SIXTEENTH SUNDAY

“Lord tell Mary to come and help me.”

1.         My mother would not have understood Martha. All her life she has been serving. To serve the Lord now, would come naturally to her and without grumbling. She sometimes drives me crazy trying to make me comfortable and trying to feed me when I visit her. During the summer, she will turn on the air conditioner full blast and then turn on the fan. During the winner, the heat will be turned up to 85 before I arrive.

            Furthermore, she would not have told Jesus, “tell Mary to come and help me.” In a style that is typically Irish, she go to Mary, slap her up the side of her head and say, “Get off your rear end and come and lay the table.” -- However the fact that Mary is not doing her share is not the point of this story.

            Some psychologists tell us, is it a story of coddling or nursing a bruised ego. How many of us have an elderly father or mother that needs caring. They live in a nursing home, or in an apartment by themselves. You have sisters and brothers living a block away from your parent, but they do nothing. You have to drive all across the city with a casserole or a meal. You have to clean the apartment, do the laundry. You do not mind doing it, because of the love for your parents. But there is also a certain bitterness, a certain resentment in your generosity, because others are not doing their share. They are not shouldering their part of the responsibilities. The story of Martha takes place in our own lives in a dozen different ways.

2.         The late Reginald Fuller - Scripture scholar tells us, the domestic and peaceful story of Martha and Mary comes after the parable of the Good Samaritan (which we read last Sunday.) That story ends with “Go and do the same.” We might draw the false conclusion that our salvation is in our hands, we have to earn every bit of it. The reality is that salvation is a free gift from God  - and from the he second reading, we know it has already been achieved.

Lest we fall into the trap of “activism”, we are cautioned by the Martha and Mary story that “what indeed is the better part” is to listen

to the Word of God.
to make the Word of God our own.
to be steeped in the Word of God -
because it is only in Him and through Him and with Him we have our being.

3.         Then how does Paul fall into the apparent heresy of saying that “I make up in myself what is lacking in the suffering of Christ.” The suffering and death of Christ has achieved our salvation in its perfection, in its totality. There is nothing lacking in it. And if there were, our limited human nature could never complete a Divine Work in any way. However, the Suffering and Death and Resurrection of Jesus has two facets. One is the Sacrifice of Jesus which is complete and perfect. The second aspect is that this  Good News of the Death and Resurrection must reach everyone. As in the Acts of the Apostles Ch.1:8  - Jesus bids them to go and tell everyone beginning in Jerusalem, through Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the World. We know that even today, there are so many who have not so much as heard the name of Jesus - in spite of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. There are still so many who like the people of Ephesus in the Acts of the Apostles, who have not heard of Jesus much less experienced His healing and salvific powers in their life. And in that sense there is something lacking in the Suffering of Christ. There are still people who have to know that “Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again.”

4.         Once we have been properly oriented to the Word of God, once we have preached the Word of God to others like Paul, we can then move into action like Abraham in the First Reading. Here was one who had received the promise of God that he would have children as many as the Sands on the seashore, but he did not know how and did not know when. And so he awaits God’s decree patiently. Our reading finds his waiting in the heat of the noon day sun, at the opening of his tent. He sees three strangers  - but

because his heart is in tune with God,
because he is on the same page as God,
because he is of the same wavelength -

He knows that he is in God’s presence. Abraham does the invitation, but like women in so many countries, it is Sarah the woman who does all the serving and preparation. Sarah is the Martha without complaining, Abraham is the Mary who awaits at the Word of God.

Both the manifestations, both the epiphanies, both the encounters with God takes place in a meal context - both point out to Heaven, which is traditionally described as the Heavenly Banquet. As Isaiah tells us, “On this mountain the Lord will prepared a banquet of rich food. Fine Marrows and wine.

5.         Our readings today have plenty to meditate upon and reflect. You could either

     spend your time contemplating the Word like Mary
     preach like St. Paul about the Salvation achieved through the Sufferings
     act like Abraham - inviting the Stranger, you never know when that Stranger is God in person.

But sooner or later you and I have to do all three: Pray, Preach and Act.