Starter anecdote: Southern Marthas & Mary-Marthas
In the quest to concretize our reflection, I deemed it fitting to share an observation which may be familiar with most of us.
Like women of many other countries and cultures, Southern women in the United States are great Marthas and proud of it. These women, who have traditional Southern hospitality refined to an art, never sit. They hover. Plates are never allowed to go empty. Guests are continually asked if they need anything. In fact, many times the hostess will continue to cook all through the meal. When does the hostess eat? This is one of the South’s mysteries. The hostess keeps working, huffing around the table. She misses all dinner conversation, all sharing of feelings and information, and gives herself totally to serving.
A second type of Southern woman is Mary-Martha. Unflustered, she greets the guests at the door. The table is already set and the kitchen is spotless. This hostess sits, talks, laughs and eats the appetizers with her guests. She excuses herself, goes to the kitchen, and returns with food that’s prepared and ready to eat. At dinner, she remains with those gathered around the table, getting to know the guests, asking about their lives, sharing her own thoughts and feelings. In today’s Gospel, Jesus expresses his preference for listening and working Mary-Marthas over Mary and Martha each taken separately.
FIRST READING
When God destines us for blessing, He will surely accomplish it in his own time. There wasn’t any pre−promise made to Abraham about a child with his wife Sarah. But at this hour of divine visitation, Abraham was made to understand that no time is late for God to operate miracles. From all human calculations, it is likely unnatural and biologically impossible that such aged couple could be able to have child again. This type of human reasoning would be countered by a divine assurance that “nothing is impossible for God’ (v.14).
The birth announcement made by the strangers was a sign of the fulfillment of God’s promise of progeny to the patriarch of Israel. It is an encounter through which the whole nation of Israel as a people will be born. There are basically two important characteristic displayed by Abraham in the whole episode:
1.) The spiritual keenness of Abraham enabled him to see something (more) about the visitor’s more than just mere strangers: this teaches us that to have a true encounter with God, an encounter enough to transform our lives, then we must necessarily be connected in the spirit. Can’t we feel that it wasn’t ordinary? When Abraham saw them (goes beyond mere physical eye contact) He ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earthy, and said “My Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass your servant.”
He did not only see them, but he equally made a move (from seeing to acting, from speculation to practice). We cannot meet the lord while remaining in the same old places and the same old persons. It requires a deep-seated spiritual movement. Moses was able to hear the voice of God at Horeb for the first time, because he did not just see the mystery of the fire, he made a move to discover the mystery (Ex 3).
Are we still sitting under the ‘oak of Mamre’ refusing to make a move? Are we still tied down to the old habits refusing to give them up? What is holding us from running to meet the Lord who never ceases to pass our way every day?
2.) Exemplary Spirit of hospitality: The hospitality shown to the strangers by Abraham and eventually the promise made to him teaches us that no single sacrifice and charity shown to the “Other” especially to the strangers, the homeless, the abandoned, the sick and all who cannot reciprocate our charity will go unrewarded. Our God takes account of every single charity we show to others. And like Abraham his response in our lives cannot but miraculous.
We cannot pretend not to see the wearied, the hungry and the thirsty around us. Don’t we still have a measure of fine meal to make a cake? “Is our stall empty of tender and good calf?” that’s what Abraham and Sarah offered. What would you and I offer? Anything enough to put smile on the face of the other, even our word of comfort. Like Abraham, our openness to others today can be the beginning of God’s perpetual presence in our families and a promise of generational blessing (depicted in the birth of Isaac).
SECOND READING
The second reading presents Paul’s testament to the Christian community of Colossae. As an apostle and a missionary, he suffered many hardships not just in witnessing to Christ but also on behalf of his body, the church. He saw his suffering as something not apart and different from the suffering of Christ but united in Christ’s suffering! “I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions (figurative).
For the sake of Christ and for the church, Paul suffered. This is a display of the same spirit of service and of generous love we saw in the first reading. Like Abraham he was open to minister to the gentiles whom he considered equally as “hosts” and “beneficiaries” of the hidden mystery of the glory of God revealed in Christ.
GOSPEL
In the first reading, God was seen to visit the family of Abraham in the guise of “strangers”. But Luke reports in the gospel that this God has come to meet his people, no longer in the form of “strangers” but as “Emmanuel” (God with us). This affirms the progressive revelation of God in the history of salvation which attained its definitive close in the person of Christ. This passage of the gospel of Luke opens us to another important scene of hospitality and service like in the first reading. The figure of Mary and Martha and their relationship with Christ was clearly distinguished:
1.) The lazy and indifferent Mary: In an utilitarian society whereby the worth of the human person is evaluated by his “activeness” to produce a result, the likes of Mary will be considered lazy. After all it is improper to fold the hands, in the presence of a visitor, an important one for that matter, when courtesy demands that he be served. So why on earth should Mary sit down in the name of listening, to whatever ‘stupid story’ going on? Martha did not hesitate to complain as many of us would do.
