Proper 11 July 18, 2004.

Genesis 18:1-10a

Psalm 15

Colossians 1:15-28

Luke 10:38-42

Such a spare and short scene it is with Jesus, Mary, and Martha (only five verses), and yet it has led people of faith to write thousands of pages over the centuries dissecting the meaning. Those musings have assessed the story in diverse ways. They have heaped complaint and praise on both women, shown that the gulf between action and reflection is wide, insisted that both serving and learning are needed not only in the world at large but within the individual, and other such pronouncements.

Most common is the conclusion that, when all is said and done, if you compare the sisters, Martha falls short. Sad but true. She is scolded by Jesus, albeit gently, because we notice that he first lets her know he understands her frame of mind: "you are worried and distracted by many things" (v. 41). She is, after all, a friend and a disciple. Jesus' initially sympathetic words certainly soften the blow, but his next words seldom fail to hurt those whose gifts center in a more active realm. By saying "Mary has chosen the better part" (v. 42), a wounding competition is established. Women who come together in Bible study, faced with this story often begin by expressing allegiance to Martha. Women know that, weighed in the balance, the bulk of interpretations made about this scene believe it says that the one who steers away from physical reality toward the life of the mind (or soul) seems to win Jesus' approval.

But it is only one scene! It is not the whole truth about the relationship between the Holy One and the beloved community. For the whole truth, we need also the oaks of Mamre story in Genesis. There, no fault is found with Sarah. but instead a promise is given. To be sure, Sarah is a character whose presence is required to knead the flour and make the cakes, not to sit with the men who have leisure for discussing things. But do we not also notice that Abraham runs to Sarah's tent to enlist her special skills in the welcome of the Lord? The favor shown to Sarah's gifts overwhelms the temptation to dismiss what Martha offers. In this text we find a burst of activity--perhaps even a premonition on Abraham's part?--to welcome these strangers. Nothing he and Sarah do, however, seems to elicit or effect in any way the revelation they receive. When the story opens, Abraham and Sarah cannot know what they will soon be told. The surprise is sheer gift.

The point of the Genesis story is not the visitor's identity (is it the Lord or three men?) or what Abraham and Sarah do to offer rest and food. Rather, the point is the almost frenetic delight Abraham seems to take in making a place in the household for whatever it is that this visit means to reveal. Such is also Mary's posture in Luke: an attentive expectancy, sitting and listening.

Interpreting the lectionary for a Sunday asks that we set at least three, if not all four, readings into conversation with each other. This helps the preacher resist the temptation to settle on any one slant so that an overly simplistic view of the Word's intent does not come to dominate.

With that in mind, adding to the Old Testament and Gospel readings are the words of Psalm 15, reminding us that the Lord promises life on the holy hill to all--to all Marys, Marthas, Sarahs, and Abrahams--who do right and speak truth. "Whoever leads a blameless life and does what is right, who speaks the truth from his heart.... Whoever does these things shall never be overthrown" (vv. 2,7).

We also need Paul's letter to the Colossians with its baptismal hymn (vv. 15-20) and its insistence on "the hope promised by the gospel" (v. 23). Paul is writing to a church in a large city in what is now Turkey. As with churches in our own day, varied voices are pulling at the Colossians, especially perhaps a confusion of religious beliefs that threaten to water down the gospel core by meshing three Greek influences dealing with nature worship, astrology, and mystery cult teachings. Influences like these should be familiar to twenty-first century Christians. We still contend with battles over the origins of life, how to value the natural world (whether it, too, is in need of healing or reveals the wholeness God designed), and other such questions. The Colossians had become confused by magnetic and, perhaps as in our own day, one-dimensional teachings. Heresies, history shows us, tend to offer pat answers, and for that reason they lose out in the end to more complicated, more carefully nuanced understandings of the Christian faith.

Paul calls the church back to Jesus Christ "the image of the invisible God ... in [whom] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell" (vv. 15, 19). Whichever text is the most prominent in the sermon for this Sunday, "the one thing needed" is there in each reading and is the same for all Christians: the image and fullness of the Triune God made manifest in Jesus Christ. Moralisms or practical advice about personal devotion will not be enough on this day to express the real heart of the hopeful life that we are given to see in Abraham, Sarah, Mary, Paul, and even Martha.

Perhaps these stories especially show us something about the depth and breadth of hospitality: what it means to be open to others, even angels, and especially the Lord. These stories may give us new images for opening up to the Holy Spirit's work of introducing into our lives and communities and churches ways of living that are new and strange, even unwelcome at first, but through which we may glimpse the love of the Creator for all the world.

Our Hmong neighbors in St. Paul, Minnesota, invited us to a big extended family feast last summer celebrating their daughter's graduation from high school. (She went on to study at a state college.) We saw piles of eggs and bananas on the tables, tasted white gourd drink, ate amazing noodles, and scrutinized the two chickens they had boiled whole to see how the feet would curl, indicating whether the daughter would be lucky in her life. (Thankfully, the feet curled perfectly inward.) These were new and strange ways to us. And we who are not Hmong are surely strange to our neighbors. In addition to the unfamiliar foods and rituals, we heard speeches praising the graduate, pride from her family over the choices she had made, and promises of support, particularly from her uncles, for whatever she might need in the future. We were welcomed into their lives and shown some of the beauty in it. This is hospitality.

The one thing needed, as we post-resurrection people know, centers in God's propensity for surprising us with what may be foreign and seems to be impossible. The one thing needed is the One who gives us the desire to let God surprise us with whatever God has in store.