Finding the Balance

This weekend's gospel hit me right between the eyes. Confession time: I usually work a 55-60 hour work week. I like to work. I love the satisfaction of getting things done, of scratching off items on that "to do" list. But it's more than that, too. Sometimes it's the feeling of seeing a picture emerge out of a lot of pieces, and sometimes it's a feeling of knowing you've been in the right place at a good time.

But it's not without its down side. I do HATE the sense of "feeling behind," of having made commitments and not living up to what I've set out to do. And I don't like projecting to others that "I'm busy" -- especially if that means that people are reluctant to approach me with something that really is more important than what I'm busy about.

But this homily is also about St. Bridget, and it's about our culture.


Ordinary Time, 16th Sunday (C) July 22, 2007

Have you ever heard of “belly talk”? It’s a practice among parents-to-be of talking to their unborn child, and it’s not just idle chatter. In fact it’s not just talking, but playing classical music, and other sounds. Not only that, there’s whole system that you can buy called Babyplus -- go ahead and google that word, Babyplus, and it’ll come right up – it even includes a 16-week course for the child. I guess the whole idea is to help the child get a head start in its development, sort of “maximizing” the baby’s time in the womb. Whether you buy the belly-talk idea or not, I think the belly-talk movement reveals a sense at large in our culture that life is so busy that it doesn’t hurt to get a bit of a head start.

It seems that all of us have some periods where the demands upon us are minimal, but most of us also have lots of times when we have more to do than we can possibly accomplish in the time available. Some of this comes from the normal course of life, but much of it is imposed upon us by forces we cannot control. In many of our jobs today, for example, the number of employees has been reduced, but the same amount or even a higher volume of work is expected. And if we are among the remaining employees and are particularly good at something or have a good track record for getting things done, our employer may dump even more things on us. We might even do it to ourselves.

And you know, it’s not just work. If you are a parent of school-age children, you can run yourself ragged chauffeuring them to their activities and attending their events, and there are a lot more of those activities than when I was young.

Modern life is BUSY. And after a while, that takes a toll on us. We might start to feel pressed down, wrung out, overwrought, and upset. Of course, it’s not just a phenomenon of our day, but all those labor-saving devices that we have developed over the last 50 years or so have mostly made it so that we could work faster and pack more things in, and so that new speed, that new multi-tasking, becomes the new norm, and even the expectation that we have of ourselves.

Our gospel reading, however, gives us a different perspective. Jesus is in the home of those two sisters, Martha and Mary. And Martha, wanting to be a good hostess, is going all out with “many tasks” to make the visit special for Jesus. Are there enough towels? Is the food just right? Is the kitchen getting cleaned up quickly? And so on. But the scripture says she was “distracted” by these tasks – the Greek word literally means “dragged around,” which is a good description of how busyness can make us feel.

Now Mary, as we know, instead recognizes the opportunity that Jesus’ visit brought to their home, and she sits at Jesus’ feet, listening to what he had to say.

And so Martha, in her drive to be a good hostess, actually fails at it, because she ends up snapping at her guest, “Don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?” And she also shoots a good jab off toward her sister at the same time.

Jesus replies that what Mary is doing is “the better part.” That’s an answer that doesn’t condemn Martha’s work, but simply tells her that she has gotten her priorities wrong. There is a time to be busy and doing and there is a time to be still and listening.

In fact, if you read this story of Martha and Mary in the larger context, you will see that it comes right after Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, which we heard last week. And in that story, the point for the listener is that we should go and do just as the Samaritan had done. But here in the Martha and Mary incident, the point is to be still and listen. In other words, there is a proper time for both.

So where’s the balance in our own life? Marnie Russell, our parish director for Faith Formation, shared this little exercise with me this week. Think of your normal week, which has 168 hours. Now figure that you take out 8 hours each day for sleeping, that’s 56 total hours, and leaves us with 112. I can just hear some of you saying “Eight hours of sleep a day, who gets that?” OK, so what’s the balance in what’s left? How much is work, and how much is down time? How much of that down time is spent just in what we’d call “vegging out,” whether that’s in front of the TV, reading the newspaper, playing on the computer, or something like that? And of all the down time that we have, however little it is, how much do we spend being still and listening?

You know, I think that St. Bridget is a really great community to be a part of. And I am really grateful to you for all that you have meant to me and given to my life over these last 24 years. And this is a really generous parish, not just financially, but in terms of the many people willing to pitch in and make this community what it is. Thank you for that. And I do feel that our liturgies here provide us with good opportunities for us to be still and listen to God speak to our hearts. But I also see how busy your lives are, and what I see in so many of us is that there is often too little time – time for us to just sit and listen at the foot of the Lord.

Take this scripture into your hearts this week. When you’re feeling busy or stressed, maybe feeling like you need some help, visualize Martha running around the kitchen. If and when you finally get free and you want to just “veg out,” visualize Mary sitting at the foot of Jesus. And then… let yourself go there. The Lord really has something to say to you. Sit down with Mary, maybe on the other side of Jesus’ feet. Just listen. If you need a little something extra to help you listen, pick up the bible, or some other spiritual reading. The Lord visits your home, your life – set aside the time for being with him, for listening to him speak directly to your heart.

Find the balance.

Deacon Denny Duffell