Martha and Mary

Christ in the home of Martha and Mary, Johannes Vermeer, 1654-5

Address given at Templederry Church on 19/7/25 and St Mary's Nenagh on 20/7/25, the 5th Sunday after Trinity

What a contrast there is between today’s readings (Amos 8:1-12, and Luke 10:38-42)

In the 1^st reading, Amos pronounces doom on the people of Israel, because they have done evil in God’s sight. But notice that Psalm 52 reassures those who are righteous that they will be spared that doom.

But today I shall leave all that doom on one side. Instead I’m going to focus on the 2^nd reading from Luke, in which Jesus responds with sensitivity and compassion to Martha’s tiff with her sister Mary.

When Jesus visited his friends Martha & Mary, he walked into the middle of a family row.

I’m sure we’ve all had that kind of experience some time or another, to be a guest in front of whom the hosts quarrel. How embarrassing!

As Jesus was talking, Mary sat at his feet as the custom was then, listening to Jesus. Martha, meanwhile, was making herself busy, tidying and preparing refreshments – a banquet perhaps, for their special guest. I imagine that Martha must have been fuming inside for quite a while - perhaps long before Jesus’s arrival - feeling that Mary was not pulling her weight about the house. Now here was Martha, dashing around like a mad thing, while her sister Mary just sat and listened with rapt attention to Jesus’s every word.

Finally Martha’s self-control snapped. She rushed in to Jesus and burst out, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ She deliberately involved Jesus, their guest, in their family row. She didn’t have to. She could have come in and had a quiet, private word with Mary to ask for help, but in her anger she tried to show her sister up in front of Jesus. How embarrassing it must have been for Jesus.

Jesus answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’

It was a very mild rebuke. Jesus recognised that it was Martha’s worry and distraction that was the cause of her rudeness. But it was not for him to take Martha’s side in her row with Mary. He surely realised that what Mary needed at that moment was to listen to his words - her ‘better part, which will not be taken away from her’. And perhaps that is what Martha needed too.

‘There is need of only one thing’, Jesus tells Martha. I wonder what Jesus meant by this.

Was it that he didn’t want a big fuss made of him? No big dinner - just a single, simple dish would be quite enough. Well, possibly – but there’s more to it than that, I feel sure.

Many Christians, particularly from contemplative or monastic traditions, have interpreted the one thing needed as to listen to Jesus’s words, as Mary chose to do. Does this suggest that those who work hard at practical tasks of service like Martha have chosen a lesser part? I don’t think this is what Jesus meant at all. Service to others was very important to Jesus - we need only remember the example of service Jesus gave to his disciples by washing their feet in John’s version of the Last Supper.

The truth is, surely, that God has not made everyone alike. We are all individuals. Some are dynamos of activity who can spend their lives in service to God and other people, while others are naturally quiet and more suited to a contemplative life. God needs his Marys, and his Marthas too. And most of us alternate between these two poles at different times – when service becomes too stressful, we need to take time out, for recreation, to re-create ourselves, to listen to Jesus, so that we may return again refreshed to serve.

I think the one thing needed must be something else. I wonder if it could be this - that Martha and Mary should love one another, whatever their petty differences, just as Jesus loved them both – as in the ‘new commandment’ which Jesus gave to his disciples, again in John’s version of the Last Supper.

I am blessed to have a Martha at home – that is the name my wife Marty was given at her baptism.

I think she must be close to sainthood to put up with me. She spends so much more time than me looking after the house, while I lock myself away in my office struggling to understand Jesus’s words in order to preach about them. I don’t think I am very good at noticing when this starts to irritate her, and I fear I often fail to recognise her needs for time out.

Martha’s problem, I believe, was not too much service, but that she became ‘worried and distracted by many things’, to use Jesus’s words. I think this is often a problem for people who give their lives in service. They may feel unable to admit to themselves when they need to take a break, and those around them may fail to notice their rising stress-levels. When the stress becomes too much, something snaps and they can break down in anger, or depression, or even physical illness.

We should pray for those who minister and care for others, whether in their homes, or in hospitals and nursing homes, or social services and other caring professions, that the Holy Spirit may give them the strength, not only to serve, but to know when to take a break, or to ask for help when they need it. We should cut them some slack, and cultivate in ourselves the sensitivity Jesus showed to Martha and Mary. And we should show them our love, as Jesus loves us and shows us his love.

