Sunday 3 August 2025
AN OVERVIEW OF THIS SUNDAY’S READINGS*
Recently, we stepped into a small 'clochán' on Inis Mór in the Aran Islands for a little while. This was a womb-like space in which a monk dwelt and prayed for some of the day. He or she remained still in the now and in the here. No sound, no voice and not much light. The short experience left me wondering....
AN OVERVIEW OF THIS SUNDAY’S READINGS*
Genesis 18:20-32
Psalm 138
Colossians 2:12-14
AN OVERVIEW OF THIS SUNDAY’S READINGS
Genesis 18:1-10
Psalm 15
Colossians 1:24-28
Luke 10:38-42
(v. 38) ‘Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home’.
Remember that a short while ago Jesus was instructing his disciples about the inevitability of meeting hostility in some places and villages where they must wipe the dust from their shoes (Luke 10:11). This was not the case in the house of Martha. Note that Martha welcomed Jesus but Jesus was with others. Martha probably had a full house on her hands.
(v. 39) ‘She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying’.
Oh Oh! Does anyone have a sometimes ‘inactive’ spouse or partner? Or a teenage son or daughter? They might be sitting, like Mary, at the feet of a TV, a play station or smartphone!
(v. 40) ‘But Martha was distracted by her many tasks’.
Does anyone know of someone who is a go-go person? I mean the sort that sets an alarm clock early on a weekend morning; is involved in 9 different local community organisations and is scheduled to attend 4 meetings outside of work this coming week; is finishing a diploma; and has a perfect house and an almost perfect family? We get the picture.
(v.40 continued) ‘so she [Martha] came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?’
Sounds familiar? This is the story of the one who is running around minding her own children and the parents – his as well as her – while brothers and sisters are, shall we say, far away?
(v.40 continued) ‘Tell her then to help me.’
Martha did not need an assertiveness course. No please or would you but ‘tell her then to help me’. You know, parishes, families and workplaces are very like that except that for the most part we are less than blunt as Martha was.
(v.41) ‘But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things’.
He could have been speaking to you or me: ‘Tom,, Tom you are worried and distracted by many things’. I see thousands of people every day on train platforms, trains, buses, cars, footpaths, cycle lanes and at meetings or just sitting there or walking along – kind of worried some of the time and distracted by many things. Many things. Many things.
(v.42) ‘there is need of only one thing’.
Wow! Only one thing in life is essential. May I respectfully suggest, as a belated resolution for 2019, that you write your own obituary before others get to write it. The thing needed? Love! Easy? Not really. You see, worry – excessive worry – is the fruit of insecurity. Insecurity is the fruit of distrust and distrust is the fruit of closure and lack of relationship. Faith is relationship.
(v. 43) ‘Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’ I remember half thinking that I had chosen the better part nearly 40 years ago when I joined an enclosed religious order for a few years. The truth is that God has chosen us – all of us – in love and truth and beauty before we were even conceived. The best-chosen part has been assigned by God to us and everyone else and it was Jesus who chose to stay at Martha and to talk with Mary and Martha just as he calls you and me to this place on this Sunday morning to listen and talk with God and with one another. (that’s why I love the bit after service where we mingle and talk and commune and partake of delicious homemade cakes! There is a Martha around here and there is more than one of them!)
And what is the Gospel saying to us this Sunday? Let us ask the Holy Spirit to open our hearts this morning and in the days to come to hear again the good news. Let us learn the art of welcoming and active service from Martha. Let us learn from Mary the art of loving listening in the midst of our business. Let us ask God to enable us to really listen. But, who or what should we listen to in the first place? We should listen to ourselves. There God is. We should listen to others. You know that the Voice of Love whispers to us every day in events, persons, conversations, emotions, thoughts, failures, joys and sorrows. Yes, even in suffering and maybe especially in suffering.
