Pentecost 6C - "Dinner Party Does and Don'ts"

Saint Luke 10:38-42

 I‘ve always had two recurring nightmares when it comes to dinner parties.

The first is one that I am hosting where the guests more than make themselves at home.

The moment they walk in the head directly for the liquor cabinet where they help themselves to the “top shelf” items that I have been saving for more special occasions than this one.

Well satiated they sit down to dinner where they eat everything but the drapes.

Dessert is consumed so quickly that if one took the time later to ask them what it was, they wouldn’t be able to remember.

When they have had their fill, it is time for after dinner drinks which, of course, they consume with great gusto.

Spotting a pool in my backyard and feeling a little flushed from all the alcohol running through their systems they ask if they can go for a swim.  Gracious, but now oppressed host that I am, I say yes.  

Much, much later the guests emerge from the water only to announce that they are too tipsy and too tired to drive home and ask if they can stay the night.

They spot the spare bedroom – which now I know I should have turned into a walk-in closet – and retire for the night.

They wake the next morning looking for breakfast...then lunch ... then another round of drinks, dinner, swimming and sleep and before I know it, in my nightmare, they are petitioning the aldermen on my behalf to build one of those granny-flats over my garage.

I usually wake at this point and check the house to make sure that Aayu and I are alone.

My second reoccurring nightmare includes being invited over to the home of Mary and Martha for dinner.  

These two sister’s personalities are polar opposites.  They are a family feud ready to happen. They are as far apart emotionally as two people can be.  They shouldn’t be sharing the house let alone a table with each other. In fact, they are so different that one can wonder if they belong together on the same planet.

Yet, here is Jesus with them in one of his many encounters, accepting their invitation and finding himself in the midst of a confrontation he unwittingly and unwillingly participated in.

I‘ve always felt funny preaching about Mary and Martha because, in case you haven’t noticed, I a guy, and I don’t think guys have any business opining about what was like to be a woman in the first century or in the twenty-first century.  

One of the life-commandments my Uncle Herb gave me as a child was: “It’s one thing to have an opinion and it is quite another thing to have an informed opinion.”

So, let me start with a Sally, a character from Amor Towles wonderful best seller The Lincoln Highway.

I am a good Christian. I believe in Jesus Christ… But I am not willing to believe that Jesus would turn his back on a woman who was taking care of a household. From a man’s point of view, the one thing needful is that you sit at his feet and listen to what he has to say, no matter how long it takes, or how often he’s said it before. By his figuring, you have plenty of time for sitting and listening because a meal is something that makes itself. Like manna, it falls from heaven. Any woman who’s gone to the trouble of baking an apple pie can tell you that’s how a man sees.1

 And that seems to be the difficulty.  I don’t know what Mary’s life was like and I don’t know what Martha’s life was like.

So, I take very seriously the warning issued by Dr. Fred B. Craddock in his commentary on Luke’s Gospel.  He says:

We must not cartoon the scene: Martha to her eyeballs in soapsuds, Mary pensively on a stool in the den and Jesus giving scriptural warrant for letting dishes pile high in the sink. If we censure Martha too harshly, she may abandon serving altogether, and if we commend Mary too profusely, she may sit there forever.2

 “If we’re not careful, we’ll get a picture of Martha who always sits at the dinner table sideways, ready to leap into action every time somebody needs something from the stove. And Mary will be so lazy she doesn’t even stoop over to tie her shoes.”3

 But there we are with Mary sitting and Martha steaming. 

Neither Jesus nor Mary have picked up on the commotion coming from the kitchen until the moment when Martha blasts into the room and, at this point, won’t even speak directly to her sister but goes to Jesus and says “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”4

To which Jesus replies: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things, but few things are needed—indeed only one. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”5

Oh, yes!  That was helpful!  I’m sure that calmed everything down immediately.  But, as I said, I’m a guy, and a Ben Dunholm, another guy, wisely wrote in a Christian Century article.  “I have yet to meet an overworked male who felt implicated in this story...”6

But for women scholars this little confrontation over dinner could have, should have, gone in a whole different direction.

Joy Douglas Stome, retired Pastor of Lakeview Presbyterian, wished that “Jesus had said something different: ‘You’re absolutely right, Martha. What was I thinking? Why don’t we all come into the kitchen and help with the dishes and talk while we work?’ One twist of phrase and the Mary-Martha struggle could easily have been sidelined while Jesus’ main point was still made.”7

But Debbi Thomas was in full Martha mode when she wrote:

I wish Jesus had done more.  I wish he’d rounded up his (male) disciples, ushered them into the kitchen, and directed them to bake the bread, fry the fish, and chop the vegetables — all while Martha took a much-needed nap.  I wish he’d said, “Peter, you wash the dishes.  James and John, you put away the leftovers. Judas, get the beds made.  Andrew, you’re on sweeping and mopping duty, and the rest of you: go ask the women what else they need done.  Oh, and in case you boys are wondering: this “girlie” stuff isn’t a prelude to the sacred.  This stuff is the sacred.”8

And that is a point well made.

Painfully, through the years, Martha has been made out to be the one who has not chosen wisely – preferring kitchen duty to sitting at Jesus feet.  And Mary, she’s been our example of the life of a good Christian.  Just sitting and listening to Jesus, listening to Jesus, listening to Jesus. 

As someone who sees themself as being neither particularly pious and certainly not profound, if I had to choose, I would rather be a Martha than a Mary.  And it should come as no surprise that I gravitate toward people who are neither pious or profound. 

I rather be serving up a burger and a beer rather than trying to wow people with my knowledge of the bible and theology and the good news of this story is “that if study is your thing, by all means sit at the young rabbi's feet. If caring through cooking is your thing or cleaning up or serving the poor or getting things done—do the same”9 because I think if we asked Jesus if we should be a Mary or a Martha his answer, surprisingly, would be, “Yes. But, without all the carping.” 

______________

1.  Amor Towles, The Lincoln Highway (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2023).

2. Fred B. Craddock, Luke: Interpretation Bible Commentary  (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1990), 152.

3. Randy L. Hyde, "Sermon, Luke 10:38-42, It's All in the Timing," Sermon Writer, July 08, 2019, , accessed July 20, 2019, https://www.sermonwriter.com/sermons/new-testament-luke-1038-42-its-all-in-the-timing-hyde/.

4. St. Luke 10:40. (NIV) [NIV=The New Internation Version]

5.  St. Luke 10:41. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standand Version Updated Edition]

6. Benjamin J. Dueholm, “Marthas Without Gender,” The Christian Century, July 15, 2013, https://www.christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2013-07/marthas-without-gender? 

7. Joy Douglas Strome, “Kitchen Relief: Luke 10:38-42,” The Christian Century, July 10, 2007, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2007-07/kitchen-relief-0.

8. Debie Thomas, “Only One Thing,” Journey with Jesus, July 14, 2019, https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/2282-only-one-thing.

9. Elizabeth Myer Bolton, “Martha’s Problem: What Is the ‘Better Part’?” The Christian Century, March 8, 2011, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2011-02/martha-s-problem?=0_-31c915c0b7-86361464.