Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live." But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

Let's take a closer look at this lawyer, shall we? This "lawyer," by the way, isn't an attorney-at-law in our modern sense; he's that, in part, put more specifically, he is a student of The Law, capital "L," that is, the Law of Moses. So when Jesus asks him, "What is written in the law?", Jesus accords him the deference that this "expert" expects. The best trial lawyers have a bit of showman in them, and I think this lawyer isn't just testing Jesus, but showing off a bit. He craves the crowd's attention. And he is gratified when Jesus says, "You have given the right answer." But then Jesus goes on to tell the story about the Good Samaritan, and suddenly, we are faced with a stark contrast:

The lawyer, who is a respected member of the community, cares not for his neighbor, but for his neighbor's opinion of him. (That's why he feels the need to "justify himself" and asks, "And who is my neighbor?")

The Samaritan, who is a reviled outcast, cut off from the community, cares not for his neighbor's opinion of him (otherwise, he would have passed by the wounded Jew, who we can expect has a low opinion of Samaritans), but unlike the priest and the Levite, does care for his neighbor. In fact, he shows mercy and love, the same sort of unmerited mercy and love that God shows us.

Let's keep these two characters, the lawyer and the Samaritan, in mind as we take a look at this morning's gospel.

Jesus goes to the house of Martha and Mary, and Martha, like a good Middle Eastern hostess, bustles about making everyone feel at home. But Mary sits at Jesus' feet, listening. This ticks Martha off; by the cultural standards of their time, Mary is being very rude. Women were expected to serve as the men lounged in conversation. But Mary is being "just one of the guys." Martha decides that Mary needs to be put in her place, and so appeals to the male with the highest status, Jesus, to do exactly that. But Jesus surprises them all by saying, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."

Martha is acting rather like the lawyer, in that she is primarily concerned with following the rules, the cultural law, so to speak. She cares not for her sister Mary's well-being but for her own sense of propriety. In short, Martha is afraid that Mary is making her look bad. Her concern is for her reputation in front of her neighbor (Jesus). Martha doesn't realize that Mary is also her "neighbor," and that she counts just as much as Jesus. That's why Jesus is unwilling to put Mary in her place and reinforce the culture's view of her as inferior. And that's a pretty radical thing for a first century rabbi to do! But Jesus makes it clear that the good news of the gospel is for Mary just as much as for the male disciples gathered at his feet.

Thus, Mary is like the Samaritan in this respect: she doesn't get any respect. As a woman, she is a person of low status, not an outcast from the community as the Samaritan is, but an outcast from the community of men, the community of the educated, powerful, and respected.

Note, however, that Mary is not like the Samaritan in what she does, for while the Samaritan demonstrates active love of neighbor, Mary exemplifies active love of God. She "has chosen the better part," to listen attentively to Jesus' teaching, thereby loving God before loving her neighbor.

But while Mary has "chosen the better part," we can't let her off the hook too easily. Mary would indeed be unloving of her own sister if she just turned to her with a "Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyaaah-nyaaaaaah! I get to be with Je-sus and you-ooh doh-ohn't!" If Mary is to connect her love of God with love of neighbor, she'd better plan on clearing the dishes.

While we're about the task of being balanced, let's not be too harsh on the lawyer or on Martha, either. When you think about it, the lawyer, having dedicated his life to learning God's Law, is kind of like Mary, in that they both actively love God. Jesus' challenge to the lawyer is to connect his love of God with his love of neighbor.

As for Martha, it's not as if she's an embittered old killjoy. Rather, just like the Samaritan, she serves without expecting anything in return. She's annoyed, just like anyone else would be in her situation. When Jesus says, "you are worried and distracted by many things," he is not saying that she is a bad hostess. Rather, he is challenging her not to let her love of her VIP neighbor get in the way of her love of her ordinary, everyday neighbor.

What this challenge means in practical terms is that Martha needs to learn that it's not truly loving to love one neighbor more than another. As Jesus pointed out to the lawyer, we don't get to pick and choose. It's just not an option. For if I only love my lovable neighbors, what credit is that to me? Like the Samaritan who was merciful to his natural enemy, the Jew, Martha needs to be merciful to her natural rival, her sister.

Four contrasting characters, each with his or her strong points: the lawyer who loves God but needs to work on loving his neighbor as himself; the fictional Samaritan who demonstrates that love of neighbor as self; Martha, who loves her neighbor in Jesus but not in the person of Mary; and Mary herself, who loves God in the person of Jesus but probably has some work to do in loving her neighbor-in this case, her sister, Martha.

Each of these characters has something important to teach us about what it means to live out the Great Commandment articulated so well by the lawyer: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." Each of these characters demonstrates a little something of our own struggle to integrate our love of God with our love of neighbor. Of the four characters, only the fictional one gets off scot-free. The real human beings in these narratives: the lawyer, Martha, and Mary, get things half-right; they love their neighbors, but incompletely, or they limit who they consider "neighbors" to the respectable people in the community, or their love of God is full of ardor but not connected to their love of neighbor. They all need to work at seeing people of low status as neighbors just as worthy of love as the powerful of this world. They all need to work at loving God first, as the basis of their love of neighbor.

For it's not enough, you see, to stop at the commandment to "love your neighbor as yourself," if your self-love is essentially a selfish love. All of us, I would venture, are guilty from time to time of caring just a little too much about what others think of us, of how we measure up in community. I'm a competitive guy-I want to achieve, do good work…I want to be a winner. Like the lawyer, like Martha, we are committed to doing good, but we can get caught in the trap of doing good just to look good. In the process, we stop loving our neighbor for who our neighbor is, and only love our neighbor for what our neighbor does for us.

That's why Jesus intensified the Great Commandment in John's gospel at the Last Supper, where he instructs his disciples to "love one another as I have loved you." Now that's a standard! When we think about Jesus' life, we can see that he didn't really care whether he looked good in other peoples' eyes. He's willing to risk praising a Samaritan heretic to a lawyer, and of making room for Mary to claim her place in a man's world. This is because Jesus' own service to others was never a matter of doing good just to look good. Rather, all of Jesus' own good works flowed from his love of God first.

When we truly love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, there's no room for doing good just to look good. After all, in God's eyes, we can't pretend. None of us can justify ourselves. Not even if we've got all the right answers, like that lawyer.

In the Eastern Church, ikons of Martha and Mary are quite common. Over the years, Martha has come to represent the "active" side of the spiritual life and Mary the "contemplative" side. In the context of the Great Commandment, Martha embodies loving one's neighbor, and Mary embodies loving God. Jesus, however, reminds us that loving God comes first, and that it is through our love of God that we are empowered to love our neighbor, not just as we love ourselves, but as Jesus himself has first loved us.