Love Languages and being an Ally

7-21-19

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We’re thick in the middle of wedding season. For all the weddings I have officiated, one of the things I ask the couple to do is to take an inventory of their Love Languages. It’s pretty much what it sounds like – similarly to having a primary language we speak in everyday conversations - we all have a “language” that makes us feel most loved. According to author GaryChapman, there are 5 of these “love languages,” - Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch. According to Gary, we all have a primary love language, and the rest fall in line in order of importance.  

In relationships, it helps to understand that we happen to be most fluent in “speaking” our own love language, but our spouse might feel loved in different ways than feel natural to us. Ironically, Gary writes, most couples do not share the same #1 love language. But with practice, just as you can learn another language, and keep your spouses “love tank” – Gary’s term – full.

While his original book is from the perspective of heterosexual married couples, this applies to all of us in all our relationships – friends, co-coworkers, and our own families – parents and siblings.

In this encounter between Jesus, Martha, and Mary, we can interpret these  miscommunications through the lens of Love Language and see it play out in spades, both between the two sisters and between the sisters and Jesus.

We hear about Mary and Martha from Luke’s perspective, and there is no mention of a brother named Lazarus, who shows up in John’s Gospel a lot. Here, it’s just the women, and Luke very clearly says is MARTHA’S house. She may not be that well of – no slaves for hospitality and food prep like Abraham, but she holds her own, along with her sister Mary.

We might be able to say that Mary’s love language is Quality Time –giving Jesus her undivided attention to show her love to him – since she sat at his feet and listened to him so attentively. She sat as his feet in the way that a student would sit at the feet of a Rabbi who he was studying under. I said “he” as pronoun just there very deliberately. The role of a student was not a typical one for women at the time – normal the husband would study under the Rabbi, hoping to become one himself, and his wife would stay home and do all the domestic chores to support him. As an unmarried woman with no brothers (at least according to Luke), Mary taking on the position of student – disciple – would have been shocking. But perhaps Mary understood the truth that, with Jesus presence, the world is turned upside down, the result is that those marginalized and having low or no status – such as an unmarried woman such as herself - do not need to be defined by socially determined roles.

If Martha had taken the Love Languages quiz, I’m guessing she would REALLY rank high in “Acts of Service.” As a model of extreme hospitality, Martha was caught up doing so many tasks for Jesus, to show how much she loved and appreciated him – too much really, because, she got exasperated, especially with Mary. Mary and Martha were speaking different languages. Perhaps Martha thought that the most appropriate way to show love to Jesus in that moment was to make sure that he had a delicious and hot dinner ready for him after a long day. Perhaps she resented the way Mary showed her love and didn’t understand that Mary was showing her love to Jesus in her own way… and perhaps Martha was not feeling loved by Mary because of the “Language barrier.”

Of course, this story isn’t really about Love languages. It’s also not a story about “Women’s discipleship.” (Because we would never say a story about Peter and John were about “Men’s discipleship!”) It’s also not about Contemplative Faith practices being “Better” than active or service-oriented faith practices. There is not a Better or Best Way to be a disciple of Jesus. And it’s not a story that pits sister against sister, though it has long been interpreted in that light – with Mary the “Winner” and Martha the “loser.”

Just as there is no “best” Love Language, discipleship with Jesus is not a zero-sum game. Both sisters are showing us very admirable qualities in a follower of Jesus – a spirit of hospitality, and the desire and eagerness to learn. But BOTH sisters make mistakes we can learn from as well. Where Martha trips up is not in her “nagging,” but two other ways – first, Martha triangulation. She roped Jesus into her conflict with her sister instead of talking to Mary herself.  Why didn’t Martha just ask Mary herself?

Second, Martha is caught in the patriarchy and misses Jesus’ message - her allows social assumptions to take precedence of the urgency of the kingdom that’s sitting right in front of her. As the Reverend Dr. Elizabeth Quick wrote in a devotional called, “We Pray With Her,”: “It’s always easier to remain in our predetermined, comfortable, status-quo safe places rather than hit the road with Jesus; but only in following him can we truly find the better part.” In fact, a better translation of the original language – talking of fluency and language again – is “Mary has chosen a GOOD” – not BETTER – “part.”

But what if Mary isn’t the “hero” in this story? What if there is something big about Jesus’ message that Mary missed as well? Mary may have chosen the patriarchy-smashing role of a student, disregarding the structures that her culture has placed on her based on her gender and status. And that will not be taken away from her in God’s Kingdom, the Jesus Regime. However… Mary was not a good ally to her sister Martha. Instead of inviting Martha to join her in her claim at the feet of Jesus… Mary seemed to stand by, just as other men have done before her, and allowed her poor sister to bear the brunt of the rigid roles of women all by herself.

Mary missed the opportunity to put her learning into action. Mary did not use her new-found privilege as a student of Jesus to widen the circle. And so, Jesus had to step in for poor Martha. Jesus stepped in, not to tell Martha to be more like Mary…. But to do what Mary should have done: invite Martha into the circle. Jesus calls her by name and tells her, you can be a disciple too.

May we learn from the mistakes of both Martha AND Mary. How often do we say, “Jesus, don’t you care that the we have been left alone without resources to do all the work by ourselves? We have to worry about the roof and declining membership and budget deficits and differed maintenance and having an excellent hospitality plan! Tell the synod… the ELCA… SOMEBODY to help us!”

TO which Jesus might reply: “FOG, FOG, you are worried and distracted by many things. There is need of only one thing.”

And what IS that ONE THING? Make room at Jesus’s feet. Like Mary failed to do.

As followers of Jesus, like Mary AND Martha, we each have different gifts and strength to offer. But when we sit at the feet of Jesus, we all hear the same message: We are ALL beloved Children of God… we are part of the same Family of God… And there is a place for YOU here… at the feet of Jesus. But there is also a place HERE for all the other beloved Children of God as well. But how are people going to know this unless we tell them…. like Jesus, call them by name, and invite them to sit with us at the feet of the ultimate host, our Lord and Savior Jesus.

Learning to speak Jesus’ language of Love is hard… we don’t need a book or a quiz to tell us that…. but it gets better with practice, like learning and perfecting any important skill. Love is work, and it doesn’t always feel comfortable or easy.

Perhaps, instead of “having a Mary heart in a Martha word,” we have both a Mary AND Martha heart in a divided and scary world. We can learn how to speak love to this world from both Mary and Martha. They both broke social norms, and perused justice in different ways, and in OUR different ways, we can join them. And heaven knows, there is no times to lose. Amen.