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            Christians reflecting on love as contemplation have often turned for inspiration to the story of Mary and Martha, and none more eloquently than the anonymous English author of the fourteenth century work: The Cloud of Unknowing. The author, probably a pastor, says that Christian communities are comprised of two types of people: those whom he calls “actives” (like Martha), and “contemplatives” (like Mary). Though he clearly writes from a contemplative point of view, he is at pains not to be critical of actives. He praises their energy and good works. But he recognizes that actives greatly outnumber contemplatives, and that contemplatives are so easy to criticize – apparently content as they are to sit there and let others do the work.

            In every church I’ve served, actives and contemplatives have had their issues. For example, at CCC it took us quite a while to establish a meditation room. Folks had to be convinced that sitting and doing nothing can be worthwhile. Speaking personally, I’ve lived as an active and a contemplative. Early in my ministry, I was preoccupied with a Christian activism powered by the issues of the sixties. At that time I had a certain contempt for what is called Christian “quietism,” which I saw as just sitting there passively in the face of an unjust war and the sufferings imposed by racism and sexism and homophobia. But then later in life, I discovered a contemplative side of myself that had always been there, I think, and now greatly sustains me. But my “active” side is still important. In fact, I am convinced that the prophets of ancient Israel, people like Amos and Jeremiah, as well as the prophets of modern America, like Dorothy Day and Dan Berrigan, combined action and contemplation.

            So, while the author of the “Cloud” is basically right in saying that there are two types of Christians, I believe it is helpful to add that each of us has a contemplative and an active side to our religious temperament; each of us carries within us a Mary and a Martha. They need not be strangers to each other, because they are, in fact, sisters living in the same household. And while they may disagree at times, we need to find ways for them to fruitfully co-exist in each of us.

            The Martha in us, like Martha in the story, is about serving, offering welcome and hospitality, actively doing deeds of kindness and justice. When outside observers of the early Christians said, “See how they love one another,” they weren’t just remarking on their smiling faces and inner radiance. They saw what Christians were doing – caring for one another, sharing their possessions, working together for the common good, welcoming the stranger, and seeking to transform the world into the Kingdom of God. “To love is to care; to care is to do.” It was what the Good Samaritan did, not how he felt, that made the difference. Martha’s motto, like any good “active” is: “Don’t just sit there; do something.” The Martha in me is restless unless I am engaged and active.

            But, as we see in the story, the Martha in us can get distracted. Martha can get too many things going at one time. The Martha in us can delight in “multi-tasking.” Sure I can drive my SUV, and keep an eye on the kids in back, and change discs in the cd player, and talk on my cell phone. Are you sure of that? When the Martha in me takes on too much, she gets distracted; and then she gets frustrated and angry and resentful. And then she complains about others who aren’t doing their part. There is a spiritual single-mindedness that the Martha in me sometimes loses. Kierkegaard said, “Purity of heart is to will one thing.” It is seeking first the Kingdom of God. It is being in touch with the underlying spiritual energy of being that is needed to sustain and nourish all that we do. It is then that we need our Mary. And if Mary seems misguided or even strange to us, then we need her all the more.

            As Mary sat at Jesus’ feet, apparently her motto was: “Don’t just do something; sit there.” Ah, but what was she doing? The author of the “Cloud” says:

As she listened to him she regarded neither her sister’s busy-ness nor his priceless and blessed physical perfection, nor the beauty of his human voice and words. But what she was looking at was the supreme wisdom of his Godhead shrouded by the words of his humanity. And on this she gazed with all the love of her heart. Nothing she saw or heard could budge her, but there she sat, completely still, with deep delight, and an urgent love eagerly reaching out into the high cloud of unknowing that was between her and God.

This is a remarkable description of what we can call contemplative love. Actives, like Martha, do deeds of compassion and justice. And they also engage in worship and prayer. The Martha in me prays for the well-being of others, and for myself that I may be cared for, and that I may better serve. And the Mary in me prays the same kinds of prayers in the same worship services. Mary and Martha sit next to each other in church. But with Mary we also now get a glimpse of a different kind of prayer, a different kind of spirituality. It is not, strictly speaking, about asking for something for oneself or others. Instead, it is about a yearning to be with, to gaze upon God in love. It is about intent and longing. Mary was intent on looking for the God that was deep within Jesus, the God whose wisdom came through Jesus’ words, but was more than Jesus’ voice. She sat in deep delight, completely still, with an urgent longing eagerly reaching out into this cloud of unknowing that was between her and God. All she could really gaze upon was God’s image as she beheld it before her in the physical form of Jesus. But she yearned to look into and through that image to a deeper reality. And it is important to her that she not “do” anything, except yearn and gaze intently in love.

            I said in an earlier sermon, that loving God was a kind of falling in love – with all the yearnings that come with that. But Mary was not intent on falling in love with God’s image as Jesus the man. She yearned to love God in Jesus – the Christ that lay behind the image. In Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, he says, (the Christ) is the image of the invisible God… (The Christ) is before all things, and in (Christ) all things hold together.” A number of us from our church joined Chet and Barbara Callander last week as the ashes of their beloved Betty were laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. All that remained that afternoon of Betty’s image was a framed photo of a young W.W. II lieutenant. All that remained of her physical form were ashes. But the real Betty, that divine spark of the Sacred, was there, though form and body had dropped away. The grief was for the loss of her physical presence, even as Jesus’ friends truly grieved his death. But the joy and gratitude were stronger; the joy and gratitude revealed that the divine hidden there all along was alive and well - where? In the undying love: in the love of husband and wife; in the love of mother and daughter; in the love of family and friends and neighbors and church. And that love is Betty and is eternal and is inextinguishable.

            It is this understanding of love, this understanding of God, that is behind the traditional greeting exchanged by a Hindu or Buddhist – Namaste! – “The divine in me greets the divine in you.” That divine is hidden, but it is there. And the love we bring is the yearning to fully embrace, to be fully enfolded in that hidden heart of God, knowing that, in this moment, it is the image we have before us - knowing that we are left with a longing that is unfulfilled but powerful. “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they find their rest in you.”

            In the earliest days of Buddhism, there was a clear distinction between contemplatives and actives. Monks did not work. They meditated and begged. The laity sustained themselves and the monks by their labor. But as Buddhism spread, the distinctions between the role of the monk and the layperson, between contemplation and work, began to disappear. At monasteries monks were now expected to labor – not just for support of the monastery, but for the needs of others outside the community, and for the spirituality of work itself. Monks could no longer simply remain Mary’s; they had to become Martha’s as well.

            A story from 8th century China tells of a young monk who comes to study with a famous master. At once he is put to hard work with the other monks - cooking, cleaning the latrines, sweeping the halls, hoeing in the garden - all this plus hours of silent meditation as well. So he complains to his master,

            “Every day we have hard work. Who are we doing it for?”
            The master replies, “There is someone who needs it.”
            The monk says, “Why not let that person do it?”
            And the master says, “Because that one has no tools.”

A Buddhist joke. But wise. We love because we have been given tools; we are loved because we have no tools. But we are also loved because God has no tools - but us. And in becoming instruments of God’s love, we are invited into God’s love of God.

Very simply, love is the core of everything…It is the sole purpose of all creation and of us as human beings. And it is, finally, impossible to distinguish precisely whether this love at our center is our love of God, or God’s love of us, or our love of ourselves and one another, or God’s love of God.
                                                                                                 AMEN.

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