Friday night, at our Ice Cream Social and Sing Along, Joanne had us singing that old camp song, “Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah, strumming on the old banjo.” That was almost always the first song we would sing as a family on those long August automobile trips we called vacation when I was a boy. I don’t think Joanne knew the title of today’s sermon when she picked that song, and I didn’t know she planned to sing it. Perhaps it was synchronicity or, at least serendipity, which led to the convergence. Anyway, in her inimitably clever fashion she invited us, as a tribute to our own “hostess with the mostest,” to change the words to “Someone’s in the kitchen with Mary.” I’m sure it’s not the first time anyone has noticed the irony that First Baptist’s own dedicated Martha is actually named Mary. It was great fun to sing a little tribute to Mary, and then to add a refrain in honor of her faithful co-worker, Thelma. It’s pretty clear that without the service of these two, and a number of other dedicated workers, our congregational life would be both impoverished and hungry!

Of course, in today’s tale, it seems that no one’s in the kitchen with Martha and she’s not too happy about that. In our conversation at Bible study on Tuesday, more than one of us shared stories of getting stuck in the kitchen when we would rather have been in the living room, sharing with our guests. We talked about the times we had planned a meal that was too elaborate to allow us to really join in and parties that required so much preparation we were too tired to enjoy them. Sometimes we get so caught up in wanting to make a good impression and put out a fabulous spread, we lose sight of why we invited our guests in the first place. I can certainly remember the times I spent so much time in the kitchen, I had little or no time for my friends. It seems to me this may also be Martha’s story.

We need to be very clear that it is not Martha’s hospitality that is being challenged here. The problem is in the way she chooses to exercise it. At least one commentator insists that it is Martha’s choice to be in the kitchen and Mary’s choice to be elsewhere that creates the conflict in this drama enacted among Jesus and the sisters.

For some reason, the writer of Luke places this incident at this point in his narrative, though it seems actually to be out of place chronologically. We do know this author tends carefully to shape his text as a work of theology much more than as a work of history. One way to consider his decision to place this here is that that Luke is trying to make some very important points about hospitality and the reign of God. In an essay entitled, “Kitchen Relief,” Joy Douglas Strome writes, “The story of the Good Samaritan becomes the illustration of how to love one’s neighbor. The story of Mary and Martha becomes the illustration of how one loves God. Luke is working to define discipleship for the early church, and these two stories begin to pave a way.” (“Living by the Word: Kitchen Relief,” The Christian Century, July 10, 2007, p. 18.)

In the course of Luke’s gospel, we have had the familiar birth narrative; then several chapters covering Jesus’ ministry and teaching. Beginning with chapter 9, the writer tells us that when Jesus realized his time on earth was drawing to a close, he set his face toward Jerusalem and all the events that would make up his passion, crucifixion, and resurrection. This was to be his final earthly journey. In chapters 9, 10 and 11, the writer of Luke records several actions and reflections related to hospitality. There is the tale of the Samaritan village that refuses hospitality to Jesus and his followers. The disciples want to call down flames from heaven to destroy the village, but Jesus rebukes them before moving on to another village.

Later he sends 70 of his followers out in pairs to engage in their own ministry in his name. As they go, he gives them some very specific instructions regarding hospitality. “See, I am sending you out as like lambs into the midst of wolves.” (Luke 10:3ff) “Be careful,” he says, “It’s a jungle out there.” He urges them to travel light. They are instructed to enter any house with the greeting, “‘Peace to this house!’ And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid.” He goes on to say that “…whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you.’” In our Bible study discussion, as we considered Jesus’ instruction to his disciples, we found it interesting to compare his reaction to the Samaritan village, where he refused to call down destruction, and his telling his disciples that those who refuse hospitality will suffer the consequences of their own failure to receive the stranger as a guest. Then, in his confrontation with the scholar of the Mosaic Law, that we considered last week, he tells the pivotal tale of the Good Samaritan, the ultimate outsider who acts as neighbor when the insiders are too busy or preoccupied or frightened to act.

Now we find him in the village of Bethany where he and his entourage live out an experience the hospitality he has been talking about in the home and the person of a woman named Martha. One commentator speculates that Jesus and his party may have dropped in on Martha and Mary unannounced. I don’t know about you, but such a visit would put me in as tizzy. This makes me think of the opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, in which the three kings stop at the home of a poor widow and her crippled son, unexpectedly, in the middle of the night. She sends her son out to ask the other villagers to help her host her guests, for she has nothing to offer them. It is ironic that the wealthy kings from a distant land are dependent on the hospitality of a poor widow and peasant villagers as they journey in strange places. But we know that in this time and terrain, this very sort of hospitality was vital to travelers. We know there were not Holiday Inns and Denny’s at every juncture of the dusty tracks that these travelers trod.