I shall finish with a prayer, a Kitchen Prayer, in recognition of all the Marthas in our lives. It was written by a retired schoolteacher, Klara Carlotta Munkres from Missouri, USA, and it goes like this.

Lord of all pots and pans and things, since I've no time to be
A saint by doing lovely things or watching late with thee,
Or dreaming in the twilight or storming heaven's gates.
Make me a saint by getting meals or washing up the plates.

Although I must have Martha's hands, I too have Mary's mind.
And when I black the boots and shoes, thy sandals, Lord, I find.
I think of how they trod the earth when e’er I scrub the floor.
Accept this meditation, Lord, I haven't time for more.

Warm all the kitchen with thy love, and light it with thy peace,
Forgive me all my worrying and make all grumbling cease.
Thou who didst love to give us food in room or by the sea,
Accept this service that I do - I do it unto thee.

Amen.

God seeks out our whole self

Reflection at Morning Worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 8th Juky 2025

In that reading (Romans 12:1-8), St Paul appeals to brothers and sisters in Christ to offer their whole selves to God. The old Greek word translated here as ‘appeal’ – ‘parakalo’ – is still used in modern Greek to mean ‘I beg you’, or simply ‘please’, as those of us who have enjoyed holidays in Greece will know.

Paul is speaking directly to those in Rome in his time, but also I believe to Christ’s disciples in our time, and in all times. His appeal to them - and to us - is twofold:

1.     ‘Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God’. Most people today cringe at that word sacrifice, I think. It reeks of the blood and guts of animal sacrifice, which we rightly reject as barbarous, though in Paul’s day it was just a normal part of life. Don’t let the word sacrifice put you off, because Paul makes clear that what he is talking is a spiritual sacrifice. It is worshipping God, the source of our being who gives us life, which is just what we are doing today.

2.     ‘Be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good acceptable and perfect’. It is our whole self that God wants of us, both body and mind. Being holy, turning up to church and worshiping God, is not enough. We must also do our very best to understand what God’s will is for us, and act on it, in order to be acceptable to God.

It is when our whole self, body and mind, is accepted by God our loving father, that we will truly flourish as his beloved children.

Paul then goes on to warn his readers, and you and me, against individual pride. We must not think too highly of ourselves - none of us is any better than any other. Paul uses the metaphor of the human body, as he often does.

Just as a human body is made up of different organs, with different functions, ‘so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another’. We are not all the same, we are individuals. God has graced us with different gifts, and God needs each of our gifts if Christ’s body, those of all traditions who confess his name, is to function as it should. Paul gives several examples of things needed by Christ’s body: prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading, compassion. And there are so many more, aren’t there, from cleaning and flower arranging, through music and art, to buildings maintenance and financial management. All these tasks need specific gifts, not all given to any single person, but distributed among us.

Discernment is the word we use for perceiving God’s will. Discernment is a corporate, not a private thing, because God has made us to be social beings. When we seek to discern what God’s will is for ourself as an individual, it is not just about any sense of calling we might feel personally. We need to recognise and respect the gifts of other people, as well as our own. And we need the God-given wisdom of others around us to understand the nature of God’s call to us as individuals.

Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you

Reflection at Morning Worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 17th June 2025

‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’, says Jesus in today’s reading (Matthew 5:43-48). It is part of Matthew’s collection of the sayings of Jesus we call the ‘Sermon on the Mount’.

It is relatively easy to love our neighbours, people like us, people who like us, people to whom we can turn for help in times of trouble. But every one of us finds it difficult to love an enemy, someone who has harmed us in some way, or seeks to do so, whatever the reason.

It is important to understand what ‘love’ means here. In Greek, it is the word agape, which means a deep concern for the good of the other that reaches out, even if it receives nothing in return. It is not sexual, physical love (eros), nor is it the mutual love of intimate friendship, nor that between marriage partners (philia).

Our God is love in this ‘agape’ sense. He loves us, and desires what is good for us, whether we are good or bad. As Jesus puts it, ‘he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous’. Jesus is teaching us that we can only be good human beings, can only be ‘children of our Father in heaven’, if we imitate God’s love, and that includes loving our enemies.

