Martha, Martha – 17 July 2022

Luke 10:38–42

Contemporary society is full of Marthas. I am constantly amazed at the sheer busyness of many women’s lives, especially those who have children and of the busyness of their children’s lives as well. I am genuinely shocked at the masses of homework many children, even very young ones, have to do, much of which requires parental supervision. And besides homework, many parents seem to feel guilty unless their children are busy with a number of extracurricular activities. I am not sure how it came to be the norm in many families that each child has to play several organized sports, learn a musical instrument, and has to be chauffeured to school and to friends’ houses. Yet in many families I know, Mom or Dad has to be on call for their children at all times—and to hold down a full-time job. There is no time to be together as a family, nor, for the individual family members, any time to stop, to rest, or to be refreshed. Everyone is frantic—and exhausted. I don’t think such busyness is any better for us, or our children, than it was for Martha.

Jesus is afraid Martha is going to lose her opportunity to be his disciple. Who among us would want to have missed a chance to sit at Jesus’ feet because they were out in the kitchen rattling pots and pans, or running the kids to soccer practice, or out in the driveway hosing off the car? This does not mean that it’s okay to sit there being a couch potato when some- one else is doing all the work. But it does mean that we—and our children—need to take time to refresh our spirits, to pray, read, dream, think. It is time, in short, to stop the busyness. To find time for one another. To find time for ourselves. And to find time to sit at Jesus’ feet and, like Mary, to take the better portion for ourselves. –– Judy Buck-Glenn

Genesis 18:1–10a

Abraham had pitched his tent near Hebron, south of Jerusalem, overlooking the Dead Sea in the southern part of what is now the West Bank. With wonderful storytelling style, the narrator informs the reader that it was the LORD who visited Abraham, while the patriarch himself didn’t yet know who his three visitors were. Abraham ran to greet them, bowed and invited them to stay.

Abraham exceeds the cultural requirements for hospitality, offering a truly extravagant welcome, though he describes it diminutively—a little water and a morsel of bread. Three measures was a large amount of fine wheat flour (although dry measures were not standardized, three seahs equaled one ephah, which may be estimated at between twenty and twenty-four quarts). Slaughtering a calf made this a true feast. The text does not say whether the LORD was one of the three guests, or all three together. The LORD promises Abraham and Sarah that they will have a son in due season. –– Aaron J. Couch

Colossians 1:15–28

Thanks be to God that even when we are distracted and estranged, Jesus reconciles us through his death and resurrection and presents us to God holy and blameless, now and forever. What are current examples in your own life of how this reconciliation is taking place? –– Robin Brown

Robin K. Brown, a Lutheran pastor, is the Associate Director, ELCA World Hunger and Disaster Appeal at the ELCA headquarters in Chicago.

Judith Buck-Glenn is associate rector at Christ Church Episcopal in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania.

Aaron Couch is a co-pastor of First Immanuel Lutheran Church in Portland, Oregon.

Homily Service 40, no. 8 (2007): 31–38.