It is important to consider this background on hospitality so that we understand that Jesus is not being unappreciative of Martha’s hospitality. He and his group really need the food and shelter that she offers so graciously. The problem seems to be more one of expectation and attitude. Martha seems to have a set idea of the sort of hospitality she must offer. And, indeed, she may feel that is very important to offer the best she has to Jesus. Apparently he is her friend as well as her teacher. She seems to be a dedicated disciple in her own right. In fact, part of her frustration may be that she is in the back of the house, in the women’s areas, missing all the conversation up front. Then, this is compounded when her sister chooses to join the teacher and the others to hear what he has to say, leaving poor Martha as the only someone in the kitchen.

The issue is a matter of balance. It is compounded by the urgency of Jesus’ mission. Jesus realizes this may be his last visit to this home, his last chance to spend time with his friends, his final opportunity to strengthen the group, the sort of house church that gathers in the home of Martha and Mary. This is part of what the sisters, along with all the other disciples, must come to understand, now, while he is still among them. Elaborate banquets can wait for another time and place. Strome again says, “The dinner party is not about the attendees, not about their roles and responsibilities, but about the guest of honor. And the guest is demanding full attention. For one to inherit eternal life, he insists, the love of God and neighbor must be front and center. No discussion. No time for distractions. No time for worry.” (“Living by the Word: Kitchen Relief,” The Christian Century, July 10, 2007, p. 18.)

It seems on this Mary has caught this vision and Martha has not. Mary has taken time to see and hear and understand; Martha has automatically plunged into the work at hand. She is just too busy. In my imagination, when Jesus calls her twice by name, there is infinite gentleness and compassion in his voice, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things, there is need of only one thing.” “That thing is for you to come and join us. I want to spend this time with you…the dishes can wait.”

Unfortunately, this little tale has been used to characterize women’s roles in life and particularly in the life of the church. It has been used to undermine women like Martha, who find their meaning in active service, and to privilege what appears to be the more contemplative role Mary takes. It has even been taken to mean that Jesus is putting Martha in her place for being too pushy, bossy, taking a leadership role, when we all know women should be quiet and passive in the presence of men.

In fact, there has been a tendency, in working with this story, to focus on Martha and give only a nod to Mary as a kind of dreamer, gentle and passive, the kind of delicate, romantic girl who might be at home in a novel by one of the Bronte sisters or Jane Austen. But there is really nothing in the text to support this notion. In fact, Mary may be counted among those sturdy dreamers who have caught Jesus’ vision and desires to follow him to the end. When the text says she sits at Jesus’ feet, it is not saying she is sitting there in some state of dreamy adoration. To sit at the teacher’s feet is to be a student. Mary is there to learn all she can. For Luke’s original audience, this would have been shocking, a scandal. Ordinarily, only men would have been present in the front room of the house, sitting at the teacher’s feet. Not only is this a house owned and operated by a woman, unusual in its own right, here is one of the women of the household behaving like a man, flying in the face of all convention. To make this story even more shocking, the readers would have expected that Jesus was not sitting there spouting abstract theory or pious platitudes. His lessons were training sessions for disciples, those who were to go out to preach and teach and heal, those who were to be the very messengers of his good news. This would not have been fit or acceptable activity for a woman, and yet here she is, and Jesus blesses her being there. “Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Hospitality is crucial but so is hearing and doing the word of God. Though it may be true that some of us are more inclined to hard work and practical service and others to study and contemplation, what Luke is trying to show in this story is that not only are both types important, rarely do we find folk who are exclusively one type or the other. It is Martha who tries to force this interaction into an either/or frame. It is service or nothing, she seems to say, but Jesus gently reminds her that there is need and room for both.

Such a seemingly simple story to be encumbered with such a wide range of interpretation! There is even a harking back here to the wilderness temptations of Jesus in which he informs the Satan that humans must not, cannot live by bread alone. Of course bread is vital to existence. Anyone who’s ever smelled a loaf of bread fresh from the oven knows how good it is! But we also need those words from God, that good news Jesus’ brings, to fill our souls. Hospitality and devotion, action and contemplation, service and worship, true love for neighbor and true love for god – all are necessary to make us whole and give us peace. Amen.