2.) The Active and hardworking Martha: By choice, many would prefer Martha to Mary probably because her sense of hospitality shows that she had a good home training. Her action shows that she knows what to do whenever there is a guest. And as a good child she needed to put her sister on the right track by educating her on the need to help out in the service to their guest.
3.) The unjust/ just response of Jesus: A question of priority. Jesus told Martha, “you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.”
In life, we have come to understand that the greatest type of suffering, which kills faster, is not physical/material but emotional/psychological (that is inner suffering). On the other hand, the greatest service we can render to others is to listen to them. How many people around us suffer loneliness needing someone to talk to them? Many person are carrying heavy hearts around looking for trustworthy persons to confide in. The greatest suffering is when we have no one to listen to our story. Mary listened keenly to Jesus.
Although Jesus was used to visiting this family of Betany, and most probably Mary and Martha have always displayed this passion of serving the material needs of Jesus, but today the evangelist revealed that Mary was able to grow into a mature relationship with Jesus but Martha was still yet to attain that level. Thus the response of Jesus to Martha is a call to Martha and to us to evaluate our priorities, as well as our image of Jesus. Obviously the problem of Martha is that she still saw Jesus as a regular friend of the family. Jesus needed the service of Martha, but wanted her to learn how to serve by sitting at his feet first.
Traditionally, the encounter of Jesus with Mary and Martha has been interpreted to mean that the quiet life of contemplation and prayer led by monks and nuns and personified in Mary, is superior to a busy life of activity and action, personified in Martha. Jesus did not intend to belittle Martha and her activity, rather to show that hearing the word of God is the foundation of all action, and that the word of God must permeate all other concerns. The highest priority must be given to listening to the word. Prayer and actions must be continuous, complementary, and mutually dependent. Prayer without action is sterile, and action without prayer is empty. We are expected to be “contemplatives in action” because only those who listen carefully to the Word of God know how to behave in the way that God wants, when they show deep concern for the well-being of other people.
That is why Jesus reminds Martha that proper service for him is attention to his instruction, not just an elaborate provision for his physical needs. Mary shows her love for the Lord by listening to him. Jesus in fact, needed Mary and Martha to keep him company and to listen to him because he was preparing to face the cross. By this episode, Jesus teaches his disciples that those who minister among God’s people must be actively listening to his words, thus becoming hospitable hosts and hostesses, welcoming into their hearts and attending to the good news of salvation.
At every Mass, we are offered the very hospitality of Jesus at the table of the Eucharist to become both Mary and Martha. Both Mary and Martha are teaching would-be disciples that their following of Jesus and their service in his name will require frequent spiritual refueling by prayer, silence and communion with God. Otherwise, service can become a crushing responsibility, a burden rather than a vocation, or a loving response to the invitation of God (in connection with Fr. Tony Kadavil).
FROM THE EYE OF LUKE
In his Gospel, Luke frequently gives a pride of place to women. It is not for nothing that he placed Mary at the feet of Jesus receiving his teaching; a posture of a disciple reserved only to men in his time. It is an affirmation that Christian discipleship is not sex-oriented. The likes of Mary are also called to sit at the feet of Jesus and to serve him like Martha. No wonder Luke deviated the attention of his audience from Lazarus the man of the house (sign of the diversity of discipleship) and concentrated on his sisters.
CALL TO ALL MARTHAS
In as much as we have good intentions and zeal to render service to others, Jesus tells us today that we cannot pretend to serve others without first having a good relationship with God. For our services to be meaningful and fruitful, we must always recharge our spiritual battery at the feet of Jesus. When our spiritual battery is weak, then our service will gradually become one of self gratification (Martha feeling that she was doing all). We must move from the feet of Jesus to service and then back to the feet of Jesus. God must take priority in our lives, if not our service becomes purely humanitarian lacking a divine dimension. We must first be godly before being humanitarian and that’s what gives true meaning to our service.
PRAYER:
Heavenly Father, through your word, you have made us to understand that you are a God who is never far away from his people. You visit them even when they least expect it in order to bring them comfort. Help us to recognize you in the heart of our homes today. May we never lose sight of you present in the faces of wearied strangers. Above all, may our choices in life start from you and end in you, for without you we can do nothing good. You who live and reign forever and ever. Amen.
