“It is in the realm of the daily and the mundane that we must find our way to God.” Kathleen Norris, author of Dakota: A Spiritual Geography
Even though the times are trying at best, I confess that I like to entertain, to host dinner parties, picnics, informal suppers. I like the planning: should I make the crab cakes again or my go-to chicken dish? Use the red flowered plates or the cream-colored china? Pick a bunch of white hydrangeas from the yard or go with the daisies and snapdragons? Invite a group of faithful friends or mix it up with some new faces?
So when I saw that the Gospel this coming Sunday was the story of Mary and Martha, I was delighted. A story about domesticity! About hospitality! About women! I have preached on this lesson several times in my preaching career and have great affection for it, but it’s always humbling to discover an idea in a piece of Scripture that has been present all along and you have missed it! Some times the cultural climate wakes you up to it. It did me.
I was frankly amazed, sitting in church last Sunday listening to to the prayers and sermon about the prior week’s horrific events – the shootings, the marches, the pain – to realize that the somewhat innocent story about domestic hospitality was really about more than who does what at a party. More than a discussion about male and female roles (although it is that, too). More than one hostess being castigated for worrying too much while her lazy sister sits there sopping up wisdom from Jesus! (Yes, my Norwegian gene is kicking in here.)
One of the incidental benefits of this lesson is the glimpse it provides into the lives of Jesus’ best friends: the siblings Mary, Martha and Lazarus and their welcoming home in Bethany, just two miles southeast of Jerusalem, right on the Jericho Road referred to in last week’s lesson about the Good Samaritan. Jesus stopped by their house whenever he was in the neighborhood, and it was the last stop he made before entering Jerusalem to be crucified. Arguably, his most astounding miracle was performed in Bethany. It was an important place for Jesus—and for us, in all sorts of ways….especially now.
More on Sunday where I promise a minimum of Martha STEWART references (but there has to be at least one because it’s too perfect) and this lesson will be considered as a template for personal action in these troubling days.
See you in church.
Barbara