And is it so unreasonable to love, to care for, to have genuine concern for our enemies, and pray for them? My enemy may hate me, but what do I gain from hating my enemy back? Anyone who hates suffers mentally, doing more damage to himself or herself, than to the supposed enemy. And if my enemy harms me, they harm themselves as well. If I have a true Christian spirit, I will reach out in compassion to that person. I will want that person to be healed, healed of their hatred, healed of their anger, and to learn how to love. Surely it is much better, and makes more sense, to pray for that person than to hate them back - to bring about healing and reconciliation, rather than deepen the wound on both sides.

What Jesus is asking us to do is not something impossible or unnatural. It is the only thing that can bring peace to me and hopefully, in time, to the person who is hostile to me. As we proclaimed earlier, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God’. (Matthew 5:9)

Jesus tells us today, ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’. This is an ideal that we can only reach for with the help of the Holy Spirit. But it is a call to do our utmost to imitate God in extending our goodwill impartially and unconditionally to every single person. This is not just a commandment. When we reflect on it, it is simply common sense, and it is as much in our own interest as it benefits others.

 

Travelling together on pilgrimage

Article published in the June issue of Grapevine, the parish newsletter of the Nenagh Union of Parishes

On Saturday 24^th May I went on a day-long pilgrimage around ancient holy sites in East Galway. This was organised by Ms Valerie Raitt, a Pioneer Minister working to develop ‘spiritual tourism’, or pilgrimage, in our diocese, something Bishop Michael is keen to promote. Around 40 of us travelled by bus around the different sites, where Dr Christy Cunniffe, an expert on Irish medieval church architecture, expertly interpreted the buildings we visited. Despite the somewhat wet day, the rain held off for the most part, and those of us who participated greatly enjoyed the day.

Holy Trinity Aughrim, with Archdeacon John Godfrey

We began at Aughrim Church, where Archdeacon John Godfrey welcomed us and led us around the community climate action park, once his historic glebe, and the site of an ancient monastery founded by St Connell c. 500, of which no trace now remains above ground. It is an inspiring place with paths mown through a flowering meadow and a walled garden, maintained by local people, with the help of school children who learn about planting, the cycles of nature, biodiversity, and sustainable living. Here, and at each of our stops, Archdeacon John shared verses from the Psalms to reflect upon as we walked, a lovely practice of the early Irish church.

Kilconnell Franciscan Friary

Pilgrims in the choir at Kilconnell

From there we travelled to visit the C15th Kilconnell Franciscan Friary, with its high tower visible from miles around. The ruins are in a near perfect state of preservation – it would not be hard to put a new roof on and bring it back into use. The curvilinear tracery of the east window, and a magnificent tomb with statues of saints are particularly notable. We then repaired to Broderick’s Bar for tea and sandwiches.

Clontuskert Abbey curvilinear tracery

Clontuskert Abbey doorway

The next stop was Clontuskert Abbey, a C12th Augustinian Priory, with its magnificent doorway adorned with complex iconography, expertly interpreted for us by Christy, including a mermaid, similar to another in Clonfert Cathedral.

Dr Christy Cunniffe explains the iconography of the great door of Clonfert Cathedral

We then made our way to Clonfert, where we stopped for tea, provided by the ladies of the RC parish, and contemplated a rare medieval painted wooden statue of the Madonna and Child in the RC church. After that we went on to C12th Clonfert Cathedral, with its quite extraordinary Hiberno-Romanesque doorway. It became a significant pilgrimage destination in the Middle Ages, and the doorway was probably built as a shrine to St Brendan the Navigator, who founded the monastery and is buried there. After Christy guided us around the building, we sang a hymn about Brendan composed by the Rector Dr John McGinty, we prayed St Brendan’s Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer, and we finished with a group photo.

The next event organised by Valerie Raitt is a pilgrim walk on Slea Head, Dingle Peninsular on Midsummer’s Day, Saturday 21^st June at a cost of €40. It sounds fascinating if your legs are good. You can find out more at tlk.ie/spiritualtourism. If you’re interested, early booking is advisable.

We may not have such magnificent medieval churches in our Nenagh Union of parishes, but alongside our precious parish churches, there are a host of interesting medieval ruined churches and holy wells. I hope we can work with Valerie Raitt to find ways to enable visitors and pilgrims to hear the stories each of them have to tell.

Joc Sanders

27^th May 2025

Paul's advice to Ephesians - and to us

St Paul writing, from an early IXth Century manuscript
in the Abbey of St Gallen, Switzerland 

Reflection at Morning Worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 13th May 2025

The first three and a half chapters of Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians are deeply theological, about the relationship between God – as Father, Son and Holy Spirit – and human beings – both individually and together as the Church.

