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Be thou my wisdom and thou my true word, I, ever with thee and thou with me, Lord. Amen.
Doo be do be do…Frank Sinatra, the singer of what could be the song of work-oriented successful Americans. Do before you ever think about be. Do before you ever think about be. But what if, what if, as Christians, we are asked to sing a new song to the Lord. A different song from doo be do be do that reverses that. It’ll sound a little weird to you at first but listen…be do be do be. Be-ing before do-ing. Be-ing. Accepting the gift from God of be-ing. The sheer gift of your existence. Before you ever thought about lifting a finger, God had made you and had made a whole world to receive you. Be-ing before do-ing. Be-ing first, so that you can know, know deeply in your own heart, the value of your sheer existence before you do anything. And the value of be-ing in relationship with that God who made you and me, every person in this church, all the people of Boston, the billions of people in the world and all things visible and invisible. Be-ing before do-ing. We didn’t make any of those things, you know. They exist, they be for us. They are. Maybe be-ing should come first so that we can, by living into the truth of who we are, come to have a better understanding of what it is God calls us to do. Be-ing first, do-ing second. Be-ing before vocation.
Now you’ve probably heard this story about Mary and Martha preached as if it’s, somehow, about a rivalry between be-ing and do-ing. Martha, reprimanded for do-ing. Mary, complimented for be-ing. But I think there is another way to think about the story and to think about those two sisters. Instead of thinking of it as rivalry, and Jesus setting up a better and worse between be-ing and do-ing, maybe Jesus is asking for a new partnership between be-ing and do-ing. A new partnership between those two sisters, Mary and Martha, and the parts of us that are like them. Our Mary part, our Martha part. So I want to say to you that I don’t think that this is a story about Martha as the do-er and Mary as the be-er. I think this is a story about a new way of be-ing first so that do-ing can be transformed.
What’s the problem? What’s the problem with do-ing in this story? Well as Luke recounts it, the problem isn’t that Martha is a do-er, the problem is the way she does things. Martha, Martha, you’re worried and distracted by many things. Sound familiar? It certainly does to me. Whether you’ve had a worry-filled and distracted week or not, we all have days or hours like that. Sometimes weeks and months and years like that, where we are so anxious, so worried, so distracted, that we’re really not even present in our own do-ing. We’re present with what we’re worried about. Will it be perfect, just so, this do-ing? Will people admire it? Will I get it just right? Or will I flop? Sounds like my own thoughts this week as I was preparing the sermon. You can tell me at the door if you like whether it was worth worrying about.
Anxiety ridden work isn’t good do-ing at all. Because we’re really not present to what we’re do-ing. Perhaps what Jesus is inviting us into is a new way of do-ing that puts be-ing first in the do-ing. It doesn’t separate them as if, somehow, one could ever be just a do-er or just a be-er, but puts them together in a new way, instead of rivalry, friendship, between the Mary and the Martha parts of ourselves. Now if you’ve heard this passage preached before that may be where the preacher stopped and said, “Ok, go off, be, be. Sit at Jesus’ feet and be. Amen.” And that was the end. If you’re like me, that kind of sermon frustrates you because the question that’s left hanging in the air is, “how am I supposed to do that?” I’m terribly anxious much of the time. I’m even more distracted. How do I get to change my do-ing? I want to suggest four possible ways of transforming the do-ing that is worried and distracted and anxious into a do-ing where there’s be-ing in it. And to help you remember it, if you put the letter together at the beginning of each of these four suggestions you’ll get the word REST. Rest. Resting in be-ing. Resting in the Lord.
So the first letter is R. How might we be, so that we can do in an undistracted way? How about if we started by “receiving” the redeeming love of God. That’s a gift of relationship. You know, long before you and I were created scripture says God loved us. Before you and I ever existed, before our hearts began to beat and certainly before we ever lifted a finger to do anything in this world, God loved us. What’s more, God loved us so much that God was willing to come and be one of us. Notice I didn’t say do one of us. God was willing to come and be one of us. In other words God wanted, from the very beginning, to establish loving relationship with us. God’s primary goal in creation is not for us to check off a list of moral do’s and don’ts. God’s primary goal in creation is love. For us to receive the love of God. For us to love God back and then to be able to love one another and ourselves with that same love. That will lead into do-ing of course, but first, receiving because we don’t start the love, God does. So first R…receive. To be receive.
Second, E, express the energy of that love. Once we’ve received the loving relationship with God and with one another then our do-ing is called to a do-ing that expresses that loving energy. Notice how far this is from whether you are a success at your job or not. One could be a great preacher, a great teacher, a wonderful doctor or lawyer, a wonderful nurse or a great garbage collector and have no love. And you know what Paul said about that, you might as well be a noisy gong or a tinkling cymbal. In other words, it ain’t worth anything without love. Our do-ing, our do-ing is to express the energy of God’s love. How? Well you’ve got people around you don’t you? At work, at home, on the street, every single one of them, just like you, wants to receive the loving energy of God. Maybe that’s the primary means, the primary goal of our do-ing. If you’re a success at your job, in addition to that, all the better. But expressing the energy of God’s love is first. So, receive the energy of God’s redeeming love, express that energy through how you be as you do.
And S stands for Submit to synergy. Submit to synergy. I’m not particularly good at this. If you want a definition of synergy, synergy is that energy that happens only when you let yourself work with another and be with another. In other words, when you and I don’t try to do it all by ourselves. Unfortunately, many of us, I am the chief of these offenders I think, are rather like that commercial from my childhood. If you are as old as I am you may remember it. It was a shake and bake commercial as I remember it. The last line of which was, “I’d rather do it myself.” How much of our do-ing in life expresses that instead of the submission to synergy. The reaching out of a hand to another that says, “I need your help for me to be who I am and for me to do the best that I can do. I cannot do it alone.” That’s what the community of faith, of course, is about. We are here, as again Paul reminds us in that image of the body, because we need each other. The hand needs the foot and the eye needs the ear because we cannot do it individually alone. We also cannot be the body individually alone. So receive the loving energy of God, express that energy, and submit to the synergy that will happen. Synergy with God, synergy with others as you do so.
And finally T. Thank the Trinity for totality. Work is never complete and I would say be-ing is never complete until we get to the place of thankfulness. Do you see how this returns to the beginning, the receiving? Thanking God for what has happened in your be-ing, in your do-ing, in our be-ing and do-ing together, naturally yields thanks because we recognize, “I didn’t do it by myself and I cannot exist by myself. Thank you for providing me companions. Thank you for providing me those who counterbalance my weaknesses and who rejoice with me in my strengths. Thank you.”
So one way to move from anxious and distracted, terribly worried do-ing into a new way of be-ing that is be-ing in do-ing is to REST. Receive God’s love, express the energy of it, submit to the synergies that will come from it and then say thank you.
Thanks be to God.
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