Resentment: the Habit We Can Lose

Luke 10: 38 – 42

 

(preached on July 21, 2019)

 

It’s a wonderful thing to have a sister.  Speaking personally, I’ve been blessed with a sister.  She’s three years older than me.  My sister was a big part of my life when I was growing up.  One of my earliest memories is standing in the downstairs hall of our house, where we had a mirror.  I remember watching my mother fix my sister’s hair for her first day of school.  I remember feeling sad because I didn’t want my sister to go off to school for the whole day.  I was the youngest, so I would be the only kid left at home.  That didn’t look like much fun.

 

For my entire childhood, my sister was out ahead of me, trying things and doing things I wasn’t old enough to do.  I watched and learned from her.  She helped me learn to ride a bicycle.  When we were teenagers, she shared beauty tips with me: like how to put on make up and style my hair.  Watching her go out with boys, I learned about the world of romance.  My sister was a friend who cried with me when my heart got broken and cheered for me when I hit a milestone, like getting my driver’s license, or taking a trip by plane, on my own, to visit a college in a faraway city.

 

My sister was more rebellious than I was.  I guess you could say she did me a big favor by, so to speak, breaking in our parents.  Our older brothers had done some of that, but my sister introduced my parents to the particular challenges of parenting a teenage girl.  She tested the limits a lot.  When it was my turn to try my wings, my parents were tired.  They weren’t so strict.  They were much more lenient with me.

 

It’s a wonderful thing to have a sister.  But, strange as this may sound, there’s also a downside to having a sister.  A sister knows you very well.  So she knows just which buttons to push to embarrass you.  A sister might know your secrets.  She might torment you by threatening to tell.  Or, if you’re insecure, you might compare yourself to her, and find yourself lacking.  Is she prettier, funnier, smarter than you?  Does she have more friends?  Does she get invited to more parties?

 

Of course, I don’t know first hand what it’s like for a man to have a brother.  But I suspect it’s the same in a lot of ways.  Brothers might compete to be the fastest runner, or the Boy Scout with the most merit badges.  Brothers might compete for the affection of their parents.  You may remember years ago, the comedy team of the Smothers Brothers.  A lot of what they said was funny because it was so close to the truth.  They put sibling rivalry in very simple terms with the line, “Mom always liked you better.”

 

We human beings have been comparing ourselves to each other since the days of Cain and Abel.  Anthropologists tell us that the tendency to compare ourselves to each other and compete is, so to speak, hard-wired into us.  We observe each other.  We imitate each other.  Often we see what another person has and we want it for ourselves.  Human development might have gone in a different direction – who knows?  But we humans today spend a lot of time comparing ourselves to each other.  We often want to possess what each other possesses.  We’re constantly wishing we had the looks, or the brains, or the friends we see others have.   As we wish for those things, unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for us to feel resentful toward each other.

 

In our gospel passage for today, from the gospel of Luke, we find Jesus at the home of two sisters named Martha and Mary.  Luke doesn’t give us much background on the sisters.  But if Mary and Martha were like most sisters I know, they experienced the ups and downs of sisterly love.  We can imagine that they confided in each other, supported each other, dried each other’s tears.  We can also imagine that they were envious of each other at times. They probably got angry with each other once in a while.  When Jesus visits, one of these moments of anger erupts.

 

Martha cries, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?  Tell her to help me.”

“Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me alone in the kitchen?  Can’t you see how hard this is for me?  How can you let her just sit there?”

 

It can be a wonderful thing to have a sister, or a brother, or a spouse, or a friend.  But there’s also a downside.  Sometimes we look at them and decide that they’re better off than we are.  We become resentful of them.  And we let our resentment grow, until it begins to color our whole way of looking at life.  It can become an emotional habit.  We may think we’re handling our resentment, but we’re not actually handling it.  Our resentment has the upper hand.  Our resentment is actually handling us.  Resentment controls the way we look at life.

