8th Sunday after Pentecost [Pr. 11] July 18, 2010 “Series C”
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, in Jesus, your incarnate Son, you came among us and opened your door to us; help us to open our doors to you. You have entered into our lives; help us to risk entering the lives of others. And as we remember the way that you have graciously received us and forgiven us, help us to graciously and forgivingly receive others. This we ask in Christ’s holy name. Amen.
In the opening verse of our Gospel lesson for this morning, we read that a woman named Martha “welcomed” Jesus and his disciples into her home. According to the commentaries that I read on this text, there is an unspoken expectation about what it means to “welcome” a guest into your home. To offer hospitality, Martha followed the custom of her day, and went about preparing a big meal for her guests, in the way that Abraham provided for the three men who passed by his camp in our lesson from Genesis.
This certainly would not have been an easy task for Martha to fulfill. As one of the commentaries pointed out, there may have been well over one hundred people at this meal. As Luke points out in this tenth chapter of his Gospel, there was Jesus and his original twelve disciples. In addition, there were the seventy whom Jesus sent out, and who returned, plus whoever else might have been tagging along. Now a big meal for over a hundred people takes a lot of preparation and work.
Just think of when we host our chicken barbecue dinner here at the church, when we welcome such a crowd. There is all the planning and preparation in securing the needed food items, not to mention organizing all of the cooks and servers, preparing the tables, and the ongoing clean up. And there is the crew the builds and maintains the fire, cooks and cuts the chickens for serving. There is a lot of work in welcoming that many persons to a meal.
Our text also tells us that Martha had a sister named Mary, who lived with her. Mary also showed Jesus hospitality, by sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to what Jesus was saying. To welcome a guest into your home also involves being open to that person’s presence by showing interest in what that person has to offer. It is not unlike what Josie often asks me to do when preparing a meal for our family. How often she has said to me, “Ron, you entertain, while I get things ready.” Of course, that could also be her way of telling me to stay out of the kitchen, and not get in her way.
But that doesn’t seem to be Martha’s motivation. Overwhelmed by the many tasks in preparing such a big meal, she comes to Jesus and asked him, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me.” But Jesus didn’t do what Martha had requested. Instead, and answered Martha’s request by saying, “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.”
Traditionally, we often interpret this story in a way that makes good old pots-and-pans Martha look bad. But I’m not sure that the text demands that we treat Martha so critically. In her hustle and bustle in the kitchen, preparing a good home cooked kosher meal for Jesus and his disciples, she is doing what the Scriptures have taught her to do. She is offering traditional hospitality to Jesus, following the example of Abraham.
Perhaps we need to pay close attention to what Jesus does and does not say in his response to Martha. Jesus does not say that her work in preparing and serving a meal for Jesus and his disciples is not important and appreciated. Showing hospitality by providing a meal to ease the hunger of Jesus and his many disciples was an admirable expression of her concern for the physical needs of those whom she had welcomed into her home.
However, as William H. Willimon points out in one of his commentaries, Jesus’ answer to Martha that she is “worried about many things, there is need of only one thing,” may well be an assertion that Jesus and his disciples do not need a seven course dinner, but a simple meal. Thus, in trying to provide a huge feast for the crowd that she has invited into her home, although traditionally expected of a host, Martha was distracted from what was truly important. This would not be the first time that Jesus challenged the traditional social norms of his society. Nor would it be the first time that as hosts, we have prepared far more food than was needed to express hospitality. After all, leftovers can only taste good for a short time.
No, I don’t believe that Jesus is criticizing Martha for spending time in the kitchen, preparing a meal for her guests. After all, this story continues directly on the heels of last weeks lesson, where Jesus tells the lawyer who questioned him what he must do to live the Godly life, to “go and do what the Scriptures proclaim.” Martha is doing just that. She is striving to fulfill her responsibilities of providing proper hospitality to Jesus and his disciples.
But notice that Martha’s anxiety over meticulously fulfilling her social obligations is causing her to have an agitated perspective. In seeking to be the proper host, her anxiety in focussing on all that she is expected to do, becomes a trap for her that leads her to focus in on herself. She is experiencing a self-imposed stress to have everything perfect, that she becomes upset with her sister for not helping her.
Thus, as I understand this text, Jesus is not commending inactivity, when he refuses to bid Mary to go and help Martha in the kitchen. After all, Mary is doing what was commanded in the previous chapter, where on the Mount of Transfiguration, God instructed the disciples to “Listen to Jesus.” Mary is fulfilling her hospitality to Jesus by taking the time to sit and learn from him. That is her activity as a hostess, in opening her life and heart to the kingdom of God in her midst.
Nor is Jesus condemning Martha’s ministry of hospitality in hosting a meal for those she has welcomed into her home. After all, Jesus himself will assume the role of host and servant when he eats his last Passover meal with his disciples in the upper room, the night he was betrayed. Rather, what Jesus is saying is that relief from our anxiety comes from rooting our service in the Word of God, and his forgiving grace for our lives.
Discipleship involves doing and serving our Lord by extending hospitality to those around us. But this activity is intended to stem from and be guided by our response to the grace of God that we have experienced in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. If we loose site of this fact, then our activity becomes a burden, rather than a response, an anxiety, rather than a joy to extend the welcome that Jesus has shown us.
If we ignore Martha’s anxiety, then we are left with a story in which both Mary and Martha are showing openhearted hospitality to Jesus and his disciples. Both sisters welcome Jesus, though in different ways. It is a story that reminds us that both action and meditation have their place in our welcome of Jesus into our lives, as long as it stems from our appreciation for the grace of God that we have already received from our baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection.
If we consider our ministry as a congregation of Christ’s church, there is a lot of room for those who express their hospitality in service, as did Martha. I think of those whose ministry takes the form of mowing the grass, or trimming the shrubs. I think of those who extend our ministry of hospitality by bring in treats, preparing coffee, and cleaning up after our fellowship hour. I think of those who teach in our Sunday school, and serve on various committees. There are many ways in which our ministry depends on the service of hospitality.
And there is plenty of room for those who express their hospitality in meditative and reflective ways, as did Mary. I think of those who quietly pray for those on our prayer list and prayer chain. I think of those who begin every day with devotions, and teach their children to pray and give thanks to God for our many blessings at mealtime. And I think of those who have offered reflective criticism at committee meetings and council, as we make decisions regarding the direction of our ministry, wanting our actions to reflect what God’s Word would have us do.
The truth is, we need both examples of hospitality as expressed by Mary and Martha for the fullness of faith, and for our ongoing ministry of hospitality. May God’s Spirit lead us to do what we can, as an expression of what God has done for us.
Amen.
