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Ernie Carpenter was the last in a long family tradition of fiddlers in central West Virginia reaching back five generations into the 1700’s. His ancestors were among the first European settlers in West Virginia. For most of his life he lived in the house built by his grandfather on the plot of land his family originally settled. In the late ‘50’s, the US government condemned his house and took his ancestral land in order to create Sutton Lake and gave him very little in compensation. He was practically left with nothing except his music. He had this to say about music:
“Music was a great gift, one of the greatest, I think, that anybody can have because it’s something that nobody can take away from you. No way can they touch it. They can’t take a note away. It don’t make no difference if you’re a tramp or how low down you are, if you play music you can still keep it. It’s about the only thing left that the politicians can’t get in on. So, they can’t take it away from you. They can’t touch it and money can’t buy it. You can’t even give it away yourself, that is to turn it over to somebody. You could learn it to somebody, but you can’t just turn it over. It’s a very precious gift.”
For Mr. Carpenter, his family’s music, the tradition that it embodied was all he had and it was quite sacred to him. He taught it to many people free of charge. Ernie was the last of the Carpenter Family line of fiddlers. It is debatable who outside the family studied him enough to be considered the inheritor of it. Fortunately, most of the songs he knew were recorded before he died. So, his family’s musical legacy is not gone forever but continues on through young fiddlers who are drawn to it and who take the time to listen and learn from the recordings and from those who are still around who sat at Ernie’s feet, so to speak.
Music, like reading and writing and art and any kind of knowledge, it gets inside you and it can’t be taken away. This is what Jesus has to say about Mary’s relationship to him. Her devotion to Jesus, her friendship with him, her knowing him, and some would even say her feelings of love for him couldn’t be taken away. She was personally devoted to Jesus in a special kind of way and that could not be taken from her.
Mary’s sitting there at Jesus’ feet learning is something we really need to note. In that time rabbis did not allow women to sit at the feet as students and listen to their teachings as a man would. This is an incredibly unheard-of equalization of the status of men and women. Women were supposed to do what Martha was doing in offering hospitality.
So also, Martha’s work of showing hospitality by offering her home and feeding Jesus and his disciples is not something we should downplay. We diminish the meaning of this story if we do what has so often been done to Martha in belittling her “busyness”. Extravagant hospitality is crucial for the way of life for a disciple of Jesus and core to the ministry of congregations. Afterall, didn’t we just read the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Indiscriminate and unconditional hospitality is core to how we show “mercy” to others, to how we let our lives be a healing balm for others. So, let us not belittle Martha for her supposed busyness. The world needs more people and more churches like her.
But back to Mary, her abandoning of the traditional “Woman’s Work” of showing hospitality and taking the risk of sitting at Jesus’ feet to learn with the men really needs our attention. She could have easily been cast out by the men for being presumptuous or even be accused of being a little on the flirty side. So, why would she take this risk? Well, I presume she felt she could trust Jesus that she would be welcome there. She wouldn’t be the first woman Jesus welcomed fully into the fold and entrusted with ministry. His circle already had several women in it.
But, let’s not just leave it at Mary trusted she would be welcome in the circle. We should highlight that she also wanted to learn from Jesus. She wanted to learn his teachings. Be his disciple. She, like the others, sensed who he was as the Messiah and was on board with his Kingdom of God Come to Earth ministry.
But, I still think there is more to this picture than Mary just wanted to learn and trusted she would be welcome in the circle. There’s a personal devotion there, a sense of deep friendship we would do well to consider. Jesus was Mary’s friend and she wanted to be close to him. In John’s Gospel, this Mary was the one who poured the bottle of expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet to anoint his body for burial making her the only one to understand that he was actually going to die and she was moved deeply with grief at this reality. Lazarus, the young man whom Jesus raised from the dead, was her brother. Mary had a strong emotional attachment to Jesus such that she simply wanted to be in his presence. And, there was something a bit more to being in the presence of Jesus than just being with a friend. I think that she and the other disciples had the sense that to be in the presence of Jesus was somehow being in the presence of God. When Jesus was around it was becoming on Earth as it is in Heaven. Around Jesus the veil between Heaven and Earth grew thin.
Have you ever heard of “thin places”? In Celtic Christianity they speak of “thin places”, places where one gets a sense that the barrier or veil between Heaven and Earth is thin and the presence of God is more readily sensed. In the Celtic tradition thin places are special places like particular cathedrals that people would go on pilgrimage to like the Iona community in Scotland. Places where you can go on retreat and it seems easier to hear God speak to you. There were places also out in the wood. Places where God speaks and healing happens. Thin places.
Yet, a thin place isn’t something we need to go to Scotland to find. We probably have had moments in particular places where we just get the sense that this place, this moment is sacred. We feel we must take off our shoes like Moses before the burning bush. Places we would go back to because we feel like God visited us there in some way.
Well, let me fill you in on a little secret. We each are a thin place. There are several places throughout the New Testament where Paul refers to us as individual temples of God in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. We don’t need to go somewhere to cultivate a thin place. God, the Holy Spirit, is with us and in us giving us the sense that Jesus is present with us. To find our thin place we must simply find time and place to “Be still and know that I am God” as the song goes. That’s also Psalm 46:10 in case you wondered.
You may have heard of “mindfulness” where you stop to take note of the sounds you hear, the details in the things you look at, the smells, how your body feels; just trying be aware. That’s a good place to start, but not necessary. From there, give the Lord a place to be within your awareness like an empty chair across the table from you. Get your Bible and read. I really appreciate the Psalms. You’ll find you have a lot in common with them. Be mindful as you read as if you were sitting at Jesus feet listening to him. You will have moments when you feel you have been spoken to. In time, over time you will start to develop a friendship with this absently present friend. In times of crisis this friend will neither leave you nor forsake you. Nothing can take this friendship away from you. It is the one thing we need in the midst of life’s worries and business. The thin place of this friendship with Jesus in the Spirit is the one thing we all need, the better part that cannot be taken away. Amen.
