A Fourth Church Sermon by Maria LaSala

July 22, 2007 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

It Begins with Hospitality

Maria LaSala, Guest Preacher
Co-Pastor, First Presbyterian Church
New Haven, Connecticut

Psalm 15
Genesis 18:1–15
Luke 10:38–42

We turn toward love
like sunflowers to the sun,
and then the human part kicks in.

Anne Lamott
Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

My grandmother was named Mary, and I, Maria, was named after her. From the days of my earliest acquaintance with today’s biblical story, I’ve wondered whether my grandmother might have been misnamed. That has caused me to wonder if I too have been called by the wrong name all of my years.

Here is the problem. My grandmother, Mary, should have been named Martha. She was a genius in the kitchen, turning out the kind of simple Italian meals that today would cost plenty in a hard-to-get-into restaurant along Michigan Avenue. The meals took hours of preparation, for every dish was made entirely from scratch. Fresh tomatoes, meats directly from the butcher, grains and oils and spices all had to be just right. And it wasn’t just about the food. The kitchen in which my grandma reigned supreme was the place in this troubled and confusing world where many would find a sympathetic ear, a compassionate heart, and a bit of good advice for one’s well-being.

My grandmother behaved so often like the Martha of Bethany in today’s gospel reading that I’d sometimes forget just who was the worker in the story and who was the attentive listener. Martha worked, and Mary listened to Jesus. Or was it the other way around?

I’m not suggesting that my grandmother failed to show hospitality. Entering her apartment in the New York borough of Queens, one was quickly drawn in by the warm conversation, the offer of a place to sit, a humble but very friendly home in which to pay a visit. The kitchen counter was covered with vegetables, prepared and ready for the pan. Sauce (which she for some reason called gravy) was bubbling on the stove. And the table, always set, indicated that she expected company and was glad to see us.

For all her gifts, though, my grandmother could be as harried as the biblical Martha. I can remember more than one meal in which I looked up to find that she had whisked away my plate before I was even finished eating, so determined was she in her work of serving her family.

My grandmother did take some time for other endeavors. She’d spend her afternoons reading through her prayer cards, offering petitions to her favorite saints like any faithful Italian Roman Catholic woman might do. On those cards, she learned that her name (like my own) comes from the ancient Hebrew. There our name is Miriam, which means “rebellious one.” She chuckled when she told me that, suggesting that she and I had not been misnamed after all. Our parents had gotten it just about right. My grandmother lived out a radical hospitality, in which food mattered and an open door mattered and where people were welcomed.

Life is about creating a place for the guest in one’s home and feeding sojourners in the ways they need to be fed and sending them on their way once more. So if life’s lessons can be taught in a small kitchen in Queens, then showing hospitality to the stranger is an important part of our identity as faithful people. That is the lesson that I learned from my grandmother. It is also the lesson we learn in today’s gospel. But who in the story really provides the hospitality? Martha, the worker in the kitchen, or Mary, the one at Jesus’ feet?

Jesus arrives just in time for dinner. Jesus has a knack for that, for finding himself friends with whom to sit just when he is most hungry. Sometimes it is on a hillside, sometimes on the shoreline. This time, though, we can imagine that he has had this very kitchen in mind all the day long. After the last of the afternoon crowds have been sent on their way, Jesus heads to the home of these two women who are, apart from the twelve, among his closest friends.

Jesus doesn’t knock, doesn’t announce his arrival. No, these are the kind of friends you just walk in on, knowing that you are welcome and treasured, knowing that you are valued.

And valued he is. Understood, even. These two sisters seem to know that Jesus is more than just another prophet in Israel. They’ve watched as Jesus has healed the sick and given life to those in despair. They’ve listened as he’s preached that the hungry would be fed and those in mourning would soon be comforted. They’ve talked about how Jesus just might be the One they had long awaited.

Pleased that on this night Jesus has chosen their home for his evening meal, Martha (first-century Palestine’s own Martha Stewart) begins to do the things that Martha does best. She begins to prepare a meal, a meal that would have pleased even my grandmother. Somehow there is food enough on the shelves or more is quickly found. The counter is soon full of vegetables, ready for the pan. A sauce, a gravy perhaps, is bubbling away on the small hearth.

Oh, don’t let me mislead you. This is not an Italian household! Here, the dishes include humus and avocado, pita bread and some cheese. Martha is alone in her kitchen, while in the other room the guests talk and laugh. Children scurry in and out.

And Mary? We aren’t to confuse her with the hard-working Martha. Mary is in the courtyard, sitting with the men who have gathered to talk with Jesus. Mary is sitting by the teacher’s feet.

Now many a sermon has been preached about the value of such a model of reflection, such a model of contemplation. You know the argument. Martha labors on and on, but it is the contemplative one, Mary, whom Jesus honors. So we too must beware, lest in our never-ending activity we neglect the truly holy things and miss the presence of Christ right there in our midst. That is the usual sermon, anyway. And it has its place, that sermon about the ways that the contemplative life is to be preferred over the life of service.

