E=mc2 III:The dutiful extremes of Mary and Martha

Apathy.


It's absolutely everywhere, not just in the English Church, but in politics, the workplace and daily life. We just have to look around us to find evidence of that apathy. The numbers of people voting in elections, both local and national, is decreasing leaving some very peculiar people in local government with some peculiar ideas and some rather worrying effects. In the workplace, no-one seems to want to do anything unless they can get something out of it. Indeed, many new managers are being taught the power of the phrase "What's in it for me? in their dealings with people.


And of course there's the Church. It seems that 90% of the work done in a parish is done by barely 10% of the parishioners.


I wonder if that's exactly how it seems. Can really it be that the same few folk have to do many, many jobs in order to support a largely apathetic and uninterested congregation who are happier to sit there and listen to the word of God. Or is it rather that any desire that members of the congregation have to help out in their parish is squeezed out by a few people who want to do all the jobs? So we have two extremes of Mary and Martha and neither is exactly what God would have us do.


The Extremal Marthas of this world believe they have a duty to work for the church. They are probably not explicitly Pelagian, but they can come dangerously close. They have a need to be needed and feel that they only have some worth if they can work their way into people's respect and affections. They therefore become possessive of what they do and the methods they use, leading to forgetfulness of why they are doing.


The Extremal Marys of this world believe that they should not interfere with the system but keep watching for the time to act and listening for the word, "Go!". This is all well and good because an action well-discerned and well-timed is often the bearer of much happiness. Yet there is a darker side to this: these Extremal Marys are affected strongly by those who have tried to become Marthas and found themselves hurt by the system in which they are working. The result is that Extremal Marys are affected by the cynicism of others and are given the impression that any effort that they make is wasted or will be unappreciated, or will cause them more pain that the effort is worth.

This seems to be the key issue -Pain, or rather fear of pain. We seem to be losing the generation that does. This is the generation that was brought up with a sense of duty, no matter how painful it was. We are now losing the generation of people who survived hardship due to the Second World War. We are two generations away from them now, and the middle generation has a very mixed sense of duty depending on how badly they were affected by the sixties - that diabolical decade!

This apathy is a sheer lack of faith, and I also perceive its cold clammy hand clutching at my own soul, as I believe that it does to everyone else. If we cannot trust that there is an existence which will make even the most agonising pain worthwhile, if we cannot trust God to take our pain and make it worthwhile, then what is the real quality of our belief? The pain is not God's wish for us, but is an inevitable consequence of being in this bizarre state of being saint and sinner simultaneously.

But sometimes we look at those who actually do all the work, and see what it does to them, turning the caring and available into one who has no further time to commit, haemorrhaging patience like a rusty sieve. We see the consequences of self-giving for whatever reason, and we think, "I don't want that to happen to me!" It happens to laymen, and it happens to the ordained man, and the moment someone says "I didn't want to disturb you; I know you're busy" that is the moment then we realise that our busyness has taken more from us than we ought to give.

At some point we have to sit down and realise that our will and God's Will are different and that where they are different is the source of the pain of this life. We can either seek a life that avoids pain and thus fail to do anything to contribute anything of any worth to our society or build on our personal and corporate relationship with God, or we can face the fear with trust in God and just do the job anyway.

Of course, this doesn't mean that we should seek to be masochists. Despite the clamour of the atheists, God is not an ogre or sadist, or sadomasochist as I've heard one anti-theist say. The situation with Mary and Martha seeks to educate us in this way. We listen to God and, if we listen carefully, we learn where we are indeed called to be. There is a time to be busy when God is not talking to us, but when He speaks, we must sit and listen.

When we are faced with a question of duty, then often our response is, "Why me?" but do we ever bother to sit down and answer the question, "why not me?"
We cannot always hide behind the idea that we are unskilled for the task, or potentially incompetent. We may not be suited to be a heart surgeon, but we may be suited for leading a house-group, becoming a Pastoral Assistant, or even a priest or a Religious. The only way we will be able find out is by putting ourselves into that position.

This is not at all easy, especially when we may be suffering from another malevolent social spirit - self-unknowledge which manifests itself as a disproportionate vision of who we are through self-aggrandisement or self-hatred. Again, the only way forward is forging that relationship with God and the Church.

It's all hard work, but it isn't so hard that we can't do it if that is truly what God wants us to do. The attempt will always be more rewarding than the refusal.