Image: Diego Velázquez, ‘Christ in the house of Mary and Martha’ (1618, London, National Gallery).
In the course of her travels among her newly reformed convents, Teresa of Avila often found the nuns unwilling to undertake joyfully the humbler tasks in convent life, such as working in the kitchen. Her classic admonition, recorded in her autobiography (Vida, ch. XXII) invokes both Mary and Martha in a most original and telling context: “The first thing I would say is that it is a little lack of humility to desire to raise one’s soul to heaven before the Lord raises it … to desire to be Mary before one has laboured with Martha.”
It is Teresa’s characteristic insistence on humility and obedience that Velázquez evokes in the older woman admonishing the younger. For both Teresa and Velázquez the ultimate point of the Mary-and-Martha allusion was essentially encouraging, as it recalls another, far more famous saying of Teresa from her Book of the Foundations (Ch. V):
“But my daughters, good heavens! Do not be disconsolate when obedience leads you to be concerned with external, worldly matters; understand that, if your task is in the kitchen, the Lord walks among the pots and pans, helping you in all things spiritual and temporal.”
‘A fire that divides …’
Andrew Collis
Ordinary Sunday 20, Year C
Luke 12:49-56
Last week’s gospel presented the paradox of divine theft – the Good Thief steals from us what hinders our becoming fully human, our flourishing. The Good Thief “steals our hearts away”, that is, keeps us in love.
This week’s gospel presents the paradox of divine fire – both divisive and curative. As poetic device it enables the drawing of fine and far-reaching distinctions.
The fire Jesus brings – in his preaching and life; story and society – brings division. It brings division into the lives of those who accept the Beloved and the promises of Love’s reign.
Sooner or later, says Jesus, you’ll have to decide. There’s a fire that divides …
This fire ignites passion – questions, conversations. This fire enlightens … highlights differences of opinion, conflicting points of view (within and among us).
This fire consumes the chaff of self-righteousness/superiority … our delusions of mastery. This fire transmutes …
“From its very first days the challenge of the Christian vocation has been vigorous, winning acceptance only from those courageous enough to challenge the established ways of life and religion” (Francis J. Moloney).
Sooner or later, says Jesus, you’ll have to decide. There’s a fire that divides …
A fire that divides …
Church as intimate connection, persistent witness (salt, light and yeast), corporeal presence … from church as brand, as bland corporation …
“Much of what we do and who we are is masked, miserly and noisy” (Alison Bleyerveen).
Sooner or later, says Jesus, you’ll have to decide. There’s a fire that divides …
A fire that divides …
Peace with justice (the thriving vineyard and vine Isaiah imagines) … from peace and quiet (an indifference to greed and violence Isaiah likens to rotten grapes) …
Sooner or later, says Jesus, you’ll have to decide. There’s a fire that divides …
A fire that divides …
Eco-theology … from imperial/colonial ideology …
Embodied faith, bold and creative … from romantic resignation (a piety willing to sacrifice the Earth and its creatures) …
“To transform the leap of life into a gait, absolutely to express the sublime in the pedestrian – that only the knight of faith can do – and that is the only miracle” (Johannes de Silentio).
Sooner or later, says Jesus, you’ll have to decide. There’s a fire that divides …
A fire that divides …
Commitment to God as good, as possibility for good in the world, in all of us and in all things … from allegiance to God as great, God as “superintendent of the universe” (Richard Kearney).
Devotion to God in the last, lost and little … from association with a God of the wealthy elite …
Christianity … from mere Christendom …
Wisdom (wherever she may be found) … from confessional bigotry and chauvinism …
Sooner or later, says Jesus, you’ll have to decide … there’s a fire that divides …
A fire that divides …
A sense of the sacred in the ordinary – entre los pucheros anda Dios (“God among the pots and pans” [Santa Teresa de Ávila]) … from spiritual separatism, masochism and worse …
It’s a difficult teaching … this playing with fire …
Like the blazing fire on Mount Horeb/Sinai (Exodus 3:1ff.), like pentecostal flames …
The good news has to do with holy fire … healing smoke from the fire pit in the courtyard of the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence (NCIE) — around which local Aboriginal leaders invited supporters (various statutory bodies, organisations, members and neighbours) to gather … around which smiling elders pulled blankets across their knees and called on younger ones to bring songs of encouragement … around which Tuesday’s announcement was made that the NCIE’s doors would remain open … that all services would continue until a sustainable model of funding is achieved.
Sooner or later, says Jesus, you’ll have to decide … there’s a fire that divides …
A fire that divides … and delights. Amen.
