a homily for Proper 11C
Text: Luke 10:38-42

Dividing Each Other

Before we get into the meat of this week’s gospel story, I want us to acknowledge something. This is a divisive gospel. There are many among us that feel recognized and justified. They feel like Mary. They love to be reminded that they are of value. And they aren’t always valued in their family.

There are also many who hear this gospel and despise it. One of my friends likes to skip church on this Sunday. He is a retired engineer, and he doesn’t want to think that Jesus would be so hostile to someone who is a planner, someone showing hospitality: the worker. Which he is.

And let’s be honest. This is a gospel that effects women differently than men. Men don’t have the same burden of perfection. Women are so commonly divided into Marthas and Marys and evaluated. We rarely say “Lee: he’s such a Martha.” Men are not criticized for putting too much focus into doing or into honoring.

And I’m certain many of you may be sick of hearing men preach about Mary and Martha. I am. And I’m one of those men.

Martha’s Bold Move

We commonly entertain the idea that this is a sister-on-sister catfight. We easily relate to Martha’s plight. It is so puritanical and American—the rugged individualists—to associate with this woman. She’s busting her butt to get the food ready in the kitchen. We imagine her getting all of the glasses on a tray, a pitcher full of iced tea, some cookies. Then monitoring the pitcher to make sure it is kept at least half full at all times. She has a roast in the oven, she’s peeling potatoes, she’s cleaning the vegetables, while she wipes the sweat from her forehead and she curses her sister’s poor manners and compulsive behavior.

She only means to remind her of her place. She wants her sister to get off her butt and help.

We’ve all been there. We know that feeling. That sense of unfairness. But Martha makes a very simple mistake. She doesn’t ask her sister to help. She doesn’t invite her sister to join her for a second in the kitchen while she quietly asks for help. She instead triangulates Jesus.

Her move is subtle, too. She appeals to His sense of fairness. “Lord, do you not care” she begins. This isn’t a request at all. This is condescension.

Neighbor Friends

We commonly take this as a story about two sisters, but it is in fact a story about Martha and Jesus. It isn’t about a hardworking (no doubt older) sister and a lazy (and probably younger) sister. We impose that prejudice. Because we still don’t see that Jesus isn’t dividing the sisters, Martha’s the only one doing that. Martha has walled herself off, metaphorically and literally as she goes about her business and busyness in the kitchen.

The clues in the text point out that she is so busy that she “was distracted by her many tasks” and Jesus points out that she is “worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.” That her focus on the details and her focus on the preparations meant that she is not focused at all.

This story is enriched by remembering what has just preceded it. Jesus sent His followers out to the many nations, taking nothing with them, relying on the hospitality of strangers, staying with them and enjoying their company, not to move on to the next house because they offer better food or because they are of a higher station.

Then a lawyer/scholar blocks Jesus’s way to test Him and Jesus tells a story about who our neighbor is. A story that challenges us to see that anyone can be our neighbor. And more, that we are not to cast ourselves only as the Samaritan, but the victim as well so that we might see more than just how we can be a neighbor to someone else, but how another may be a neighbor to us.

The home of Mary and Martha is the very next stop. Neighbors and hospitality. The difference is that these are Jesus’s friends. They aren’t strangers, immigrants, or street people, but close, comfortable, welcoming friends. How does our teaching about hospitality and neighborliness play out among friends?

Heading to the Kitchen

This story about Mary and Martha is a really good one, isn’t it? Because we put on it all sorts of stuff that isn’t there. Jesus doesn’t rebuke Martha. He doesn’t scold her. She doesn’t get it. She’s a lot like Peter, I think. These great stand-ins in the story for us. For how we jump to conclusions and we think the wrong thing. How we get exercised about another’s behavior and wish that Jesus could just fix them—not the situation, but fix them because they must be broken, but it is we who are broken. And it is we who might, sitting at the feet of Jesus, be neighbors with Him.

Too often we are hard on ourselves and one another. We expect so much. And really, we have all these unspoken rules. Rules about what it really means to show hospitality. How to be a good neighbor. How to be a friend. Rules that so often get us riled up and rather than talk, we are complaining in secret, in the kitchen, alone.

I think in those moments we might remember the tender words of encouragement; words that aren’t full of the judgment we impose on ourselves but full of love and mercy and respect that say Please come out of the kitchen. Sit with me. Be with me.

And I am starting to believe that we can change the story, rather than embody it. That, instead of walling ourselves off from Jesus, we can invite Him into the kitchen. That He and his friends might join in the work. Sharing, laughing, loving.

I hope that’s how we treat Henry who will be baptized shortly. That he will be part of the fun. That he gets to be in the kitchen with us. That he gets to help prepare and share the food. And eat with us; laugh with us.

The Spirit is with us wherever we are, when we gather with others to fulfill GOD’s mission. In the nave and in the kitchen. And when we leave this place to go out into the world.