July 20, 2025 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL
Genesis 18:1-10 + Psalm 15 + Colossians 1: 24-28 + Luke 10: 28-42
At some point in my childhood I began to listen to the Gospel at Mass. It could have been because it was the first thing spoken in English. Everything else was in Latin. I remember hearing this story and on the way home from Mass asking my parents why Jesus didn’t go into the kitchen and help Martha. There was silence from the front seat leaving me to wonder about that even today. But of course, maybe he did and Luke just didn’t mention it or maybe their brother Lazarus who never has anything to say jumped up to help keeping the sisters apart. Whatever the human side to this story, there is no missing the point that Jesus thinks listening is very important, and Martha wasn’t doing that. Her problem was that she was fixated on her work.
This whole scene is filled with contradictions. Luke, who tells us more about woman than any other Gospel writer must have thrilled to record this incident. He puts Martha in charge of things in spite of the fact that in that Patriarchal society women were in charge of nothing. Hospitality was a man’s responsibility. Yet, Luke has no male figure in this story at all. Teaching and conversing with a woman was strictly forbidden by the religious rules of the time. Only men engaged in teaching man, and conversation was between men. So, with this story, Luke is giving us some insight into how things should be in the Kingdom of God, and perhaps instructing the early Christian Community that is to receive this Gospel.
Yet, even with all of that there is more to think about. Listening and Hospitality are the issues here. A listener is being praised, and the who is too busy to listen is being reminded that there is something more than busy work when it comes to living life in the presence of Jesus Christ. Mary is the model being put before us today. Listening is really an act of love, and it is hard work. Many people do not listen well. It is a skill that come out of a loving heart. Too many these days listen selectively, listening for what they want to hear, or just waiting for their turn to talk. When not hearing what they want to hear, they begin to end the conversation as quickly as possible, maybe so that they can go back to work.
There is a great saying in our Christian tradition, “When a guest comes, Christ comes.” This idea was deep in the conscience of early America. It was a rare day when some stranger did not sit at the family table. My own mother always set an extra place at our table just in case I brought someone home from school, or my sister did the same, or my father might invite someone. George Washington recorded that his family didn’t once sit-down dinner alone for twenty years.
Many folk tales tell of gods and kings who travel in disguise and reward people who show them hospitality. If you listened, you just heard something like that in the first reading today. God dropped in on Abraham unannounced and anonymously. And, Abraham almost blew the opportunity by fussing, but he recovered and fulfilled his duty. It was only when listening that Abraham heard the leading visitor promise a miraculous birth of a son to his aged wife Sarah Then he realized that somehow it was the Lord. He listened!
At some point, this country has lost what it had early on. Hospitality to strangers is in short supply, and it might be because we have not listened to them, not heard of their need, their fear, their suffering. It might be that when we recover our ability to listen with love even when we do not like what we hear that we may once again recognize that we have been visited by God who wants to make a home among us. The risk is always that we may not make room for God.
It is Jesus who teaches us today lessons that the one thing necessary in our lives is love that we must show in action, in hospitality, and in listening not just to God’s Word, but to each other.