This morning’s Gospel reading is Luke 10:38–42:
Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.” The Lord said to her in reply, “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.”
How often do we spend so much time on preparation that we miss the point of the occasion? With some of us, it happens every Christmas — so much so that it’s become a point of cultural humor. For instance, in the classic film A Christmas Story, we spend most of the film’s 93-minute run time in anticipation of Ralphie’s Christmas morning — which takes up no more than ten minutes of film time.
But this happens frequently with other events in our lives. For us, occasions where we host a party turn into several days of fretting over the food, beverages, cleaning, ensuring that our guests enjoy themselves and hoping we will not commit some kind of faux pas by coming up short on necessities. In fact, that’s also so universal that Jesus used it as the occasion of His first miracle — the wedding feast at Cana, where He spared the family a humiliation by transforming water into the finest wine.
What did that teach us? For one thing, we should truly invite Jesus into our festivities, for a number of reasons. It also tells us that while preparation is important in hospitality, the love and communion it brings is the true purpose of the event.
Two readings today remind us to focus on the important rather than the preparation as an end in itself. Our first reading from Genesis 18 tells how three angels came to Abraham to bring the presence of the Lord to him. Abraham has already been in the Lord’s presence before, when God promised to make him the father of nations through His covenant, and understands the necessity of hospitality — and that its purpose is in support of that communion. Abraham places his finest food before the three angels to give them sustenance, so that they will be in communion with Abraham and his wife.
When this communion takes place, two important prophecies come forth. First, Sarah hears for the first time that she will give birth to a son, a prophecy at which she scoffs at first. Second, the Lord has the angels share His intention to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for their utterly evil ways, which allows Abraham to ask the Lord to spare the righteous in those cities. It is in this exchange — a kind of prayer of supplication — that Abraham secures the safety of Lot and his daughters. In Genesis 19:29, we read:
So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt.
God remembered Abraham because Abraham recognized the presence of the Lord and understood that his preparations were only a prelude to what really mattered in this encounter with Him.
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Today’s Gospel reading gives us the opposite approach from Martha. Jesus arrives at her house and Martha becomes “distracted with much serving,” as another translation puts it. “Burdened” hints at the problem, but it’s clear from this telling that Martha had allowed herself to miss the importance of the communion for which she had spent so much effort preparing. Today we would call it missing the forest for the trees,” and Jesus tries to gently remind her that the preparations aren’t the important point of communion. It is the communion itself, which Mary recognizes while Martha remains “anxious and troubled by many things.”
And so it is with us, and not just at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Super Bowl Sunday, or other such social occasions. We get so busy with the details that we miss the bigger picture of communality and loving social interaction.
But we may miss the point even more when it comes to true communion with Christ. It’s easy for us to commune with each other, even if we do allow ourselves to get over-frazzled with the preparations. Because Christ lives in our hearts through the Holy Spirit rather than in bodily form on Earth, that communion should be easier for us, but its mysteries make it more difficult to truly achieve. It takes preparation — we call it formation — for us to form our will to the Lord’s and properly receive the Holy Spirit to form that communion. Rather than keep our eyes on that as the prize, we often focus so much on the preparation that we overlook its purpose. Instead of embracing Christ’s presence within us as Mary does, we fuss about the rules and the procedures that are intended to facilitate that communion rather than act as gatekeeping from it.
At the heart of this problem is our own unwillingness to let go and allow the Lord to direct us. It is a lack of trust as well as a sense that we can control the parameters of that communion. Martha’s busy-ness around Jesus did nothing to connect her to Him, and in fact caused her to act uncharitably toward her sister for that very connection to Jesus. How often do we find ourselves doing something similar with our own brothers and sisters in Christ?
This is the lesson that Martha and Mary teach us, with Jesus as our gentle guide and loving rebuker. The preparation and formation is important; we need to extend our best hospitality to the Holy Spirit and serve Him as our beloved guest in our hearts. But it is that communion between us and the Lord that matters, much more than the formation and much more than the rules and procedures that are designed to facilitate that communion rather than replace it.
Oh, by the way … there are 160 days between now and Christmas. Try not to get anxious!
The front page image is “Christ in the House of Martha and Mary” by Pieter Aertsen, 16th century. Currently part of the private Schorr Collection. Via Wikimedia Commons.
“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature, looking at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.
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