Readings Gn 18:1-10a; Ps 15; Col 1:24-28; Lk 10:38-42
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Over 21 years ago, shortly after we moved to The Villages, my wife, Diane, decided it would be good to help out at the Wildwood Soup Kitchen. And like a good deacon’s wife, she volunteered me along with herself. Yes, I was volunteered.
We ended up serving there for well over 15 years, with Diane as the Thursday cook and I doing whatever she told me. I also stumbled onto the board of directors where I served for a bunch of years. But with the onset of COVID, abetted by some physical issues and limitations, Diane and I decided to step away from the Soup Kitchen and let others continue running this ministry.
I used to say, only partly in jest, that on
Monday I could lose all 200 of those who served at the Soup Kitchen and replace
them all by Friday -- perhaps an exaggeration, but barely.
The Soup Kitchen is really a wonderful
ministry, a true ecumenical ministry in which those in real need are served by dozens
of volunteers representing upwards of 30 local churches.
Among the many things I learned from this experience is that people serve there for all kinds of reasons. I’d occasionally ask them: "Why are you here?" and was amazed by the variety of answers.
Some just loved being in the kitchen, and the opportunity to help cook a few hundred meals. While others were bored in all the free time retirement brought, and came just to stay busy.
Some were lonely. The soup kitchen was a kind of social event, a chance to form friendships. And a few felt guilty. Their affluence was a burden to them, and they hoped to ease that burden by helping those in need.
Some simply want to serve others, and the soup
kitchen is a wonderful way to satisfy that need. They’d inevitably say, "It makes me feel good."
But there were always some who told me they served out of love. They saw Jesus Christ in every person who walked in the door and were overwhelmed by a love for God and neighbor. These are the folks who follow the Gospel mandate to feed the hungry and welcome the stranger. Indeed, that was our guiding principle at the soup kitchen:
“We don’t serve meals; we serve Jesus Christ.”
When it comes right down to it, it’s really a
ministry of hospitality; and yet those who exercise this ministry are driven by
so many different motives, often by multiple motives.
I couldn’t help but think of all this as I reread today’s Gospel passage from Luke. Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Man, the fullness of life and truth, walked into the home of a pair of sisters named Martha and Mary.
Both women immediately recognized the privilege of having Jesus in their home and set to work fulfilling the sacred duty of hospitality. But the two sisters had conflicting ideas of what that duty entailed.
Martha’s response is very recognizable, typical of how most of us would probably react. Open the best wine, the expensive stuff, or brew some good coffee. Get out the good china and silver. Use whatever food you have in the pantry to whip up your best assortment of hot and cold dishes. And pray He won’t want a dessert.
My mother’s name was Martha. When I was about 16, I asked her if she’d be like Martha in the Gospel if Jesus came to our house for dinner. Without a moment’s hesitation, she said, “Oh, no, I’d call a caterer.”
But while Martha was busying herself in the kitchen, Mary took a different approach to hospitality. For her, the greatest compliment she could pay, greater even than the best of foods, was to give Jesus her full attention.
It’s interesting that we hear nothing from Mary in this passage, but we sense she somehow knew that Jesus, the fullness of truth, had come to her home to nourish, enlighten, and transform her. She saw Jesus as a gift, and not to receive and unwrap this wonderful gift was an insult to the giver.
And so, Mary listened.
She listened to the Word as He spoke the Word. Mary became to Jesus what no rabbi at the time would probably let any woman become…Mary became His disciple.
This was pretty radical stuff back then. Women were expected to prepare and serve the meals, and wouldn’t be encouraged to take part in the discussions. But Luke, throughout his Gospel, stresses that Jesus takes women seriously, that He came for everyone, men and women, and that salvation comes to all who listen to His Word and act on it.
Luke doesn’t relate this incident to endorse laziness, just as Martha isn’t criticized because she simply did what was expected. In our first reading from Genesis, when God, in the form of three travelers, visits Abraham, it’s considered good that Abraham and Sara spare no expense serving them.
No, Martha’s hospitality isn’t the problem. The problem? She placed physical hospitality above discipleship. Her attempts at hospitality became an end in itself, a distraction. It turned Martha into what my mom would have called a fussbudget, so much so she actually got angry because her sister hadn’t joined her.
You can almost feel the tension and pressure building up until it boils over and Martha vents her frustration…but notice she vents it on the wrong person. Martha doesn’t attack Mary; she attacks Jesus Himself:
“Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone…”
How authentically human of Martha – to work out
her frustrations on the wrong person, what Freud would have called displaced
aggression.
Now, had I been in Jesus’ place, I probably would have said, “Hey, Martha, why are you blaming me?” But not Jesus. He turns to her, and repeating her name -- “Martha, Martha…” – and He calms her down. Then He quietly reminded her that she was “anxious and worried about many things.”
Jesus didn't rebuke Martha her for serving Him – not
at all. He simply tells her there’s something better. He turns her to the truth:
those who hear the Word of God and keep it are blessed.
I’m suspect more than a few of you out there have a history
with the old Baltimore Catechism. Do you remember the answer to the question, “Why did God make you?”
Remember? “God
made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be
happy with Him forever in heaven.”
It’s still a very good answer. Before we can serve God, we must first know Him and love Him. After all, how can you love someone you don’t even know? If our lives are spent solely in activity – only in the serving – we can’t take the time to know our God through prayer and attentiveness to His Word.
It’s through prayer, listening to His Word, and through the grace of the sacraments, that we can come to know God, and develop the kind of personal relationship Jesus wants with us. Only through that relationship can we continue to deepen our love for God.
How did St. Paul
put it in our second reading?
"It is Christ in you, the hope for glory" (Col 1:27).
You see, it’s through Christ in us that
we come to see Him in others, and can accept the call to serve Him by serving
them.
Our service, then, must be grounded in love; for it is love, and only love, that calls the Christian to serve others:
"…whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me" (Mt 25:40)
For Christians, then, the two great commandments – loving God and loving our neighbor – merge into one, a single, inseparable commandment of love. Yes, hearing and reflecting on the Word of God in prayer is a condition for the selfless, loving service of the Body of Christ.
Of course, Martha didn’t appreciate this…at least, not at first. And like so many of us, she worried. How human and how easy it is for you and me, just as it was for Martha, to become obsessed with busyness, to move those things – those accidental parts of our lives – to move them to the center of our lives. And in doing so to send the true center to the sidelines.
Brothers and sisters, this just cannot be.
The fullness of truth, the fullness of life, the fullness of grace deserves our full attention. Jesus can’t be merely a part of our lives. He must be the focus, always at the very center.
In our excessively busy lives today, too often, like Martha, “we are anxious and worried about many things,” and ignore the quiet call of Our Lord. Every day He knocks on your door and my door, calling us to Himself through the lives of others.We must let them into our lives, so that Christ too will be in us, and as St. Paul promised, give us “the hope for glory.”