But in today’s reading (Ephesians 4:17-32), Paul moves beyond theology to look at its ethical implications. That is, how the Ephesian Christians should behave to each other and to their neighbours. He insists that their Christian faith must make a difference to how they live. Now, Paul tells them ‘Put away your former way of life, your old self … and clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness’. And Paul continues with very specific advice about how Christians should behave:

You must speak the truth to your neighbours, because you are all members of one community. By neighbours, I am sure Paul means everyone in the community, not just those who are Christians.

If someone angers you, you must seek to make it up. Anger is not wrong in itself – remember, Jesus often showed righteous anger, for instance when driving the money-changers from the Temple. But if you let anger fester – if, in Paul’s words, you ‘let the sun go down on your anger’– you allow evil a way into your lives – you ‘make room for the devil’.

You must be honest in all your dealings – you should work for what you get, not steal it. And why? So that you have something to share with those in need. Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor – but this is not the Christian way: you must work, so that you have a surplus to give away to those who need help.

You must avoid speaking words intended to hurt others rather than help them. And, in this time of fake news, one might add, you must weigh up carefully what you hear, to avoid being deceived into doing what is wrong.

So, says Paul summarising, ‘Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you’.

Paul is addressing the Ephesian Christians of his own time. But his message is just as relevant to Christians in every time and place, and that means to you and me. We must:

• Speak the truth
• Not let disputes fester
• Be honest in all things with everybody
• Be generous to the needy
• Avoid hurtful speech, our own and others’

Let us all take Paul’s advice to the Ephesians to heart.

 

The Good Shepherd and the sheep

 

Christ as the Good Shepherd …
a mosaic in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna
(Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Address given at St Mary's Nenagh and Killodiernan Church on Sunday 11th May 2025, the 4th of Easter

‘My sheep hear my voice’, says Jesus, ‘I know them and they follow me’.

Now, I don’t have much personal experience of sheep, but one day as a child I helped my Grandfather move a flock to fresh grazing. It wasn’t easy – the sheep took every opportunity to get away through gaps and over ditches as we drove them down the public road. We got them all there in the end, but I’ve never forgotten how wilful sheep can be.

One Sunday, years ago, I was preaching about the Good Shepherd, and I remembered this experience. I expressed surprise that in Jesus’s time shepherds could expect their sheep to follow them. Surely shepherds then must have had a different relationship with their sheep than they do today, I said. After the service a wise and experienced farmer came up to me and said slyly, ‘My sheep follow me’. I asked him how he did it, and he replied, ‘I walk in front of them with a bucket of sheep nuts – they’re intelligent animals, they recognise me, and they know very well what the bucket means’. I learned a good lesson about leadership that day.

John tells us in his Gospel that Jesus said, ‘I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.’ (John 10:14)

Those who heard him couldn’t agree whether Jesus was the long expected Messiah, or not. Some thought he must be mad, but others pointed to his miraculous deeds, such as causing the blind to see, which was just the kind of thing they expected of the Messiah.

Jesus returns to this shepherd theme in today’s reading from John’s Gospel (10:22-30). He is walking in the temple, sheltering in the portico of Solomon from the winter weather, during the festival of the Dedication. This festival commemorates the re-dedication of the temple 200 years before, after the great Jewish leader John Hyrcanus had defeated the Greek Seleucid king Antiochus IV, who had desecrated it. In Hebrew the festival is called Hanukkah, and Jews still celebrate it around Christmas time – this is why some people, particularly in America, prefer to say ‘Happy Holidays’ rather than ‘Happy Christmas’.

A crowd gathers around Jesus, asking him to put an end to the debate about his identity, ‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.’ Jesus knows that many in the crowd are looking for a Messiah who is a great military leader, someone like John Hyrcanus, someone who will liberate them from Roman oppression and re-establish the kingdom of Judah, someone who will make Judea great again. But this is not the kind of Messiah that Jesus knows himself to be. He surely also knows that many in the crowd hate him, and hope he will incriminate himself as a subversive, so they can get rid of him.

So Jesus does not answer directly. Instead he says, ‘I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.’ Jesus is pointing them to God, who he calls his Father. God works through me, says Jesus, I know those who believe in me, they listen to me and follow me. But you do not.

