again, we are used to thinking of Jesus as tall and handsome. But we do not know that he was. Indeed, some people read these words in the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him’ and conclude that Jesus may have been – again I say it in reverence – more ugly than handsome. Jesus. How do you see Jesus? 

However you see him, stay with him for a moment now. Look at Jesus as he presents himself to your imagination. 

And now hear these words:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; ¹⁶for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. ¹⁹For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, ²⁰and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.’

If you wish, now open your eyes. 

The words I have just spoken are from our second reading, from the Letter to the Colossians. I wanted you to imagine Jesus when you heard them, as they are about Jesus. And then I want you to ask yourself – not me, not your neighbour; this is your question for yourself alone: 

Do I believe it?

Every now and again, we do have to ask ourselves (alone): Do I believe it? You see, we have to be clear that these are enormous claims to make. This is not just saying that Jesus was a prophet or guru who taught people about God. This is not even saying that Jesus was a saint who, by his character gave people a sense of the character of God. No, while to call someone a prophet or guru or saint is a big thing, these claims about Jesus are so much bigger. He is not just creative, he is the Creative Force behind all creation – ‘all things have been created through him and for him’. All things – palaces, empires, civilisations, insects, atoms, subatomic particles, colour, London, galaxies... even, in one sense or another... religions. All things have been created through him and for him. You can see perhaps why I ask: Do I believe it?

If – big if – you find that you are not sure that you do believe it, and even if you find that you are sure that you do not believe it, you are in good company. There are plenty of people – really throughout church history – who have struggled to believe it. They may think it is making too much of the human being, Jesus, in all his humanity (back to the dust and the sweat). They may think it is making too little of God, that we lose a firm sense of the majesty and transcendence – the otherness – of God if we identify him with a human being. Or they may just feel in a vaguer sense: that is going too far!

Brothers and sisters, it is only my second week back with you. I don’t want to spoil things by preaching for too long. There’s a lot that can be said about this – about Jesus as the Creative Movement behind everything, holding everything together, the head, the beginning, the firstborn, the one with the Fullness of God dwelling in him. As I say, Christians have been debating – which is to say been arguing – about these things for as long as there have been Christians. Let me then just say one thing.  

The reason why I myself do believe these things. The reason why I myself do believe these things about Jesus is because, however strange it sounds, it is actually harder to believe anything less about Jesus, and still have a decent claim to be a Christian. If you say that Jesus was a good, a brilliant teacher, you then have to ask what it was that he taught that others didn’t. And historians will tell you: nothing. It’s all there in other Jewish sources. If you say he was a wonderworker, again, the historians will say there are plenty of others with an equal claim (whether equally strong or equally weak). And so on. It amounts to this: the difference Jesus brings is... Jesus. He makes real the very presence of God because that is what his presence does. His presence is God’s presence. 

He does not come to us in the first place to teach and heal – for there are other teachers and healers. He does not even come to us in the first place to pronounce God’s pardon. Because God could of course just have pardoned us. Rather, he comes to being us more than teaching and healing and pardon. He comes and brings the fullness of reconciliation that comes from knowing yourself in the presence of God. 

When you know yourself in the presence of God, new things are possible. God is saying: Not only do I forgive you, but I am telling you that you are a person being made fit for heaven; you are a person worthy of my very presence, worthy of all my attention. Now, knowing and trusting yourself to be all of that, how are you and I going to live the new life of the kingdom together? ‘Through him, God was pleased to reconcile all things’. 

So, here is an exercise for the week ahead. At some point, when life is on the quieter side, sit down, and imagine yourself once again with Martha, Mary and Jesus. Look at Martha, look at Mary, but look especially – at some length – at Jesus. See how he might be radiating the very presence of God to you. See how – is it a halo? Is it a glint in his eye? Is it the quietness and stillness of his acceptance? Is it his laughter? I don’t know how Jesus will be represented to you in imagination. I don’t know quite how you will hear these words:

Not only do I forgive you, but I am telling you that you are a person being made fit for heaven; you are a person worthy of my very presence, worthy of all my attention. Now, knowing and trusting yourself to be all of that, how are you and I going to live the new life of the kingdom together?

Amen.