Today we look forward to next Sunday, the day of Pentecost, which is often referred to as the birthday of the Church. So it is not at all out of place that we have heard this morning some words which lay out for us just what kind of community the Church would be. In fact we heard two such commentaries, one by Luke at the very beginning of Acts and another by John from his gospel. What is startling is the enormous differences between these two visions of what the Church, the community of the faithful, ought to be.

So lets look at them both. We’ll start with what Acts has to say. As Luke tells the story, the risen Christ has been with his disciples for forty days. The disciples ask him if the time has come when God will restore Israel to her former glory. The answer Luke gives the resurrected Lord is an odd one, neither yes or no; rather it pushes the question into quite another realm— he says, in so many words, that this isn’t the time to worry about the last days and the restoration of Israel; for what is coming is the time of the Church, a time, he lets his disciples know, when they will have plenty of work to do. Luke sees the disciples as men and women who will receive power from the Holy Spirit in order to become missionaries, in order to be Christ’s witnesses who will go out in ever widening circles of missionary activity until they have spread the Good News about Christ to the ends of the earth.

Luke’s vision of the Church looks ever outward toward new lands which are waiting to hear, toward new people who need the message of the love of God revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, toward men and women who suffer privation or illness or hurt. Luke’s is a vision of outreach in which the Body of Christ is always geared up to take care of the needs of those who suffer in the world around us. It is a task oriented vision. To draw a metaphor from one of Luke’s familiar stories, we can call it the “Martha” vision of the church, always busy with Loaves and Fishes, with Micah 6, with taking flowers to the sick, with working hard to make this world a better place for anyone we can touch, for everyone with whom we have contact, for anyone to whom we can reach out in the name of Christ.

If Luke gives us a “Martha” vision of the Church, today’s gospel reading from John hints at a “Mary” vision, a Church that looks inward at itself. John has Jesus pray, not for the whole state of Christ’s Church and the world, as we are used to praying in our services, but only for the disciples themselves, only for the Church, only for those who have heard and responded to the words Jesus has uttered, to the God whom they can see through the life, death, and resurrection of their Lord. And what is it that John’s great prayer asks for the community of Christ?— that they be one, just as the Son and the Father are one; that they abide together in love for one another, that they take care of one another, that they live and die for one another, that they make their acts of love for one another the sign to the world of redemption.

John’s Church, we can say, is the community which we find in Bible-study groups, in prayer circles, in contemplation and in worship, just as Mary ignored all the work that Martha was doing to sit at Jesus’ feet to learn and to adore.

Two very different views of what the Body of Christ is all about! So, of course, the question arises: which of the two is a right guide for us in this time and season, in this war-torn and unfair world in which we are making our lives? There is, after all, so much to be done: so many people who have not heard or have ignored or turned their backs on the Good News, so many people who are homeless and in want, so many people who need the outstretched arms that Christians can offer them to lift them up.

But, on the other hand, there are our own needs for times of quiet and reflection, for opportunities to come together as Christian men and women to share the gifts we have been given and learn from one another and reach out in love to one another.

Which is the better part? Well, just think, folks— this is an Episcopal Church; we stand four-square in the Anglican tradition of inclusiveness (a nice way of saying, Why choose either when you can opt for both?) And that, of course, is what we need to do, and that, of course, is what we do, not necessarily as individuals but as the Church.

The Church is a community of all sorts and conditions of people. There are many Marys among us, Christians who thrive on contemplative prayer and group study and quietness. And there are also the Marthas, always on the go, always reaching out. Thank God for both. And thank God we are not bound to just what Luke has to teach or just what John has to say about the nature of the Church. We call ourselves and our Church Catholic, and that means universal, that means embracing all the manifold differences and behaviors and understandings that make up human kind.

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