Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
July 22, 2007

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

We all know the term “conventional wisdom,” right? It’s the knowledge of what’s true and of what’s right that we all share without even thinking about it. It’s the basic assumptions about life that we don’t so much intentionally learn as we acquire as though by osmosis out of the air we breathe as we grow up. We don’t often question our conventional wisdom. Indeed, it rarely occurs to us that there is anything about it to question; and we think people who do are eccentric at best and dangerously deranged at worst. Yet it is also true that the greatest minds humanity has ever produced have always questioned the conventional wisdom of their day. Albert Einstein, for example, had an especially dim view of conventional wisdom, or of what he called common sense, which is essentially the same thing. He once said that “common sense is the deposit of prejudice laid down before the age of eighteen.” In any field of human endeavor progress comes only when someone has the creativity and the courage to look at the common sense, at the conventional wisdom, of her day and say “maybe not.” In Einstein’s day conventional wisdom said the universe consists of three spatial dimensions and that matter and energy are different things. It still seems that way to us, doesn’t it? Einstein said not so fast. In fact the universe is a space-time continuum, whatever that is, and E=mc2, that is, that energy and matter are identical. The world hasn’t been the same since.

And here’s one thing about Jesus that we often miss. He too questioned just about everything about the conventional wisdom of his day and stood it on its head. The reason we miss this crucial fact about Jesus is that we don’t know what the conventional wisdom of his day was. When we learn what it was we come to realize just how radically Jesus overturned it. One place where we see him doing that is in our Gospel lesson this morning, the story of Jesus’ visit to the home of the sisters Mary and Martha.

That story is, I suppose, a fairly obvious example of overturning of the conventional wisdom of Jesus’ day. We all know, to one extent or another, that the culture in which Jesus lived was radically patriarchal. Women were essentially the property first of their fathers and then of their husbands. With regard to the story of Mary and Martha it is particularly important to note that in that culture women did not study. Women did not learn anything much beyond the domestic arts. They certainly did not study Holy Scripture, and they definitely did not study as the disciples of great rabbis and teachers like Jesus. Yet in this story, when Martha—who is fulfilling the traditional domestic role her culture assigned to her—complains to Jesus about her sister Mary forsaking that role and assuming the supposedly male role of student and disciple, sitting and learning at the Master’s feet, Jesus affirms Mary not Martha. He rejects the conventional wisdom that said that Martha was right, that Mary should have been out in the kitchen doing her domestic duty. He affirms Mary’s rebellion against the gender role her culture assigned her—for her actions are nothing less than a rebellion—and approved her acting directly contrary to the conventional wisdom of her day.

Which is all very well and good, but what does it mean for us? We might be tempted to read this story very narrowly. We might say: Sure, it’s alright for a woman to study the sayings of Jesus. Everybody should study the sayings of Jesus. But that’s a good long way from saying that Jesus overturned virtually the entire conventional wisdom of his day. True, it is a long way from that; but I don’t think Luke, the author of the story, wanted us to read it that narrowly; and I don’t’ think that’s how he understood Jesus. Bear with me now for a time while I take you through an analysis that I believe shows that this narrow reading is not what Luke—or Jesus—intended.

If you look closely at how the Gospels are written, you can see that they contain very many diverse literary constructs, ways that the stories are told and linked together, that act as aids to understanding and interpreting the stories. The little tale of Mary and Martha is a good example. It is part—the last part, actually—of one such construct. That construct begins at Luke 10:21, some 21 verses before the story of Mary and Martha begins. Before that verse Luke is talking about a mission trip of Jesus’ disciples. At 10:21 the subject abruptly changes, which is a clue that you may be entering a new literary construct. In verses 21 through 23 Luke recounts Jesus saying that the Gospel has been hidden from those the world considers wise and intelligent, from prophets and from kings, and has been revealed to infants and to Jesus’ disciples, simple ordinary people of no worldly account or wisdom. Next comes the Parable of the Good Samaritan that we all know and that we talked about last week. After that great parable comes this morning’s story of Mary and Martha. After that story Luke changes the subject again, this time to how we are to pray, thereby indicating the end of the literary construct we are considering.

It may not be immediately apparent, but all three parts of this construct share a common theme, namely, that in each of them Jesus rejects the conventional wisdom of his day. In the first part he rejects the conventional wisdom that kings, prophets, and those whom the world considers wise and intelligent are the ones through whom God reveals God’s will. No, he says. God reveals the Gospel through people the world considers of no account—infants, fishermen, tax collectors, and the like. Then in the Parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus rejects a whole bunch of the conventional wisdom of his day. When he condemns the action of the priest and the Levite who pass by the beaten man he rejects the conventional wisdom that what God wants from us is ritual purity and strict adherence to religious laws, things those two men stand for and which explain why they passed by and did not help. In approving the care the Samaritan gave the beaten man he says God desires compassion not purity, a complete overturning of the conventional wisdom of his day. He also overturned the conventional wisdom that said that Samaritans are scum. He said that anyone who acts with compassion is a child of God. Then comes the story Mary and Martha with its overturning of the conventional wisdom about gender roles that we have already noted.

When we take these three passages as a unit, as I am sure Luke intended us to do, we see that they constitute a barrage broadside into the conventional wisdom of Jesus’ day. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is the most radical part of it, and the two passages that bracket it tell us that we are indeed to read it precisely as a rejection of that time’s conventional wisdom. So we can’t get away with reading Mary and Martha narrowly. That story is part of a broader attack not just on the conventional wisdom about gender roles but on virtually the entire body of conventional wisdom with which Jesus lived.

And you may be saying: So what? What does Jesus overturning the conventional wisdom of his day have to do with us? That conventional wisdom isn’t our conventional wisdom. Well, if that’s what you’re saying, ask yourself please: Would Jesus have let our conventional wisdom off any easier than he did the conventional wisdom of his time? Let’s take a look at some of the conventional wisdom of our time and consider how Jesus would react to it.

The conventional wisdom among us says that national security comes through force, through beating enemies on the battle field. Jesus says security comes through love and through creative, assertive nonviolent resistance to evil. The conventional wisdom among us says that our allegiance is primarily to our nation. Jesus says our allegiance is exclusively to God. The conventional wisdom among us says that our primary moral responsibility is to our immediate family and that we are doing well if we care for them alone. Jesus says whoever knows the will of God and does it is our family and that we are to care for all who are in need. The conventional wisdom among us says that we are not our brothers’ or our sisters’ keeper, that radical individualism is a good thing, and that individual wants are more important than the common good but if pursued freely will somehow miraculously lead to the common good. Jesus says love your neighbor as yourself and models for us life in community and life lived for others. The conventional wisdom among us says that money can buy happiness and security. Jesus says do not store up for yourself treasures upon the earth but store up for yourself treasures in heaven.

And we thought we knew all of these conventional things. We’re surrounded by them every day. Some of them even get passed off as Christian, as when one of the largest institutions in the country calling itself Christian goes by the name Focus on the Family and Christianity in the public sphere gets reduced to so-called family values. Or when the Southern Baptist Convention (mercifully alone among American Christian denominations) endorses President Bush’s war in Iraq as a just war. We all learned these things, at least all of us who grew up in this country did. Jesus, however, accepts our conventional wisdom no more than he did the conventional wisdom of his day. His repeated refrain “you have heard that it was said, but I say to you” in the Gospel of Matthew is talking specifically about passages from Hebrew Scripture, but it applies just as well to American conventional wisdom. We thought we knew. We didn’t. We knew conventional wisdom, we did not know God’s wisdom. Jesus teaches us God’s wisdom. Will we listen? Will we follow? Amen.

And We Thought We Knew