 

When I was preparing the sermon for today, I found myself imagining about Martha and Mary’s relationship.  What was behind Martha’s outburst, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?  Tell her to help me.”?   I imagined that there was nothing new about Martha’s outburst that evening.  I imagined that her resentment of Mary has been growing for years now.  As Martha sees it, Mary always had the easier chores.  Because Mary was younger, she never had to do the cooking.  But she had the fun of watching over the baby lambs.  And, I imagined, Mary had the long and beautiful hair that got the attention of all the boys in the neighborhood.  Now, as a young woman, Mary has the inquisitive mind that gets the attention of the rabbi Jesus.

 

Or you and I might imagine for a moment that Mary has her own list of resentments.  It seems to her that Martha always had more freedom.  She got to go to the market by herself.  Because the family didn’t have much money for clothing, Martha always got the new clothes and Mary got the hand me downs.  And Martha’s cooking and baking always turned out beautifully.  People were always saying that Martha’s bread was the best they had ever tasted.  Of course we don’t have such a detailed record of Mary and Martha.  I’m taking some creative license, using my imagination.

 

But when I was writing this part of the sermon, I noticed something.  I noticed how easy it was for me to come up with a list of resentments, for both Martha and Mary.  I was amazed at the way the resentments just flowed from my imagination through my fingers onto the computer screen.

 

But maybe it’s not so amazing.  We’re very good at finding things that make us resentful.  We’re constantly comparing ourselves to others and finding ourselves lacking in some way, wishing we had what they have.  And we can let our resentment grow until it begins to color our whole approach to life.  It becomes an emotional habit.

 

But here’s the good news, the good news we know because of Jesus:  It is possible for us to learn new habits.  We don’t have to let resentment control us.  Take a look at the way Jesus responds when Martha tells him angrily, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work?”  Did you notice how Jesus shows love to both Martha and Mary?  “Martha,” he says, “It’s OK.  You’re worried and distracted.”

 

Jesus notices that Martha is distracted, but he doesn’t put her down.  At the same time, he commends Mary for choosing to let worries go, and simply listen to him.  Jesus puts a stop to sisterly resentment.  Jesus was human like us.  He got tired and cross at times. He could have responded differently.  He could have said, “C’mon, Martha.  Lighten up.  You’re always such a whiner.  That’s why I’d rather sit and talk to Mary.  Can’t you see she’s much better at listening than you are?”

 

But Jesus responds in a very different way.  He doesn’t fan the flames of resentment.  He says, “Martha, I know you’re worried.  I can see you’re taking this dinner party really seriously.  You want it to be the best dinner party ever.  But it’s OK.  It doesn’t have to be perfect.  I just want to spend some time with you, and with Mary. I want to share God’s love with both of you.”  Jesus invites both Mary and Martha to let go of resentment and grow in peace, and kindness, and joy.

 

When it comes to our relationships, it’s normal for you and me to compare ourselves to each other.  It’s very human for us to compete and wish we had what our sisters, and brothers, and friends have.  But we don’t have to get into the habit of resentment.  We don’t have to let resentment take control of our lives.  We don’t have to let resentment grow.  Consider if you will the following story from a Native American tradition:

 

One day a boy came to his grandfather.  He was hurt and angry after a friend had done him a great injustice.  The grandfather said, “Let me tell you a story.  A fight is going on inside me,” the grandfather says.  “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.  One wolf is evil.  He is anger, envy, sorrow, and resentment. The other wolf is good: he is joy, peace, kindness, and compassion.  The same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person.”

 

The grandson thought about it for a minute, and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

 

The grandfather replied, “The one you feed.”

 

You and I often compare ourselves to other people, and find ourselves lacking.  The tendency to compare and compete seems to be hard wired into us.  It can feed a resentment that controls us.  But we don’t have to feed that inner wolf of resentment.  Instead, because we know Jesus, we can feed our inner peace, and kindness, and joy.  In Jesus we find a love that loves each of us unconditionally, a love that accepts us as we are, a love that empowers us to rise above resentment and live into relationships of peace, and kindness, and joy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rev. Elva Merry Pawle                                                                                                                    Pentecost 6