From Perfectionism to Peace this Christmas
a talk given to the Middleburg Bible Study | Karen Wright Marsh | Dec. 5, 2024
A note from Karen: It was a true delight to be with the wonderful women of Middleburg, Virginia, and their Bible study community. I just had to share these words from our time together. May they bring you presence…and peace this Advent!
One week ago today was Thanksgiving….
At this hour last Thursday, we were roasting turkey, mashing potatoes, finishing off the gravy, calling folks to the table -- to give thanks.
Now Christmas is just 20 days away and I’m already getting the question, “Are you ready for Christmas?” Uh, no….There's still a pumpkin on my front step. Students are coming to the Bonhoeffer House tomorrow for our final weekly Theological Horizons lunch and will be arriving to decorate a tree that, if all goes to plan, I will pick up on the way back to Charlottesville today. I hope that I know where to find that box of ornaments.
Here we go – ready or not - headlong into the hap - happiest time of the year.
As I anticipate the 20 Advent days ahead, I’m thinking of four other women – two Marthas and two Marys.
Last weekend I ran into a photo of the first Martha looking flushed and happy – as I sorted through boxes of old books. There she was on the cover of my 1989 edition of Martha Stewart’s Christmas in which she chronicles her own preparations for Christmas, beginning with the mixing of 10 enormous plum puddings the day after Thanksgiving and concluding with a sumptuous Christmas Day dinner. Martha builds wreaths and topiaries, creates cookies, cakes, jellies and jams, paints her own wrapping paper, fills gift baskets with homemade goodies, and makes ornaments to decorate the trees (one in each room of her house, of course). She whips up a croquembouche and then a vat of cassoulet for her annual holiday party, and, after all that, wakes up early on Christmas morning to cook brunch. True to form, Martha has achieved Christmas perfection!
I would never aspire to match the over-the-top-ness of this lifestyle icon Martha Stewart, but part of me does want to try making her gingerbread mansion complete with a gilded roof. Though I know I won’t…Maybe next year I’ll come closer to putting on that perfectly perfect holiday.
In the meantime, sitting on the floor amidst my books, I imagined another woman – a girl, really, and an unexpectedly pregnant one. Mary, just a young teenager.
If you’d asked this Mary, weeks before she was to give birth to Jesus, how she would design her idea of a perfect first ever Christmas - I imagine she would have wished to be safe at home with her mother in Nazareth – or alongside her older cousin Elizabeth, the infant John in her arms: another new mother. Elizabeth, who would comfort her with wise words about the coming labor, and assure Mary that she’d call the midwives when the time came. I am certain that Mary would long to be surrounded by family and friends, people she knew and loved who would welcome Jesus into the family, congratulate Mary on a beautiful son, assure her that Joseph was a good man who would care for them both.
But Mary did not have any kind of perfectly perfect Christmas. No, Mary experienced a very imperfect one.
Forced by the powers of the empire to travel the 90 miles from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem in Judea – with Joseph, while she was uncomfortably, heavily pregnant, vulnerable to the dangers of the road – she and Joseph would find, when they arrived at last, that there was no space to be found in any of the guest rooms in the crowded town. Mary would deliver her first baby far from home, surrounded by animals. I wonder: did they even find a midwife in time? Yet ready or not, Mary gave birth and the writer of Luke tells us that she wrapped her firstborn son snugly and laid him in a manger.
For this Mary there were none of Martha Stewart’s grand meals, no gleaming ornaments,no carols ringing.
Yet imperfect as this scene was, extraordinary things unfolded for the little trio: Mary, Joseph and their baby.Don’t you know that even there in that strange place, Mary’s love and tenderness flooded her heart? Their first guests were not beloved family – but were Judean shepherds rushing in from the night fields, simple peasants who’d been dazzled by angels praising God, declaring peace, joyful news to all and --- rough strangers who came in haste to see this blessed Christ child announced from the sky.
There would be more miracles to come… wise men, a blazing star, a hurried escape from a murderous king… But on that Christmas first night, according to the words of, Luke 2:19, “Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.”
Other versions say, “Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself.”
“Mary committed these things to memory and considered them carefully.”
A Perfectly perfect Christmas? No. But so much more.
So how have we come so very far – from these quiet moments with Mary, the young mother cradling her baby, deep in quiet reflection, -- to the frenzy of a holiday season that can all feel like too much?
Over Decades upon decades, centuries upon centuries, We have built up a set of expectations – pictures of what Christmas should be – but never is. Idealized, sanitized Nativity scenes of Mary, Joseph and the baby.Happy, harmonious families in matching outfits, extravagant gifts… pure joy for all.Dickens’ Christmas Carol playing yet again - with its happy ending in which Christmases past present and future all resolve in happy generosity and a full table complete with roast goose.
