Our yearly vision for the year is TIMES OF REFRESHING, a phrase borrowed from Peter’s magnificent sermon on the day of Pentecost: “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus” (Acts 3:19,20). What does it mean to be refreshed in turbulent times? This is our journey in 2025.
As “cultural Christendom” continues to wane, one of the necessities for 21st century Christianity is learning how to develop a rich prayer life. One of the wonderful things about 21st century Christianity is that we have never before had access to such a variety of prayer techniques - as the old tribalism of denominations wears away, we can lean into our brothers and sisters from other traditions and through history, and practice curiosity in how they connect to God. Our liturgical friends show us the beauty and groundedness of written prayer forms, our charismatic friends remind us of the power of prayer for healing and deliverance. Our contemplative friends reveal to us the necessity of stillness and silence as baselines for dialogue with God. Our congregationalist friends teach us to pray together without being too self-conscious, coming into agreement with the Spirit as one. Good prayer practices stem from knowing Who God is and what God’s will for us is, while also helping us to lay claim to those truths via participation over just knowing facts about God.
In this series, we intend to explore different forms of prayer and their value for knowing God and being a vessel through which God acts in the world. Our goal is to move our people from “anxious babbling like the pagans” to a deep trust in Our Father that requires only the words necessary (Matthew 6:7,8).
We set the tone for this new series by entering into the story of Mary and Martha as a living parable of the options set before us for the religious life:
Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42)
“Christ in the House of Mary and Martha”, Diego Velasquez, 1618
Mary, Martha, and their brother Lazarus were good friends of Jesus. He visited them often in Bethany as it was not so far from Jerusalem. In the painting above by Diego Velasquez we see a depiction of the story as if it took place in a 17th century Spanish pub. Martha in the foreground is red-faced and puffy from all the hard work she is putting in to make the aioli for the fish. An older woman who we don’t know seems to be chastising her or challenging her in this moment. In the background, almost framed as its own painting, we see Mary at Jesus’ feet, gazing upon him as he teaches.
It is culturally significant to note that this arrangement was positively scandalous in their day. Martha was being dutiful, attending to the work in a “woman’s space”, relegated to the kitchen and bedrooms. Mary, however, has transgressed the social order by entering into a “man’s space”, the main room. Not only this, but she takes her place at Jesus’ feet. This is a phrase that specifically applies to men who submit themselves to a rabbi in order that they too might become rabbis, the implication being that Jesus intends to empower her to go forth and teach his ways.
This wonderful little vignette shows us something absolutely central to our goal of refreshing our understanding of prayer:
Everything about our faith flows first from sharing in divine love with Jesus through prayer. Often the story of Mary and Martha is conveyed rather simplistically: “don’t do stuff, just sit”. This aligns well with a certain strain of Protestant teaching that is so insistent we are saved by grace and not works that any effort becomes suspect. However, as is so often the case with Jesus, there is something deeper at work here. Jesus is not critical of Martha’s activity itself, but her motives and desires. We know this because he address her anxiety and frustration, not her actions. We can fill out some of Martha’s posture by imagining she is a woman who finds her worth in good behavior. We are all burdened by what the Catholic monk Thomas Keating called “programs for happiness” - patterns of thinking, feeling, and doing that convince us they are the way to getting what we want out of life, whether it be safety and security, affection and esteem, or power and control. Not only is Martha heaping a burden upon herself, but in her self-frustration she projects outward. She is indignant of her sister’s perceived inactivity, and we can also assume subconsciously jealous.
In our previous series on the Sermon on the Mount, we came back time and again to how Jesus bore down beneath the surface of our activity to examine the heart. We know throughout the gospels that Jesus was able to see the motivations of those with whom he interacted and speak to them on a deeper level. He desires for Martha, and by extension us, a pure heart, a desire to be with him in a way that it radiates out into how we act in the world. Without prioritizing the cultivation of love between us and Jesus, our most noble-seeming actions will lead us to burnout and frustration.
Learning to sit at Jesus’ feet transforms ordinary life in three ways:
1. We are more discerning of what is actually ours to do. Our priorities, desires, and expectations are shaped in intimacy. We take on the things Jesus cares about, and we release ourselves from the burden of doing things we were never asked to do.
2. We act from a different motive, not trying to earn our worth. As the writer Dallas Willard put it, “Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action”. The Christian life does require our effort to show up and stay invested. But we no longer strive to earn something that has been freely given. Our actions become lighter because they are a radiance of love for Jesus.
3. Mundane activities become sacred because we do them from and with love. The world as it is becomes enchanted by the presence of Christ. In a way, we carry that posture of sitting at his feet wherever we go so that our activity becomes a form of prayer. Even the most normal things, like making a good meal or folding laundry, can be done with the love of Christ.
To “pray without ceasing” is to merge our communion with God and our daily activity. We can imagine there is a challenge to Mary in this story as well: “what are you going to do when you leave this place, and why?” Life is spent both in the intimate quiet with Jesus and in the hustle and bustle of our daily obligations - the goal of prayer is to merge all parts of life so there is no more sacred and secular divide. The beginning and end of prayer is to be loved by God even as we learn to love.
The second painting we examined is from Henryk Siemiradski, a Polish painter at the end of the 19th century. In it, we find the inversion of Velasquez’s arrangement - Mary and Jesus are now out in the open and in the foreground, beckoning us to join them. We see Martha sulking in the shadows, perhaps yearning to let herself follow her sister’s lead. We are invited to examine not so much our activity, but our hearts. What do we desire, what is truly necessary in this life? Only one thing.
“Christ in the House of Martha and Mary”, Henryk Siemiradski, 1886