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Father Peter Ely, SJ
The readings today are about hospitality. Mary and Martha entertain Jesus. Each brings an essential ingredient of hospitality. But Martha has a problem with the Mary’s way of being hospitable. This makes the story interesting. Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and listens. Martha “welcomed” him and did the serving. Which is the more important part of entertaining? Martha is busy with the practical details, which for some reason, she found burdensome. She complains to Jesus about her sister, Mary who “sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak.” “Tell her to help me,” says Martha. Jesus’ response we know well: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted about many things. There is need for only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.” We need to spend some time on this. We could easily misinterpret it. If you have done any entertaining, or tried to run a household, or earn a living, you might think Jesus is a little hard on Martha. Does Jesus really think that the only important thing is to sit and listen to the guest? Who is going to make sure the house is prepared, cook the food, serve it, wash the dishes, separate what goes into the compost and what into recycling? The problem, as far as I can see, is not that Martha was busy with the practical details of serving. Someone has to do that. But Martha was “worried and distracted,” and resentful of her sister. Jesus is trying to restore Martha’s balance. He reminds her that entertaining has two sides, the practical and the personal. It took Martha and Mary both to welcome Jesus. Martha did the practical side; Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and listened. The story isn’t just about receiving guests into your house. It’s about hospitality as a say of life. Life as a whole has two sides, the practical side of doing, acting, achieving, serving and the contemplative side of being, listening, appreciating, reflecting. It’s about worrying, being anxious, trying to keep up with other people, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, just taking the time to be ourselves and let others bring us the gift they have to offer, listen to them, be with them, discover the secrets of their hearts. I recently listened to a panel of students at Seattle University talking about the quality of their lives. They talked about the amazing world of knowledge and entertainment at their fingertips through various internet connections, google, face book, blogs, twitter, Kindle, I-pods, I-phones, I-Pads—all those devices they ask you to turn off when you come into a house of prayer, like the Cathedral. The students confessed that they spend a lot of time plugged in, connected, hooked up, and on line. They also admitted they find it hard to just be present to what is around them, the sound of birds—birds tweet too (actually birds “twitter”; someone working with twitter “tweets”)-- the beating of their own hearts, the wind in the trees. Students on campus don’t always return your greeting, not because they are unfriendly, but because they don’t hear you say “hello!” They are on their cell-phone or listening to their I-pods. They aren’t into silence, listening to what is around them, and reflecting. They may not be into silence, but they long for it. They do long for it. They relish the time the University provides for silent retreats even though they find it a challenge to lay aside their connective devices. I recently heard that the President of Seattle Prep has outlawed cell-phones on the campus so that students will have to learn to relate to the world that surrounds them and the world inside them.
Most of us are drowning in distractions, pulled this way and that, worrying
about things we can’t change, neglecting the things we can actually do something
about. How do we find the inner world we thirst for from the deepest part of our
hearts? Bob Herbert addresses this issue on the Op-Ed page of this morning’s NY
Times: “…amid all the craziness that surrounds us we tend to lose sight of what
is truly human in ourselves…” (NY Times, Sat, July 17, 2010). More amazing than anything in the letters was just the fact that she wrote them at all. Emma Jones had found a way to keep alive her love during all the 34 years she survived her husband. She never closed down love. She developed a secret inner world. This is what Mary understood and Martha didn’t, the importance of that inner world. Emma was in her own way like Mary listening to Jesus and opening her heart to him. It is interesting to compare the hospitality of Abraham with that of Mary and Martha. Abraham discovered that the three men who came to visit him were an appearance of the Lord. Abraham rushed to greet the men. He offered them food and drink and “hastened into the tent” to give Sarah instructions. “He ran out to the herd” to select a choice steer for their meal. Abraham was just as busy as Martha, but joyfully. Like Mary, he left room to receive the gift the men brought, the promise of a child to a couple that was too old to have children. We must be busy serving. It is an essential part of life. God wants it. But when distraction and resentment invade our service and keep us from perceiving the gift each day is meant to bring, then we are busy in the wrong way. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul calls himself “a minister…to bring to completion for you the word of God, the mystery hidden from ages and from generations past.” “The mystery hidden from ages and generations past”--what is it? It is the mystery of love. Human love, divine love, love of nature. It is worth more than anything else. It makes everything else worthwhile. We need to go inside to find it. We need to cherish it and cultivate it. This is the heart of hospitality, the heart of living. Father Peter Ely, SJ |
