16th Sunday of the Year

HOSPITALITY COULD BE SAID to be the central theme of today’s Mass but in the specific context of what it means to those who follow Christ as their Lord. In general, welcoming a guest was – and still is – an extremely important obligation of people who live in what we call the ‘Middle East’, whether they be Jews or Arabs. In the severe conditions of the desert, finding shelter can be a matter of life and death. It is also important in other cultures, including many of those in other parts of Asia, especially among Muslim peoples.

Locked doors
In many of our modern cities, however, be they in the West or in Asia, the concepts of hospitality still practised in rural areas have become the victim of urban living conditions. We now keep our houses firmly locked, even when we are at home. We only open our door cautiously to those we know well. We have peepholes and surveillance cameras. Strangers are kept at arm’s length and, in general, are not to be trusted. Each home has become a well-protected fortress. In many ways, it is certainly not a step forward for people who regard themselves as “civilised”, “sophisticated” and “cultured”. And we might well ask ourselves what in our interpersonal relations with our fellow-citizens has led to this lamentable, if unavoidable, state of affairs. Arguably it lies in one word: greater material prosperity. The more we have, the more we have to lose – or be taken.

Stark contrast
The main readings of today’s Mass, then, are in stark contrast to what normally happens in our experience today. Let us begin with the First Reading which really sets the scene for the Gospel passage. It is taken from the book of Genesis and is part of the story about Abraham. The passage in today’s Mass takes place shortly before we are introduced to the appalling wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities depicted as plunged into depths of immorality, regarded as totally against human nature and human decency. In the following chapter 19, two of the three men mentioned today will become threatened victims of Sodom’s depravities.

Three strangers
But here the scene is quite different. The three unidentified men arrive before Abraham’s tent at the hottest time of the day. Immediately on seeing them, Abraham rushes forward to greet the complete strangers, bows to the ground before them, addresses (one or all of…?) them as “Lord” and, not only invites, but begs them to partake of his hospitality. He will give them water (they must be so thirsty), wash their feet (hot and dust-covered), and let them rest in the shade (tired after their journeying in the merciless sun) while they have something to eat (they must be hungry). What Abraham does is really nothing special. Any other person in that part of the world would do the same. The visitors accept what they are offered.

A promise
Meanwhile Abraham rushes in to look for Sarah, his wife, and tells her to prepare a generous amount of food for their guests – people they had never seen in their lives before. He gave them bread, choice beef specially slaughtered for them, cream and milk. And while the strangers ate, Abraham attended on them as their host.

As they left, the guest (were the other two just attendants? angels?), leaves with a promise that, by the time he returns a year later, Sarah will be the mother of a son. This is all the more surprising as Sarah, at this time, is long beyond the age for having children. In a society which expected women to produce children, and especially male heirs, her barrenness has been her shame. But this is the reward of their hospitality to the stranger who, it is strongly implied, is God himself.

Homes from home
In the Gospel passage, we see another example of the same kind of hospitality. Jesus said on one occasion that the “Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head”. This was true in the sense that Jesus during his very peripatetic public life seems to have had no permanent dwelling place of his own. It is part of his personal freedom from material and other kinds of attachments which he also proposed to his followers. But, as he expected in their case, people who were brothers and sisters to each other would always be able to find an open door to receive them in time of need or simply in friendship (cf. Mark 10:29-31).

The house of Mary, Martha and Lazarus seems to have been a place where Jesus was always welcome and where he could find shelter when things were getting too hot in nearby Jerusalem.

Poor Martha!

It is difficult for us, living in such an action-oriented society, not to feel sympathy with poor Martha sweating it out in the kitchen while Mary just sits looking dreamily into the eyes of Jesus as he speaks to her. But, as so often happens in the Gospel, this is not meant to be an ideal state of affairs but rather a setting in which we are meant to learn something, something about God’s, and hence our, priorities.

It is highly significant that this story immediately follows on the story of the Good Samaritan, which we looked at last week. There is, in fact, a beautiful complementarity between the two stories. The former passage began with the more spiritual concept of love for the “neighbour” (the lawyer’s question) but led into the touching account of highly practical love-in-action between a person regarded as a to-be-avoided “outsider” (the Samaritan) and an “insider” (a fellow-Jew neglected by fellow-insiders) in great need.

Another dimension

In today’s Gospel story, however, we see Martha being highly practical in serving the immediate needs of her guests (Jesus may have brought others along and this would explain Martha’s fussy anxieties). But Jesus points to another dimension in Christian living, which is also of prime importance and that is the direct personal relationship between a person and God.

The two stories balance each other off. To be a disciple of Christ is not just to be hyperactive in charitable works for others, nor is it to be totally floating on the Cloud of Unknowing, oblivious of what is going on around one. It is a combination of both – what is sometimes described as being “contemplative in action”. Ultimately, of course, it is the unitive contemplation of God in all our experience which is the more important. The action simply flows out of that experience.

Hearing precedes doing

Luke in his gospel expresses this in a number of different settings. During Jesus’ temptation in the desert, the Tempter is told: “It is not on bread alone that people live.” When Jesus is told that his mother and brothers are looking for him, he replies: “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.” Again, when a woman in the crowd cried out in praise of Jesus and the mother who bore him, he responded: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it”!

So it is that in this story it is Mary who has chosen the “better” part, which is to listen to Jesus, the Word of God. Only those who have listened careful to the Word of God know how to behave in the way that God wants. Out of that listening will flow the deep concern for the well-being of other people and indeed for the whole of creation itself.