Being employed in silent prayer
Luke 10:38-42
Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha
welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet
listening to him speak. Martha, burdened
with much serving, came to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister
has left me by myself to do the serving?
Tell her to help me.” The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha,
you are anxious and worried about many things.
There is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”
What is the toughest, hardest job
in the world? There was a T.V. show
called “Dirty Jobs” that highlighted the hardest occupations. In one episode Mike Rowe, the start of the
show, actually works as a shark suit tester, which required him to jump into
the water during a shark feeding frenzy to see if the suit worked. Jobs like that always make me wonder: how
much do you pay a guy to do that, and, what must his health insurance costs
be?? Now, that’s a pretty tough and
dirty job, but there’s one even harder.
Have you seen or heard about the movie called, “Into Great
Silence”? It’s a documentary on the life of Carthusian monks living in the
French Alps. The producer, Philip
Groning, asked the monks if he could film their life in 1984. Three years later they replied by letter
saying, “We will need some time to think about this.” Then, thirteen years later they wrote back
saying, “We’ve prayed about this, and you are welcome to do the
documentary.” Philip Groning is a
patient man. Most people can’t watch
that movie for more than 15 minutes because it’s all silence, no dialogue, no
car chases, no steamy sex, and no nuclear explosions. The job of silent praying is so hard, not
even Mike Rowe could handle it.
In the gospel
today, we see two tough jobs contrasted in the lives of Martha and Mary. Martha is like Mike Rowe, who’s doing the
dirty job of cleaning the dirty dishes.
Her focus is physical, manual labor.
It’s hard work and she asks Jesus to tell her sister to help her. Why?
Well, because Mary’s not doing anything but sitting at Jesus feet like a
Carthusian monk. She needs to get up and so some real work! But Jesus replies, “Mary has chosen the
better part,” meaning Mary is employed in an even harder job, one that you,
Martha, might not last 15 minutes doing.
You see, the hardest jobs do not require physical or intellectual or
emotional exertion, but rather a spiritual effort, and very few can handle it.
Folks, we
all do tough jobs, whether we work construction, or save lives in a hospital,
or provide energy to run the world or change diapers as a
stay-at-home-mom. Priests, on the other
hand, have the easiest job in the world because we only work one day a
week! Kind of makes you wonder why more
men don’t become priest, doesn’t it?
(Hint: this job's not so easy.)
But there is an even harder job we must all do, and that is pray. Like Mary and the Carthusians, we must enter
into “the great silence” and try to pray seriously. But what happens more often than not? We can’t handle it for more than a couple of
minutes, and we chicken out. I am
convinced that people don’t avoid prayer because it’s too easy; we avoid it because
it’s too hard. Today, try to spend 5,
10, 15 minutes in silent contemplation at the feet of Jesus. You may find yourself wishing you were
testing a shark suit instead.
Praised be
Jesus Christ!
No comments:
Post a Comment