Look: As much as we love Christmas, this is undeniably a difficult time of year. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), almost half of all women and a third of men report increased stress around the holidays. We find ourselves buying gifts for people we don't know that well, traveling to see people we don't like that much, and just generally doing too many things in too little time—feeling like we need to pack in as much as we can. Family conflicts flare up in fresh ways. Many of us experience an intensification of loneliness, busyness, exhaustion, pressure, disappointments. At the end of the day, I don’t blame Martha Stewart for causing this, I really don’t.
Here is My problem with Martha Stewart: She insists that perfection is desirable – and achievable. And don’t we kind of love the idea of perfectly perfect? I think it’s safe to say for us women, our favorite flaw is perfectionism … we’re just a little bit proud when we say to each other, “oh, I can’t help doing all this, I’m just such a perfectionist.” We feel very different about confessing other negative emotions - struggles like jealousy, hypocrisy, a sense of failure. We Perfectionists just want to be too good – and who can find fault with that?
The drive toward Perfectionism is that much more problematic at Christmas, a time when anxiety and sadness is common. Perfectionism sets us up for more acute feelings of letdown when the Christmas we create doesn’t "measure up" to our imagined ideals. Do you know what I mean? I can’t wrangle my kids into matching outfits for a photo for a holiday card to send to all of my gorgeous friends. My relatives are upset because we can’t make the trip to their place on December 25; coming in on the 27th just isn’t good enough. I feel a little lost for reasons I can’t really explain. It’s tough when my bright, shiny ideas don't match reality, even though I’ve given it my all to do more, look better, meet the highest of high expectations.
Who can relieve me of this belief that these shortcomings are all my fault – that there’s something imperfect about me or about those around me – something lacking that needs to be repaired?
The images and promises of Martha Stewart’s Christmas book feed into my own illusions about what life can and should be – and I daresay those false ideas distract me and draw me away from the life God desires for me: a life of contentment and grace and peace.
Jesus speaks directly to me in my struggle - in his kind, compassionate way. Jesus does this by caring for another Martha, that Martha who, from the Bible studies of my youth, was often called out as a perfectionist.
We meet this second Martha – along with her sister, today’s second Mary – in Luke chapter 10. Here is the story: “While Jesus and his disciples were traveling, Jesus entered a village where a woman named Martha welcomed him as a guest. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his message. By contrast, Martha was preoccupied with getting everything ready for their meal. So Martha came to Jesus and said, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to prepare the table all by myself? Tell her to help me.’”
I’d like to pause right here to say that I feel with Martha. The beloved teacher Jesus has come into town and dropped by with 12 hungry men and suddenly there’s a crowd that needs to be welcomed, refreshed with footwashing, tended to and fed – and soon.
Martha takes her hospitality seriously and I’ll bet she has not had weeks of advance notice to prepare cassoulet or plum puddings. I imagine that she’s just trying desperately to get something presentable onto the table. No wonder she’s irritated to see her sister Mary lounging at Jesus feet, oblivious to her sister’s efforts to meet the needs at hand.
Jesus does not dismiss Martha’s appeal, saying, “Just relax! It’s no big deal!” There’s something more significant in Jesus’ words -something that I’d never really noticed before. Jesus responds to Martha : “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed.” With insight and friendship, Jesus sees Martha’s worry, her distress at many things. I think he intends to ease her mind, to comfort her. “Few things are needed.” He says gently.
In the past I’ve bristled, thinking Jesus was preferring Mary over her sister Martha when he says, “Few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
But can I hear Jesus again, speaking, instead, as a loving invitation to Martha? Few things are needed, Jesus says. I wonder if he went on to say…I’ve travelled far just to be with you, Martha. Let’s not miss this opportunity to truly enjoy one another’s presence. Tonight’s dinner for 15 does not need to meet your highest standards – need not be the best roast lamb, the finest wines, the freshest bread. I know you’re a great cook. If only you will release your idea of a perfectly perfect festive dinner, Martha, I assure you that a simple meal of a few plain dishes will suffice. What could be better than having some time to be together with me – alongside your sister, Mary? I hear Jesus say, I want nothing more than to be present with you, Martha. Jesus loved his friend, Martha; he wisely saw the heart she put into her labors.
I imagine Jesus has compassion for Martha Stewart, too, who, now 83 years old, has suffered a divorce, public envy and criticism, and time in prison, but who has never slowed in her unrelenting drive for success – striving for the perfect perfection of a life that will never be fully achieved.
You and I each embody some of these two Martha, don’t we? Martha Stewart and Martha, the sister of Mary. We are the Marthas who want to see dreams come true, who desire to make the season special for everyone…who want to show how competent we are, how together we are…who are determined to make it all look effortless. Who want to be loved.
