Knowing when vital learning is on offer
Proper 11C
Luke 10.38-end
The Vicar piously told his congregation, 'There is a sermon in every blade of grass.' Later that week the Vicar was out mowing his lawn when a church member drove by, stopped and rolled down the window and
shouted, 'That's right, Vicar. Cut those sermons short!'
A silly joke, but of course the Vicar was right—there really is a sermon in every blade of grass. In theological jargon he was talking about the radical immanence of God—every day, every moment, in countless ways God comes to us, seeks to speak to us. God is not just out there
somewhere—transcendent, distant, the Holy Other. God is also here—immanent! God is around us. God is in us. As St Paul said to the Athenians, God is the one in whom 'we live, and move and have our being'!
But we tend to compartmentalize our lives, divide them up into times and places for certain things. Sunday for many of us is that time we give some attention to the Divine in our lives. This is well and good, but what this time really should do is help us realized and know that God is related to every part of our lives every day. We see this day and place, today, as holy. A time and place to hear of God. Generally, however, that tends towards us marking all other times and places as 'ordinary.'
The truth is that all times, all places are sacred and holy, filled with the presence and voice of God. All ground is holy ground. To know that is the maturity towards which St Paul urges us.
The incarnation itself teaches us this. God chose to come to us in flesh and blood, in a child born in a peasant family. God comes to us in the ordinary. Look for God in the ordinary, as Jesus did. He saw and heard God everywhere—in a coin, a fish net, a lamp, fruit trees, children, salt, a cup, a loaf of bread—and in all these things he saw something God would have us learn of him.
The fingerprints of God are all around us, if we know how to look. The voice of God constantly fills the air, if we
know how to listen.
Wasn’t it that old curmudgeon of a journalist, Malcolm Muggeridge, who said, 'Every happening great or small is a parable
whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message.'
But so often we’re not skilled enough in that art of life; things pass us by, we are dull of vision, and impoverished in discernment. The sense that we’re meant to use to discern God’s promptings is just like our other five senses: it works but it needs training. Like taste, or smell, or sight, or hearing, or touch, it can be developed and honed. Indeed it requires of us skilled use of those other five senses to open ourselves to the presence of God which is as close to us as
our breath.
I think of being taught how to see the life all around us in the natural world by a now long dead great- uncle. He was countryman of great experience and wisdom. What to me was just another field, just another hedge, was to him a trail of clues – he could see what I couldn't. He saw clues to where foxes and badgers and deer had been – and how you might find them. All I saw was grass and leaves!
I've needed others to teach me how to really listen to music; how to appreciate paintings, or ballet or theatre. And
after the teaching these things meant so much more – and I discovered that, intriguingly, there is much more to be learnt and that learning is exciting and life-enhancing.
This sixth sense is the one we need to develop to help us look for God signs, those events, great and small, in our daily lives that reveal the presence of God. I'm talking about being able to read the world spiritually, of expecting to hear God - so we listen, expecting to catch God doing something in our lives and in our world - so we are constantly wide-eyed
with anticipation.
The trouble is that this sixth sense is often underused and stunted. We need it honed, sharpened, developed. We need to learn how to turn on this sight, this understanding, this wisdom. We have to learn how to hear the ever present voice of God.
Mary, in the our Gospel reading, becomes a model for us all in her desire to sit, to be quiet and listen for God's voice at the feet of Jesus. Martha was into doing, to activity, and chides Mary for not helping her. Jesus gently chides Martha back, saying that she's too distracted and is missing something that Mary has found.
It isn't that Martha is doing unimportant stuff – far from it – hospitality is really important. All he is saying is that even the really important stuff can be obsessive and distracting. Her problem is the one that many of us have – we live such distracted, busy, hectic lives that we often fail to be fully present, to focus, to listen for God wherever we are, whatever we are doing. It’s not that Martha is wrong – but that she’s missing a vital opportunity. And missing that opportunity diminishes the richness, the fullness of life.
So let’s hear this brief Gospel story NOT as advocacy of listening to the teacher as something always more important than housework. The loving chiding isn’t to demean what Martha is doing.
And we certainly must NOT hear this story as if women’s work is inferior to men’. Mary does indeed do something
that in biblical times was more commonly a man’s place – listening to the wise speaker. But asserting a woman right to that role also isn’t what this is about (although it’s a point worth thinking on).
