July 17, 2016

July 17, 2016
16th Sunday in Ordinary Time C
Genesis 18: 1-10; Colossians 1: 24-28; Luke 10: 38-42
So often I have heard the expression, ‘Well I’m a Martha definitely not a Mary.’ I would say if I added
up the times I have heard this phrase I would say that seldom do I hear anyone say, ‘I’m a Mary’. A
huge number of people say that they are Martha’s. Do they secretly wish the they were Mary’s? I do
not feel that is the issue of today’sGospel.
In looking at the story, no one is forcing Martha to busy herself with being hospitable to Jesus. Nor is
anyone insisting that Mary sit with Jesus and listen to Him. If we look at our own lives, sometimes we
like to be involved with all the preparations and making things nice. At other times we may just want to
sit and listen and maybe be a little lazy and let others be involved in the doing. Both are needed…both
are good. Usually each person’s gifts will gravitate toward one or the other when we have guests.
Could it be that one of the messages of the story is that Jesus is always a guest in our home? How do I
treat Him? Do I go to Him? Do I listen to Him? Do I shun Him? Do I realize that home is not the four
walls that I live in but the home of my own self? Could some deeper questions be: am I satisfied living
in the home of me? Am I happy? Am I at conflict within myself? Am I searching and I don’t know
what the search is all about? Do I realize that God is always with me…within me? Am I going to Him
and being comfortable in His presence? He wants for me to be the me I can be…do I want the same?
How do I welcome Jesus?
How do I treat Him? Do I sit with Him or try to avoid Him? I believe the answers in the readings today
can help each of us in our close encounters with our loving God.
Abraham was ninety-nine when God appeared to him with the promise that he and Sarah would be
giving birth to a son and he laughed at this. Then God left him and today’s account is when three figures
came to visit them. Abraham invited them to stay and he waits on them hopefully expecting that they
would say something to him. They ask where Sarah is and Abraham is fidgety evidently because she
laughed at giving birth. What is the message…God keeps His word…God is worthy of trust. He said
He is always with us. So often we don’t believe that or we think, ‘Who am I’…each person is His
creation made of love to be love.
Paul sees the sufferings of each as a completion of Christ’s sufferings. He’s not saying that there was
anything missing in Jesus’ Passion, Agony and Death but that the entire Church receives the benefit
especially when its members suffer in spreading the gospel. There is suffering each of us endure in
being people of love, care, compassion and forgiveness. As one of my students once said,
‘Father, it sure ain’t easy acting like Jesus…but I’m not giving up.’ A good message for me and for all.
In the gospel, Jesus had presented Himself at Mary, Martha and Lazarus’ house. Custom said that one
would be met by the man of the house and if he wasn’t present by the woman of the household who
would offer refreshments. But this woman would never start a conversation or be alone with the person
in the same room. In light of this, Martha had to have been more than embarrassed with Mary’s actions.
Mary had broken the code of hospitality and assumed the role of the man of the house. It was totally
understandable that Martha was trying to get Mary away from Jesus, even though He was a close family
friend. So what excuse did she use…’I need help in the kitchen, tell Mary to come and help.’ Now look
at the response of Jesus to all this, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is
need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”
What Jesus is telling each of us is that what is most important is the Lord’s presence in our lives. God is
always present…helping us…caring for us…filling us with His love…Are we aware of His presence?
Do we feel that we are ‘that important to God that He is with us every moment?’ It’s true. So many
people who come to me say that one of the hardest things to do is to just ‘sit with the Lord in quiet’.
Each of our lives are ‘busy lives’. We are constantly ‘doing’…because things have to done…or is it
better that ‘I just have to be busy.’ If we have that attitude then it is very hard to slow ourselves down
and ‘be with the Lord’ because we feel if I take the time to be with the Lord, I have to be doing
something.
Another point is that we feel we have to be
‘doing something for the Lord’ like social action. I feel that this is important but sometimes we could
easily use this as a ‘cop-out from just being with the Lord. Without spending time with the Lord our
actions can so easily become totally self-directed, self-propelled, rather than being led and inspired by
the Spirit of God. Fr. Flor McCarthy in New Sunday and Holy Day Liturgies says, “”Henry David Thoreau
lived for two years in a shack in the woods in Maine. What did he do during those years? He planted a vegetable
garden, read books, and observed nature. But sometimes he did nothing at all. He says, ‘Sometimes on a summer
morning I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a reverie, amidst the pines, in undisturbed solitude
and stillness, while the birds sang around me.’ What fruits did he reap from this? He says: ‘I grew in those seasons
like corn in the night. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance.
It is not enough to be industrious, so are ants. What are you industrious about? Fear not that your life will end;
rather fear that it many never have begun.’ Some may dismiss Thoreau as an idle dreamer. But we need to spend
time in prayer and reflection, if only to sit quietly in the presence of God. This is not time wasted but time well
spent. Each day we should try, if only for a short while, to seek the face of God.
At a superficial glance it might seem that Mary’s part was the easier—all she had to do was sit there—and
Martha’s the harder. But on reflection we can see that at least sometimes Mary’s part is by far the harder of the
two. It’s not easy to set aside one’s own work and give one’s undivided attention to another person. To give that
kind of wholehearted attention to God is not easy. But it’s tremendously fruitful spiritually.”
So I reflect on:
• How do I say thanks to God for His deep hospitality?
• When I am of service to those around me do they look at what I’m doing or at me? What’s the
difference between meeting the needs of others and encountering people?
• Alice Camille asks, “Are you in service mode all day long, or do yo take time to give full attention to Jesus in
word, sacrament, adoration, or the face of the poor?”
Sacred Space 2016 says,
“It is easy to be distracted and fragmented when many things call for attention—even what is good can lose its
luster if we forget what busyness is about. Martha seems to be have been distracted by the many things she had to
do; she forgot whom she was doing them for.
I pray that I, like Mary, can be drawn to the presence of Jesus and, like Martha, can be honest with Him about
what distracts me.”