Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Fr Dominic’s Homily

Today we hear that Jesus visits his good friends Martha and Mary. And we get an insight into their character types and the way that they behave: One is constantly busy and complains that nobody else seems to be helping.

Whereas her sister seems to have a relaxed attitude to everything. No sense of urgency. She seems to think that things will just happen by themselves.

If we think about it maybe we might know people around us who might even have similar personalities.

Now for a particular length of time Jesus, the only son of God, visits them. The Kingdom of God is very close, and behold, the King of the Kingdom is actually within their house. And an interesting thing happens, an interesting dynamic occurs in response to this: one sister stops and listens with her whole heart. The other keeps herself busy.

So let’s start with Mary. What do we know about Mary – we know she had lived a doubtful moral life, we know that she that she had been a prostitute, and we know that that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her. We also know that her sins had been forgiven and she had been totally set free by Jesus.

So Mary sits at his feet and listens to him – in other words he fills the whole of her sight, the whole of her attention. She experiences the Lord as her saviour, as her healer.

Now, let’s look at Martha, who is busy.  Many people sympathise with Martha. We feel sorry for her - Maybe because we are all a bit like her. (A bit like the way we sympathise with the older son in the story of the prodigal son)

That’s why we want to defend her. After all she was trying to do the right thing. Wasn’t she? Getting everything ready for the guests. It’s not fair. Being a good host to the visitors she had that day. And being busy with the day’s chores. We are all a bit more like Martha’s in this day and age.

People ask us how we are and we even say “Oh keeping busy….” We are not a contemplative society anymore. We prefer to calculate rather than contemplate.

There is always something to do – but when someone fills their time, and their whole lives in this way, so that everything else is squeezed out we see that there is a problem. Do we spend too much time doing and not enough simply being?

Maybe they are filling their time to avoid – or filling their minds to avoid confronting thoughts. Also there is a busyness comes from anxiety –trying to burn off this nervous energy. Perhaps Martha is nervous, anxious because of the Lord. Perhaps Martha is really trying to avoid the Lord.

But why would Martha avoid the Lord? For the same reason we all try to avoid the Lord. Because his healing is sometimes painful, because we have to confront the reality that we are sinners, because he makes demands of us.

He makes us realise that there are parts of our lives, and parts of our hearts which are perhaps not good, and need to be healed. Because Jesus doesn’t just want the small things we can offer – he wants all of us.

In addition to this in the day of Jesus there were strict roles in the houses. First century Palestinians had separate male and female spaces and roles in the house. Women in the domestic areas. Public rooms were where the men met.

Martha is working in the area that women were expected to be. Mary has crossed the boundary. She is sitting at the feet of Jesus that was a place usually expected of men.

This is why Martha was so upset - not just about the extra work but that Mary was taking the wrong place. The man’s place. This is a scandal to Martha. The Jews at that time tried to keep women at a distance from learning and teaching the Torah.

But true disciples always sat at the feet of their teachers. So Mary sits at the feet of Jesus. She is crossing the boundary. She is defying convention.

Martha says “Lord, can’t you see what’s happening? Tell her of her mistake!” But Jesus is saying: “Martha, Martha you worry and fret about so much. Mary has chosen the better part.” 

Jesus was passing by. The ultimate moment of grace arrived, the source of true healing love, the fountain of all goodness, truth and beauty entered their house briefly before moving on. Mary saw, understood and welcomed wholeheartedly.

Martha on the other hand was too busy. Let us try to learn from this and offer ourselves completely to the Lord.