Luke 10:38-42

The story of Martha and Mary is relatively straightforward.  A woman named Martha welcomes Jesus into her home.  Martha does the work while her sister Mary listens to Jesus, a reality Martha is quick to complain about.  

It is amazing how many people cast stones at Martha’s behavior. “You’re being an anxious Martha” or “you’re being a Mary”.  I suppose that is for good reason.  It is pretty clear in the text that Martha does complain about her sister, Mary, to Jesus.  It is also pretty clear that Martha is worried and anxious, fretting about her work and tasks, what are most likely minor things. It’s also pretty clear the Lord thinks Mary has found the better way. She patiently and humbly sits in the presence of God and isn’t distracted by her busyness.

But let’s be charitable to Martha.  I’d like us to first consider what Martha does right.  Martha wants to show hospitality to the Lord Jesus.  She is living out the core idea in the Parable of the Good Samaritan that in the kingdom of God even strangers are neighbors.  The whole point of the Parable of the Good Samaritan is that mercy is a sign of faithfulness and obedience to God. That is, if you can show mercy to someone, it’s a sign that you are probably close to God. If you are unmerciful and full of vengeance and hatred for another, pray to God to change your heart. Think about the Parable of the Good Samaritan.   The priest and the Levite who step over and ignore the beaten man lying half-dead along the side of the highway may know about God and they may know what the Scriptures say.  But they do not know God and walk in the ways of God.  It is the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law.  One deadens and the other brings to life.

We have no indication that Martha knew Jesus before she welcomed him into her home.  But what we do know is that in the world of first century Palestine where Jesus lived and ministered, mercy was often expressed through hospitality and welcoming a stranger, foreigner, or immigrant into one’s home and providing food, rest, and safe lodging.  I think we are on safe ground to say that Martha really was trying to do what was right and follow the spirit of the law, and love and serve God and her neighbors.  She did that by working and welcoming Jesus into her home.

When we consider the practice of hospitality it is important to remember that hospitality is a core tenant of our faith.  Because hospitality is a core part of God Almighty’s own character.  God is hospitable to us in that ‘while we were still sinners, Christ died for us’. God does not fly off the handle with us like we do when we’re angry. Instead, God is patient with us. That doesn’t mean we should test God’s patience.  I think one of the most important ways to understand the gospel and Jesus’ death and resurrection is that Jesus’ death is for the justification of the ungodly.  We who are broken and half-hearted and mean and tired are made right before God simply because in a universal act of love, Christ died for us.  No one deserves this.  No one earns God’s love and mercy, but it is the character of God that God abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness. Jesus himself lives this in the gospel narratives in the stories where he eats with sinners, welcomes friends and foes alike to the table, and draws the outcasts in.

At the last church that I served, we were about an hour and half away from Baltimore. In the suburbs of Baltimore, there was a man who shot a man on his porch steps.  The homeowner who shot the man on his porch claims the shooting was an act of self defense.  There was a strange and unfamiliar man knocking on his door, he said, screaming obscenities and making threatening claims.  But it turns out that the man who was shot actually had the houses mixed up.  He was attending a party at a neighboring home, but since homes in developments often look the same, he got confused.  He had apparently had too much to drink and went for a walk and when he came back he tried to get into the wrong home.

I do not know enough about the circumstances to make a judgement, but it seems to me to be a real life parable for our collective loss of neighborliness.  How many of your neighbors do you actually know?  I will admit that for me, I know far fewer of my neighbors than I’d like.  It seems we are driven by fear and hostility towards the other, but mostly busyness, than we are with the desire to be hospitable and welcoming.

It was a little different for Martha.  Martha models hospitality.  Her vice is busyness. 

Jesus’ reply to Martha’s complaints about her sister Mary’s idleness is the strong medicine of tough love.  “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled by many things.  But only one thing is needed.  Mary has chosen the good thing which cannot be taken away from her.” (my translation)

With the strong medicine of speaking the truth in love, Jesus cuts through Martha’s busyness: in all in her work she has missed the point of her work.  In common language, she’s lost the forest for the trees.  How many of us have done the same and gotten so caught up in our tasks, our problems, our family traditions or what our friends did or didn’t do, our feelings and worries, our career, our chores that we’ve lost sight of what is important?  I know in ministry it often very easy to do God’s work and forget God.

The most helpful commentator I read about this story argued that it is not really about two women where one gets it right and one gets it wrong.  Rather, she wrote, it is a story about our divided hearts.  Inside of each of us is both a Martha and a Mary.

Inside of us there is a Martha who wants to do good, but sometimes goes about doing good in the wrong way. There is a part of us that is anxious, impatient, and distracted from God.

Inside of us there is also a Mary – a person who wants to rest and sit and learn in the presence of God and consider that enough.

I’ll let you pull your own good news out of this story.  But here is the thread of good news that I found: the Lord loves Martha way too much to let her life be defined by what she does. Instead, the Lord is patient with her as he is with us even as he gives Martha some tough love. The good thing that Mary has found and that can’t be taken away from her is the good thing for us.  It is the simple truth that our work, our good deeds, our positive thoughts, our churchiness doesn’t save us. The Lord Jesus himself saves. Knowing that produces the spiritual fruit of patience.  You and I are made right before God because God makes us right before himself. Trust that. The word for this is grace.

In the name Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.