M&Ms

M&M candies: who doesn’t like them? They melt in our mouths, not in our hands, so the tagline goes.  M&M’s remind us of Martha and Mary who are the M&M sisters in today’s Gospel.  Luke shows us through these two sisters what I call the red M&M way and the green M&M way.  

The Red way of Martha involves passion, fire, and leadership.  Martha serves.  She represents those who are passionate about charity and with fire in their hearts serve and lead others to do the same.  She is about feeding, welcoming, clothing, healing, and caring for people.

On the other hand, the Green way of Mary is about listening carefully to what Jesus says. It’s about being devoted to him through prayer and worship and following him by loving God with all our hearts, being, strength, and minds.

So, whose way is better: Martha or Mary’s?  Luke tells us Mary because Jesus says – according to Luke – Mary has chosen the better part – like a part or role in a stage play.  She’s Luke’s star of the show.

Why does Luke make Mary his leading lady?  Some Catholic scholars have said Luke puts his own words in Jesus’ mouth to sway public opinion of Luke’s day – the end of the first century. Women were more visible and involved in public ministries.  They were becoming influential leaders.  Men might not have wanted or appreciated women taking on important leadership roles.  Leadership was for men.  Most men of Luke’s world likely would have thought women belonged in the household with their focus on prayer and worship only, like Mary in our Gospel story.

Then again perhaps the message is for all of us to slow down and stop being so anxious and worried.  It’s best for us to stop being a slave to our duties.  We should put on our brakes and then listen to and focus on Jesus and what he preached.  We’ll never know what Luke meant or what Jesus said about Martha and Mary. Frankly, it doesn’t really matter.  It’s not a question of picking one way or the other.  We need to embrace both ways.  

What happens when we blend the color red with green?  Our children know. We get brown – the Brown way of Jesus.  Brown is the color of soil representing nature and the earth – the earth on which he preached and on which he walked and traveled.  It represents humility and devotion, thus the color of monk’s robes in the Bible. It’s the color of the cross on which Jesus died. Brown represents warmth, peace, and healing. That’s Jesus in a nutshell – or candy-shell.

This red-green mix, this brown way of Jesus – warmth, peace, and healing – should be the way of all Catholics.  We should not be separate bags of different colors clashing with each other over religious and political issues – although, unfortunately, we often do especially as red versus blue M&Ms.  That’s not the brown way.

Jesus’ way – a combination of the ways of Martha and Mary – is promoted and followed at Christ the King.  We are sure it’s the same at the many parishes of all of visitors.  Witness our ministry of Pastoral Care for the Sick and Homebound as well as that ministry’s Bereavement Support Group; Walking with Purpose; the Jericho Group; Women’s Club; Pro-life Committee; the King’s Corner blog with postings by Father Healey and our deacons; the St. Vincent DePaul Society with all its ministries helping the needy by providing food, clothing and assistance with rent, mortgages, utilities and other necessities of life. And, last, but not least, we have the Knights of Columbus highlighted by Father Healey in this week’s Pastor’s Pen.

There is much more reminding us of this story about footprints and the presence of God.  Once upon a time there was a monk living in the desert.  The desert around him and the sky above him were the floor and roof of his world.  One day he was asked to prove God’s existence.  The monk smiled and said, “I have a very simple way of knowing God is present. I spend hours herding and tending my sheep, goats, and donkeys. My animal’s footprints in the sand are my lifeline to them and make it possible for me to keep contact with them and to always know their whereabouts.

I also spend hours at night looking at the sky. I see twinkling stars, shooting and falling stars, and strange unexplained lights. This is the vast world of our infinite almighty God – a God who overlooks everything down here, a God who through the sun by day, the moon and stars at night, is always in contact with God’s children. The light, like God’s loving care, reaches right down to where each of us is. This is how I am aware of God’s presence. The stars, the moon and the sun are God’s footprints, and I know God’s whereabouts.

The point of this story is that we are the ones who leave footprints on behalf of God. People know God’s whereabouts because of what we do.  We enable God’s loving care to be felt through our touch, our smiles, and our love.  People are aware of God’s real presence through us and how we treat them.

With apologies to Luke, we can say it’s really not about Mary.  And it’s really not about Martha.  It’s all about us – as a community – praying and working together for God by traveling the way of Jesus and leaving behind all our footprints.

It’s about us being God’s M&Ms of many colors, but with something in common. The Word of God melts in our mouths, not in our hands which we extend and hold open to help those in need. That’s what makes all of us the “better part.” 

Deacon David Pierce