We are all immediately attracted to a story where it looks like there is a clear hero and a clear loser, someone who gets it and someone who doesn’t. There are plenty of great gospel stories that fit into that pattern, starting with the story of the good Samaritan we heard last week coming to the aid of the stranger at the side of the road. That wouldn’t be as good a story if we didn’t first see the priest and the levite walk right by not noticing and not caring, and then the Samaritan, the only one whose eyes and heart are actually open.
It’s very tempting to see today’s gospel in that same category of story, one sister who gets it, and one who doesn’t. Bad Martha, too distracted by work, and resentful about it too, contrasted with good Mary, seated quietly at the feet of Jesus learning from him. Don’t be like Martha, we conclude, don’t be that person who is so distracted by duties and projects that they can’t focus on what they really need to see and hear. But before we decide that is the message, let’s remember something about this home that Jesus finds himself in.
Because this wasn’t just any home. One thing that I have become aware of these past few years is that Martha and Mary are not just cardboard characters in a story. This home of theirs was a place where Jesus was deeply loved, and he loved the people in it just as much. Remember that this is the same family whose brother Lazarus was a man Jesus also loved, the one Jesus brought back from the dead. For some reason even in his wandering life Jesus kept returning to this home, he sought them out, this was the place he wanted to be close to even as his life approached its end. He must have gotten something from their home and their personalities, he needed their support and love, it was a place where he could be welcomed and perhaps even felt safe.
So what we learn from this family of two sisters and a brother, as if we needed to have it pointed out to us, is that Jesus didn’t and doesn’t just love people in general in some kind of generic way, in his life he loved individual people. He came to see this family just to be with them, he cared what happened to them, he missed them when they weren’t there, he mourned with them and celebrated with them, they could and did express their anger and their loss to him. He was present to them as not just a teacher and a rabbi, but a friend.
So what can we learn about these people Jesus loved? This is clearly not a story that is trying to tell us all not to rush about providing hospitality. Jesus couldn’t have lived without hospitality, and Christians are supposed to be in the hospitality business. It’s also not to tell us that the contemplative life is where it’s really at, that’s the best way to be a real Christian. But this gospel is about how we welcome Christ, and what it means to have a relationship with him. And what that looks like is what we see in this gospel, it involves being attentive to the fact that he is there, listening and noticing what happens when he speaks, expecting him to be present. It means accepting his love for us, experiencing his love and acceptance of us as the individuals we are. He loved busy and slightly frazzled Martha just as much as Mary who today took time to sit at his feet.
So in the end, what is this one thing necessary that Jesus refers to in this gospel? The gospel today seems to be saying that attention to the presence of Jesus is that one thing. We don’t earn it; he comes and knocks on our door, and somehow in his words and his presence we realize one day that we are loved simply for who we are. But it is up to us to notice, to stop whatever takes us away from it, to see the visitor who is right in front of us. Christ is our visitor, but he also comes through others. Abraham in the first reading entertained angels without knowing it, and that too is what we believe happens, that in the lives of strangers or friends, neighbors or refugees, none of whom look like Christ — in those people too Christ is present, inviting us to stop, and see, and understand.
Today the question is, are we people who feel we have access to this relationship with a God who visits us and keeps visiting us? It’s true that it’s hard to sustain our awareness of a relationship like that in a world where we so often feel put down and abandoned and alone, where we lose hope in God’s presence for all sorts of reasons. Anger distracts us, or we retreat from a world that seems so difficult. And yet God still desires to come to the people he called the salt of the earth and the light of the world, meaning us. The living Christ is available to us, we talk with him and hear his words, and he is present in our lives not just in our inner lives but through the real tangible people we often find it so easy to turn away from.
So you might hear today’s gospel and see yourself as the busy and overwhelmed sister or the quiet and attentive one. But either one can see the visitor, and hear the message, and recognize the guest, and embrace the stranger and the friend. The one thing necessary is to have your eyes open for how Christ is with you. It’s not as hard as we sometimes make it out. After all, you are waiting for someone who has been with you all along.