Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Mary has chosen the better part. Lk. 10:43”

In 1983, the movie Yentl made its first appearance in American theaters. Starring Barbara Streisand, it told the story of a Jewish girl whose father secretly instructed her in the Torah – an act strictly forbidden in that culture since only men were allowed to study the Scriptures.  

So, after her father died, Yentl decided to dress like a man, take her late brother’s name, and enter a Jewish religious school.

She was that hungry to hear and know and absorb the Word of God!

I was reminded of Yentl after reading today’s gospel passage from Luke. Set in first century Jerusalem, Luke’s gospel narrative about Martha and Mary was seen as quite radical in daring to portray Jesus as acting contrary to Jewish cultural norms in at least three ways.

First, Jesus was alone with Jewish women who were not his relatives. Second, a Jewish woman served him food. Third, and most shockingly, Jesus was teaching a woman the Word of God in her own home.

The clear message that Luke sends us is: the Word of God is for everyone.

The status quo is no longer applicable. There is no need any more for a separation between men and women. When it comes to hearing and acting upon the Word of God, we are all called to be disciples of Jesus Christ.

Through the years, many in the church tried to make this story into an argument between which is the greater good: to be a contemplative dedicating one’s life solely to prayer or to be primarily an activist involved in bettering the condition of humankind. This gospel passage does not take up that argument.  

Instead it recognizes that we need to combine both qualities in our attempts to live out the call to discipleship. What it warns us about, however, is the temptation to become so distracted by our constant busyness that we miss listening carefully and reflectively to the Word of God.

“Mary has chosen the better part,” as Jesus tells us, means that she has not allowed her anxieties, her worries “about many things” to burden her so that she misses the beginning point of all discipleship: listening – listening to the Word of God.

This gospel passage underlines the importance of prayer in all ministerial activity. The minute we lose that priority is the very minute that we lose our focus. Listening to God is a priority at all times – then the need for action will spontaneously happen.

The two are not opposed. The two are not exclusive. They are an equally important part of a whole. It’s a matter of the starting point.

Father Jose Pagola, a scripture scholar and the author of the much acclaimed book Jesus: An Historical Approximation, puts it this way: “Jesus does not criticize (Martha’s) ministrations. How can he do so when he himself is teaching everyone by his example to welcome, serve, and help others? What he is criticizing is her nervous behavior, under pressure of too much work to do.”   

It’s her anxiety, her worry that is the problem. Anxiety is about fear. It’s about the conviction that “it all depends on me.” This creates the danger of being engrossed in so much busyness as to be continually in a state of turmoil. This inner chaos can then easily quench the presence of the Spirit within us and preclude our finding a place for spreading peace and love.

Again, quoting Fr. Pagola: “Under pressure from diminishing resources, we are becoming accustomed to asking the most generous Christians for all kinds of commitments inside and outside the church. If at the same time we do not offer them the time and space to know Jesus, to listen to his Word, and find nourishment in the gospel, we run the risk of increasing anxiety and stress in the church to the detriment of making space for Jesus’ spirit and his peace.”

This is what Jesus means when he says that listening is “the better part.” Listening to God’s word is the most important of all requirements for being a follower of Jesus.

And the good news is we don’t have to go to the extremes that Yentl did. Sacred Scripture has never been as accessible as it is to people now.

To borrow one last time from Fr. Pagola: “Jesus is the best that humanity has ever produced. He is the most admirable power of light and hope available to us as human beings.”

So, as Jesus himself put it: “Come and see.”

Listen to the Word of God. It is the most effective way to absorb all the riches that Jesus offers us.

In doing so, may we also mimic the intense hunger of a Yentl and a Mary to know and absorb the Word of God.  

Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.

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7/14/16