He continues, ‘I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand.’ Jesus is saying that he gives those who follow him eternal life, which is to know God, and he will keep them safe, because God has given them to him.

‘The Father and I are one’, he finishes. This last phrase infuriates the crowd. Jesus is claiming identity with God, which pious Jews see as blasphemy. In the following verses they get ready to stone him, but Jesus makes his escape and travels away from Judea, across the Jordan. His time has not yet come.

As Christians we believe Jesus when he says, ‘The Father and I are one’.

We believe that God the Father, God the Son, who is our Saviour Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Spirit are three persons but one God.

We should take great comfort from Jesus’s words. We are his sheep, and as our shepherd he gives us eternal life and will keep us safe – nothing and nobody can take us away from him, just so long as we believe in him. As the 23^rd Psalm appointed for today puts it:

‘Though I walk in the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;

for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.’

The truth is we are not alone. Jesus lives and Jesus is in and with us. And not just with you and me, here today, but with everyone who has ever believed, and will ever believe in him, from those first apostles and disciples like Peter and Tabitha we heard about in the 1st reading (Acts 9:36-43), down the centuries to us, and forward in time to Christians yet unborn. United with them, and led by Jesus our Good Shepherd, we make up the eternal church, militant here on earth and triumphant in heaven.

We should listen to the physicists and cosmologists, I think, and look beyond the four dimensions of space and time in which we live our little lives. Because God is not constrained by space and time. In God’s perspective all that is, and was, and is to come (Revelation 1:8), is simultaneously present. And that includes every one of Jesus’s disciples, dead, living, and yet unborn.

Whenever and wherever we live, we are all included in St John’s great vision of the eternal kingdom expressed in the poetry of today’s reading from Revelation (7:9-17). We all belong to that

‘great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white’.

Seen from God’s perspective, outside space and time, in a higher dimension, we stand with them

‘before the throne of God,

and worship him day and night within his temple,

and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter us.

We will hunger no more, and thirst no more;

the sun will not strike us,

nor any scorching heat;

for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be our shepherd,

and he will guide us to springs of the water of life,

and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.’

Jesus is not just our Good Shepherd, but also the Lamb who laid down his life to bring us to eternal life.

I shall finish in prayer with the Collect of the Word set for today:

Gracious God,
you sent Jesus, the good shepherd,
to gather us together:
may we not wander from his flock,
but follow wherever he leads us
listening for his voice and staying near him,
until we are safely in your fold,
to live with you for ever;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen

Walking in the light of the risen Christ

Christ in Glory, a tapestry by Graham Sutherland in Coventry Cathedral

A reflection given at Compline in Killodiernan Church on the Tuesday of Holy Week, 15th April 2025

The reading we’ve just heard from John’s Gospel (12:20-36) is about the glorification of the Son of Man. The dictionary definition of the word ‘glorification’ in the Cambridge Dictionary is ‘the act of praising and honouring God or a person’.

Jesus in the Gospels often uses the terms ‘Son of Man’ and ‘Son of God’ almost interchangeably, in ways that can be seen as referring to himself, without explicitly claiming to be divine. This is probably because observant Jews would see it as blasphemy, a capital offence for which he is not yet ready. He leaves it to others to make the connection.

Notice that in this reading he does not explicitly claim to be the Son of Man, only that ‘when (he) is lifted up from the earth, (he) will draw all people to himself’. Voices from the crowd listening to him clearly think that he is claiming to be the Son of Man. They ask, ‘How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?’.

In reply, Jesus does not answer their question directly. He says to them, ‘The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.’

Who or what is the light that Jesus is talking about? We know with hindsight that Jesus will soon be lifted up to die upon a cross. Is that when the light is no longer with his disciples? No, we believe that Jesus rose again from the dead on the first Easter day, and later the risen Christ promises he will never leave his disciples – that’s you and me. ‘Remember’, he tells us, ‘I am with you always, to the end of the age’ (Matthew 28:20). We are mortal, and our lives are short, but the light of Jesus, the glorified Son of Man, will remain with us to our dying moment. And he has left us his teaching to light the way for us, which he summarises as follows, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news’ (Mark 1:14).

We believe as Christians that Jesus, the Son of God, is also the glorified Son of Man, and as the risen Christ, we believe he is also the light that shows us the way.

‘While (we) have the light, (let us) believe in the light, so that (we) may become children of light’.