No, I think this story is primarily about knowing when the opportunity to see things differently comes along and responding accordingly. Even important things need sometimes to be set aside. Sometimes we have to just stop and learn. Then we discover the richness of life that otherwise passes us by.
shouted, 'That's right, Vicar. Cut those sermons short!'
A silly joke, but of course the Vicar was right—there really is a sermon in every blade of grass. In theological jargon he was talking about the radical immanence of God—every day, every moment, in countless ways God comes to us, seeks to speak to us. God is not just out there
somewhere—transcendent, distant, the Holy Other. God is also here—immanent! God is around us. God is in us. As St Paul said to the Athenians, God is the one in whom 'we live, and move and have our being'!
But we tend to compartmentalize our lives, divide them up into times and places for certain things. Sunday for many of us is that time we give some attention to the Divine in our lives. This is well and good, but what this time really should do is help us realized and know that God is related to every part of our lives every day. We see this day and place, today, as holy. A time and place to hear of God. Generally, however, that tends towards us marking all other times and places as 'ordinary.'
The truth is that all times, all places are sacred and holy, filled with the presence and voice of God. All ground is holy ground. To know that is the maturity towards which St Paul urges us.
The incarnation itself teaches us this. God chose to come to us in flesh and blood, in a child born in a peasant family. God comes to us in the ordinary. Look for God in the ordinary, as Jesus did. He saw and heard God everywhere—in a coin, a fish net, a lamp, fruit trees, children, salt, a cup, a loaf of bread—and in all these things he saw something God would have us learn of him.
The fingerprints of God are all around us, if we know how to look. The voice of God constantly fills the air, if we
know how to listen.
Wasn’t it that old curmudgeon of a journalist, Malcolm Muggeridge, who said, 'Every happening great or small is a parable
whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message.'
But so often we’re not skilled enough in that art of life; things pass us by, we are dull of vision, and impoverished in discernment. The sense that we’re meant to use to discern God’s promptings is just like our other five senses: it works but it needs training. Like taste, or smell, or sight, or hearing, or touch, it can be developed and honed. Indeed it requires of us skilled use of those other five senses to open ourselves to the presence of God which is as close to us as
our breath.
I think of being taught how to see the life all around us in the natural world by a now long dead great- uncle. He was countryman of great experience and wisdom. What to me was just another field, just another hedge, was to him a trail of clues – he could see what I couldn't. He saw clues to where foxes and badgers and deer had been – and how you might find them. All I saw was grass and leaves!
I've needed others to teach me how to really listen to music; how to appreciate paintings, or ballet or theatre. And
after the teaching these things meant so much more – and I discovered that, intriguingly, there is much more to be learnt and that learning is exciting and life-enhancing.
This sixth sense is the one we need to develop to help us look for God signs, those events, great and small, in our daily lives that reveal the presence of God. I'm talking about being able to read the world spiritually, of expecting to hear God - so we listen, expecting to catch God doing something in our lives and in our world - so we are constantly wide-eyed
with anticipation.
The trouble is that this sixth sense is often underused and stunted. We need it honed, sharpened, developed. We need to learn how to turn on this sight, this understanding, this wisdom. We have to learn how to hear the ever present voice of God.
Mary, in the our Gospel reading, becomes a model for us all in her desire to sit, to be quiet and listen for God's voice at the feet of Jesus. Martha was into doing, to activity, and chides Mary for not helping her. Jesus gently chides Martha back, saying that she's too distracted and is missing something that Mary has found.
It isn't that Martha is doing unimportant stuff – far from it – hospitality is really important. All he is saying is that even the really important stuff can be obsessive and distracting. Her problem is the one that many of us have – we live such distracted, busy, hectic lives that we often fail to be fully present, to focus, to listen for God wherever we are, whatever we are doing. It’s not that Martha is wrong – but that she’s missing a vital opportunity. And missing that opportunity diminishes the richness, the fullness of life.
So let’s hear this brief Gospel story NOT as advocacy of listening to the teacher as something always more important than housework. The loving chiding isn’t to demean what Martha is doing.
And we certainly must NOT hear this story as if women’s work is inferior to men’. Mary does indeed do something
that in biblical times was more commonly a man’s place – listening to the wise speaker. But asserting a woman right to that role also isn’t what this is about (although it’s a point worth thinking on).
No, I think this story is primarily about knowing when the opportunity to see things differently comes along and responding accordingly. Even important things need sometimes to be set aside. Sometimes we have to just stop and learn. Then we discover the richness of life that otherwise passes us by.