Christmas is 20 days away. Are you worried and upset about many things? Are you burdened by unrealistic expectations of yourself and others? Do visions of perfect perfection accentuate the pain of fraught relationships, the griefs of Christmases past, the economic or physical or emotional limits of what you can deliver this December, a month already laden with stress? Let’s be gentle with the Marthas within us, the Marthas of quietly broken hearts. Jesus certainly would be.
How might we live into Jesus’s reassurance that “few things are needed”? How do we take some time each day to sit, as Martha surely longed to do, at the feet of Jesus - to just rest and enjoy him? How can we take on more of the Mary who, when Jesus came for dinner, chose what is better than a finely executed event: who chose presence over perfection?
How do you and I choose, this December, presence with God? With one another? With ourselves?
How can we experience, alongside the other Mary, the mother of Jesus, the awe and wonder of that first Christmas. Might we accompany this young mother Mary and, with her, treasure up all these things, pondering them in our hearts?
To help us experience more of the Mary in each of us I’ve created several imaginative exercises, some gentle invitations– to take with us into the coming days and I will share them with you in a moment.
But first I’d like to say this: I believe that the antidote to perfectionism is found, first of all, in an attitude of awe and wonder. Instead of determinedly chasing after a vision of what we think must be or should be - if only we try hard enough – pause…and take on an attitude of curiosity about what is and what is to come. Let’s lay aside the demands we’ve made and try on a new posture: to begin to see, with fresh, curious eyes, the astounding, miraculous truth of Christmas. Can we meet this birth of Jesus as if for the first time - as if we’ve never experience it before?
Poetry helps me see old things in new ways. The 17th century poet Richard Crashaw returns me to an attitude of awe and wonder. In “the Holy Nativity of our Lord,” Crashaw writes:
…Poor World, said I, what wilt thou do
To entertain this starry stranger?
Is this the best thou canst bestow,
A cold, and not too cleanly, manger?
Contend, ye powers of heav’n and earth,
To fit a bed for this huge birth.
Welcome, all wonders in one sight!
Eternity shut in a span;
Summer in winter; day in night;
Heaven in earth, and God in man.
Great little one,
whose all-embracing birth
Lifts earth to heaven,
stoops heav’n to earth….
To thee, meek Majesty! soft King
Of simple graces and sweet loves,
Each of us his lamb will bring,
Each his pair of silver doves;
Till burnt at last in fire of thy fair eyes,
Ourselves become our own best sacrifice.
We best welcome this soft King Jesus – the great little one – not with what we create, produce, accomplish, or pull off, but with our very selves. Not even the greatest powers of heaven and earth could rightly entertain this starry stranger. Let you and let me offer our humble presence, which is really all we have to give, and all that Jesus desires, in the end.
As we take time to pause to be present with God, maybe we put ourselves into the Nativity story - and imagine bringing something that would bring a smile to the face of a baby of simple graces and sweet loves: like a lamb or a silver dove.
With Mary, let us come to the manger quietly, in deep reverence, holding deep within ourselves the extraordinary wonder of heaven contained in earth, God in an infant, a soft King.
May we, like Jesus’ friend Mary, let go of perfectionism to choose presence - which is the better part. May we commit to remembering the acts of our loving God and consider them carefully.
When we leave this precious time of fellowship today, I have no doubt that our to-do lists will spark up new Martha energies. I, for one, have got to find an adequate Christmas tree by the end of this afternoon. But, in fact, dear Marthas, few things are needed.
The imaginative, spiritual exercises I’ve created are easy, accessible invitations to presence - to God, to yourself, to others… They only take a few minutes. I hope you savor the opportunity to create a beautiful space for prayer and reflection, to take time looking deeply at artistic images of the Nativity, to let Christmas music enter your soul, to go back into the old family Christmas photos, to ponder your own deepest hopes and desires…
It’s my prayer that over the Advent days to come you and I will, like our two Marys, draw near, again and again, to the presence of God who was born a baby to love us, save us, to be with us here, through all of our earthly lives.
Karen Marsh (right) with Jennifer Andrews. one of the terrific leaders of the Middleburg Bible Study!
Karen Wright Marsh is an author of Wake Up To Wonder and Vintage Saints and Sinners. She is a speaker and the executive director and cofounder of Theological Horizons, a ministry centered at the University of Virginia that supports believers & seekers by providing a welcoming community for engaging faith, thought & life. She is the host of the Vintage Saints and Sinners podcast. Karen lives with Charles Marsh, a UVA professor, at the Bonhoeffer House in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Learn more at www.theologicalhorizons.org and www.karenwrightmarsh.com