Preached on the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 11C), July 20, 2025, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington by The Reverend Samuel Torvend.
Amos 8:1-12
Psalm 52
Colossians 1:15-28
Luke 10:38-42
Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, by Johannes Vermeer
For all intents and purposes, I grew up in a bed and breakfast. Given the considerable number of guests who came to our home, my sister and I were part of the staff. As they would say on Downton Abbey: we were in service as cleaners and assistant cooks. The range of guests ran from young women who were pregnant without marriage, young women kicked out of their parents’ homes to bishops who wondered how my father, a clergyperson, animated considerable growth in the California parishes he served. In all of this, our mother, a gracious host and an art educator, oversaw the household, the frequent changing of bed and bathroom linens, the preparation of meals, the detailed cleaning of the house, the care for our gardens, and getting up long before guests did to ensure that breakfast was ready. No paper plates and napkins here: only the good linens would do for young women pregnant out of wedlock as well as elderly bishops who frequently overenjoyed the lovely California wines they were served.
To say the least, this gospel reading was not one of our mother’s favorites, with Jesus apparently looking down upon the work it takes to welcome people into one’s home. “Oh right,” our mother would say, “lazy Mary gets the credit for sitting at Jesus’ feet with that adoring look on her face while Martha is sweating away as she prepares their dinner.” So troubling was the story, that I decided to rewrite and then frame it as a gift to Mom on Mother’s Day: "Lord,” said Martha, “do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me." The Lord answered her, saying, “Blessed are you, Martha, for you care for many things, a faithful steward of all that God gives you.”
The biblical scholars who have constructed the social world of Jesus, Mary, and Martha offer an interesting interpretation of this story. In the cultural and religious world of the Mediterranean, women did not sit with men to whom they were unrelated unless there were chaperones present. In that world then, every attempt was made to diminish the possibility of untoward behavior between unmarried men and unmarried women. The surprise of this story is that Jesus, Mary, and Martha break the accepted cultural code of who is an acceptable or unacceptable companion.
But there is more. In Mediterranean cultures at the time of Jesus, women were not educated. Indeed, village women – the women with whom Jesus grew up and had interactions in adult life – were not considered capable of learning anything except the management of a household. The surprise in this story is that Jesus appears to be teaching Mary and thus rejecting a culturally accepted norm while demonstrating that women, no different than men, are capable of learning. Do we not recognize his disregard for established gender stereotypes? And might his disregard for such stereotypes call into question the stereotypes with which you and I have been raised: stereotypes that can box us and others into neat and manageable and frequently unhealthy categories that wash the life out of us and them? If anything, this gospel story is a word of caution that invites us to reflect on the often unconscious views we hold of others – views or categories or stereotypes that rob others of their rich complexity.
I think it's good for us to remember that Luke directs his gospel to a community of non-Jewish Christians in the Mediterranean world: a world in which the emerging Christian movement was a minority in a society, a society little different than our own that traded in harmful stereotypes every day. After all, do we not hear today from the highest levels of government that immigrants are nothing more than “criminals,” that trans persons are referred to as “corrupters,” that investigative reporters are “evil distributors of fake news,” that a bishop who pleads for mercy is nothing more than a “hardline hater”? Indeed, the news seems to be awash in these vile stereotypes that are not only insulting but also give permission for dishonorable citizens to engage in harmful activity, in violence.
And so I say, how grateful I am that each year you and I renew a solemn baptismal vow to “respect the dignity of every human being.” To say the least, it is a challenging vow to internalize given the socialization we have experienced in the bias and discriminations of American culture. The temptation is ever present to respect the God-given and inherent dignity discerned only in those who think and act just like you and me: the person or group who reflects our concerns, social status, and identity. This is why I think the profession of this sacred vow invites you and me to live into it throughout a life-time. And live into to it we must as followers of Jesus Christ, the One who honored the image of God in the street smart hooker and the wealthy matron, the army officer and the insurgent bent on murder, the corrupt tax collector and the collector’s victim – the One who could see through identity and social status to the flame of dignity illuminating the souls of one and all.
It's of interest to me – and I hope to you – that the Greek term in this story which describes Martha’s tasks is diakonia, a term that refers to the one who serves at table. What, then, was she busy about? Why preparing a meal for Jesus, the One who broke the cultural code that said some are acceptable at table and others are unacceptable by virtue of their questionable identity, social status, or lukewarm religious devotion. Her meal at table, dear friends, is an image of the little meal we keep at this table: this fragment of bread, this sip of wine. Believe me: there are moments when I think it is a dangerous thing to come to this table for the One who freely offers himself to us, who unites himself with our bodies, minds, and souls in the most holy Eucharist is the One who gives you and me the strength to respect the dignity of each and every one we will encounter in the days to come. The only question is this: will we receive him with thanksgiving?