As I read over these scripture readings from Genesis and Luke many, many different thoughts came to mind.  I’ll try to share some of them.  It might be like firing off a shotgun with bird shot in it, you know, just scatters everywhere and something might hit home.

The first thing that strikes me is hospitality.  I’ve heard it described as the most basic application of the Christian virtue of charity, of love, of caring for other people.  We see Martha and Mary welcoming Jesus to their home and we read about Abraham not only welcoming strangers but actually kind of reaching out and inviting them to come in.  Of course, that was very, very essential hospitality in a Nomadic desert society and it still is where such societies exist.  Well, you don’t have to sit in your front yard everyday waiting for someone to go by to tell them “Oh, come on in for dinner”.  That’s not what this is about.  

It’s about every day living and it is especially now in this context of here at church.  Plenty of opportunities for hospitality.  Dare I start by talking about the parking lot, (Chuckles) no, I’m not going there; I’m not going there.  But you come into church and you are greeted by the Ushers and they do a wonderful job of greeting you; and many visitors to our church have remarked to me that they feel a certain warmth of welcome in our church, and that’s wonderful.  Congratulations!  But really that is what it should be about, that we gather as a family in greeting each other, welcoming each other, making everybody really, really feel at home,  making everybody feel at home.  They may be coming late for Mass and we all know they shouldn’t be late for Mass, but we don’t have to punish them by making them climb over us to get into the pew, you know.  That happens a lot doesn’t it?  

Hospitality means trying to make things comfortable for people.  Trying to show them that they are welcome, they're part of the community, etc.  Then, you know, at the sign of peace we invite you to turn around and greet the people beside you and that way Sunday after Sunday you get to know four people, the same four people, because you sit in the same pews every Sunday.  Now be adventurous, okay?  You know, in the Middle Ages when they were drawing maps the cartographer very often didn’t know very much about the lands way out on the edges of the map and so they would write in there “there will be dragons”.  There are no dragons in the church, okay?  No dragons.  So be adventurous, maybe next Sunday,  if you haven’t, or maybe you do have, a season ticket to your present pew, maybe wander over there, or wander over there, you know.  Try it next Sunday.  Seek and you meet a few new people. There are wonderful people here for you to meet.  So I challenge you to try that next Sunday and we will know, we priests will know because we know exactly where you sit.  (Laughter)  We know exactly where you sit every Sunday.

Now a few thoughts on Martha and Mary.  Martha  -  Mary  -  Hospitality.  So someone suggested to me that I should have arranged for our Hospitality Committee to distribute little packets of M&M’s.  Bad pun isn’t it?  Very bad pun.  Two sisters, (Lazarus isn’t mentioned) Martha and Mary, welcomed Jesus to dinner.  But then there is a little domestic row.  Martha is upset because she has to do all the work, she has to do all the cooking.  Mary just sits listening to Jesus.  Did it ever strike you that Jesus showed very poor judgment getting involved in the dispute between siblings?  I could picture Lazarus over in a corner sipping his beer and muttering to himself, “Jesus, just stay out of it, just stay out of it.”  But Jesus did take sides and Martha felt used.  Do you feel used sometimes?  Maybe siblings, but it could be a spouse, could be a parent and a child, a co-worker, a member of a club, someone on a committee with you.  Do you feel that you are always expected to be the one that empties the dishwasher?  I hate having to do that.  Or that you are always having to pick up after someone?  Or rearrange the chairs and the tables after a meeting in the hall?  The feeling can really eat at us, can’t it, that we feel used and negate all the good work that we may be doing.  Well, if we feel sensitive about that just remember other people may feel sensitive too and they may feel that they are the "Martha"s and that we are the "Mary"s and that they are being used.  I think that hospitality means being aware of the needs of other people and being sensitive to them and doing our best to make people comfortable where they are.  Well, this Martha and Mary story is traditionally seen as a glorification of meditation and prayer over active ministry.  And Jesus certainly seems to take that stance and a whole spiritual teaching has grown up around it.  But perhaps He was just trying to make Martha understand that she didn’t need to fuss so much about the dinner.  He wasn’t too particular about the dinner.  He had come to visit them, Martha and Mary, and he wanted an opportunity to just sit down and have a chat with both of them.  

You know, in those days the kitchens were always living houses outside the main house because of the danger of fire.  Pity the open plan that we have nowadays.  Then she could be there cooking and chatting and getting along, but anyway this is probably what He was trying to say, “Don’t be fussing too much.  I am a simple person I don’t need all of this fussing around me”.  He may have been hinting that her life was just a little bit out of balance and that’s a very hard thing for us to do, to keep our lives in balance, the balance between work and prayer in our lives.  You know, even among the strictest contempletive religious orders in our church, for example, Cistercians or the Poor Clare’s; they really try to balance their prayer and their work.  They are not at prayer all the time.  They do a lot of manual work, farm work or embroidery work, making cheeses or making Mass vestments or whatever.  Do a lot of manual work.  They try to keep their lives in balance and that’s, I think, what this is asking us to do.

So I will end by just saying that, though in her retirement years my mother was very much a Mary, daily Mass and lots of prayers; yet, I am very thankful that in her younger days she was, with 10 children, very much a Martha. Otherwise, I might have ended up in Juvenile Hall.  But, being a Martha may very well have been and, I think, definitely was for her the way to be a Mary, if that makes any sense.

Amen.

rjs