Sermon for 5th after Sunday Trinity: The Sisters' Tale.

Amos 8: 4 - 8

4 Hear this, you who trample the needy

and do away with the poor of the land,

5 saying,

“When will the New Moon be over

that we may sell grain,

and the Sabbath be ended

that we may market wheat?”—

skimping on the measure,

boosting the price

and cheating with dishonest scales,

6 buying the poor with silver

and the needy for a pair of sandals,

selling even the sweepings with the wheat.

7 The Lord has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done.

8 “Will not the land tremble for this,

and all who live in it mourn?

The whole land will rise like the Nile;

it will be stirred up and then sink

like the river of Egypt.

Luke 10;38-end

³⁸As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. ³⁹She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. ⁴⁰But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"

  ⁴¹"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, ⁴²but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

Jesus is speaking, and the disciples, including a woman called Mary, are sitting at his feet listening.

Another woman, Martha the sister of Mary, is busy working to prepare food. Martha complains to Jesus that her sister should be helping, but Jesus tells her that Mary “has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

We read the house belonged to Martha, and that she had opened her home to Jesus and his disciples. This was a generous act, she knew it wouldn't just be Jesus and the twelve that she was hosting, but also anyone else who had taken an interest in hearing Jesus speak. The house would have been crowded with people, many of them probably strangers.

Imagine Martha’s predicament, the house and courtyard are full of people, she wants everything to go well, perhaps she doesn't want to be embarrassed in front of her neighbours. She feels her sister Mary should be helping, so as Martha hurries about trying to be in control of the situation, working under pressure in a hot kitchen, she steps out and asks Jesus if he could tell Mary to attend to her duties and help.

Martha has every right to expect her sister to help, although we don't know if she actually needs help, or if she just thinks here sister should help. However, in her society it was the job of women to help with domestic tasks and serve men.

Jesus’ reply was not what Martha would have expected, nor what anyone else would have expected.

He acknowledges Martha’s upset and worry, but commends Mary for her sitting and listening to him.

Often the things Jesus said and did ran counter to expectations, and were perplexing to those around him. Jesus was, and still is, a very challenging character. So let’s see if we can work out what is going on here.

In those times, it was not only that Mary would have been expected to help Martha, the even greater challenge to social expectations would have been that Mary was sat listening to Jesus with the men. Women were not supposed to study, and they were certainly not supposed to keep company with groups of men.

This (points to congregation) – would not be possible – men and women sitting together – outrageous!

I think we often forget, or do not understand, just how Patriarchal, that is how male dominated, first century Palestine was. It was a society in which adult men daily said in their prayers, ‘thank God I am not a gentile, a slave or a woman’.

It was a society in which the murder of a woman was not a crime against a person but against property, the life of a woman belonged to either her father or her husband. Martha must have had neither husband, father, or brothers, to own a house.

This was a society that required women to be veiled in public as they had no place in public life, the place of women was in the home. If you think of Afghanistan under the Taliban you'll get an idea of the status of women in first century Palestine.

Jesus did not abide by the expectations of his society concerning women, he accepted women as his followers, he taught them, and conversed with them, just as he taught and conversed with men.

Among the many examples of Jesus interacting with women as individuals, one of the most vivid is that of the encounter with the woman by the well. Jesus converses with this woman about God, not the sort of adversarial conversation he has with the Pharisees or Scribes, but a genuine conversation.

When the disciples found Jesus talking to the women at the well they were astonished precisely because Jesus was talking to a woman. If we read on we find the woman returned to her town and told the people about Jesus, and they believed. That's really setting the social order on it's head, the testimony of a woman was of so little account in that time it didn't count in court, yet here is a woman speaking publicly about Jesus, and being heard and believed by the townspeople.

I think we also forget just how Patriarchal, or male dominated, our own society has been until quite recent times.

Admission to Universities for women occurred mainly in the late nineteenth century, 1800 plus years after Jesus taught Mary, and only in the 1920s were the first women able study for degrees at Cambridge. It wasn't until 1928 that all women were granted the vote, it wasn't until 1970 that the Equal Pay Act was passed, it was only in 1975 that the Sex Discrimination Act was passed, and we got our first female Prime Minister in 1979. In terms of our civilisation, that's all recent history.

That's how long has it taken Christendom to begin to catch up with Christ.

The Apostle Paul, who struggled with this new understanding of women in the Church, grasped the significance of Christ’s message, writing

‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’

In the book of Acts woman were among the disciples in the upper room on the Day of Pentecost and received the anointing of the Holy Spirit, later we read that a woman called Lydia organised a church in her house. Paul in his letters commends Phoebe as a Deacon, he greets Priscilla as his fellow labourer, he even refers to a woman called Junia as outstanding among the Apostles. In the New Testament woman began to step out of the kitchen, and it was Jesus who opened the door, yet it has taken Christendom nearly two thousand years to apply this.

Have we yet applied the call of Amos from our Old Testament reading for honest dealing and a fair chance for everyone? We don't legally buy and sell the needy for a pair of sandals any more, but children are still trafficked across continents, young girls traded amongst grooming gangs, and children compelled by criminal gangs to sell drugs on County Lines. “Will not the land tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn?”

Around 280,000 British women aged between 18 – 34 sell pornographic content on the website, 'Only Fans.' Yet it was 2000 years ago that the disciples and Martha were confounded by the idea the place of a woman might not be to please and serve men, but to sit and study with the master.

Our world, like Martha, ‘is worried and upset by many things’, but Jesus tells us there is a better way. The way of justice and peace, the way that challenges our prejudices, and confounds the expectations of society. The way that strives to establish the Kingdom of God, in which each person is to be valued and nurtured. Christians are to work to establish this Kingdom in society and in politics, to establish it in our churches, in our homes and in our family life, to establish the Kingdom in our personal lives, to establish the Kingdom deep in our souls.

Amen.