It is equally important for us to remember that Mary, living into the meaning of her name, shows herself to be a rebel this day. After all, in first-century Palestine, women did not sit in the same room with men talking about God. Women were home, where they would learn from their mothers the stories of God’s wonder and majesty in the lives of the Hebrew people. It would have been unheard of for a woman like Mary to be encouraged to learn with the men. So there is more to this story. Mary of Bethany is an early feminist, stepping into a man’s world so that she and her daughters might have the same access to a theological education as the men in her community.

Both good sermon ideas. But I want to suggest another reading of this text.

Jesus has come to this house with something entirely different in mind. Oh, of course he has arrived hungry. But he hungers not just for the excellent tabouli salad that is soon to be served. Knowing the gifts of each of the householders, Jesus is using Martha’s busy-ness and Mary’s contemplation to make a point about the balance that is essential in communities of faith.

Communities that make room for Jesus require both the activist and the contemplative. The sort of hospitality that God requires, the sort of community that Jesus longs for, needs some who will get to work. Those same communities of faith also need some who will take the time to pray and reflect and ponder new ideas and new ways of approaching life in society, life together.

You know that already, know it as well as my grandmother Mary back in her kitchen in Queens, New York, knew it. But we have a hard time acknowledging the importance of such balance.

Like those two biblical women, we all want to believe that we have chosen the better part. If we are workers, organizers, volunteers, activists even, we think of ourselves as worthy, deserving the attention of God incarnate, or at least the attention of those nearby. God has always lifted up those who have acted on behalf of God’s justice.

And if we are the prayerful or studious types, moved to envision new ways of doing ministry, eager to open the pages of scripture and to learn again what God might be saying, we think of ourselves as worthy, certain that God speaks still. We enjoy knowing that we have responded well to the prompting of God.

“We turn toward love like sunflowers to the sun,” writes Anne Lamott. Our intentions, at the beginning, are right headed and even holy. But then, the poet goes on, “the human part kicks in.”

We doubt the integrity of any response but our own. Martha wants her sister to be taken to task for failing to know her responsibilities, for failing to show hospitality. And Mary, sitting at the Teacher’s feet, neglects her sister’s cries.

A life of faith, a life of following Jesus, requires hospitality. Hospitality in the preparation of meals for many. Hospitality in the careful attention to the building of community. Hospitality when we listen and learn about another’s vision and hopes. It is what makes us members of the body of believers and not merely individuals on some solitary sacred quest.

Christian community happens with people who know each other well and with those who are just beginning to know one another. Christian community requires welcome and preparation and planning. And Christian community depends as well upon reflection and prayer.

Are there any among us who might be accused of failing to offer hospitality in our hesitation to serve the visitor? Here Martha models the good and necessary part. And when there are some who fail to be silent and to listen, Mary does indeed offer the part that is essential.

If we were to ask Jesus which of these two things we need more of, Martha’s activism or Mary’s reflective nature, Jesus would probably say yes. Carve out time to listen for God’s prompting; it will not be taken from us. And find the ways to serve. Abundant life for Jesus means the balance of reflection and action, worship and work. Jesus expects nothing less.

Letty Russell, a feminist theologian and professor of theology at Yale Divinity School, who passed away last week, wrote and talked about the importance of this kind of a ministry of hospitality. The church should look like a family gathered around the table, she insisted, a table at which all would be welcome, a table where some would serve gladly and others would need to be fed, where some would study and others would simply rest. Letty taught that hospitality was the first step to mirroring the kingdom of God. The early church knew such a model of hospitality, and we would do well to honor that model in our own.

You are about to begin an exciting ministry with your newly called and soon-to-be-installed Associate Pastor for Congregational Life, Joyce Shin. Joyce is a woman of great faith, who practices hospitality in both her service to God and God’s people and in her own academic devotion and prayer life. As you invite her to be both a teacher and a student in your midst, you will discover her offerings of hospitality as together you usher in the realm of God in this place, in this city, and for all the world.

Disciples of Jesus look for the signs showing us when we should be activists and when we should just sit and listen for a while.

While we turn toward love like sunflowers turn toward the sun, God knows the human part kicks in. The good news is that when we attend to the kind of hospitality that Jesus celebrates and invites, we find that we are able to use the very best of our human gifts to usher in the realm of God right here and right now.

God’s call to the Marys and to the Marthas, to your new Associate Pastor Joyce Shin and to you, is the same. Be watchful for the ways in which that holy realm of radical hospitality is breaking in around you, even now.

For God’s holy presence might just appear, like a guest at your table, in the midst of the routines of your life. In those moments, set an extra place at your table. Sit for a time and listen for God’s voice.

And then? Prepare the vegetables and put some sauce on the stove. For God’s people are waiting to be fed!

Amen.