Hapless Hospitality

MaryandMarthaProper11C, Sullivan Park Care Center, July 21, 2013 by Annette Fricke

            “Jesus, tell Mary to help me!” I don’t know about what your take might be on this text, but I want to know just what is going on with the preparation.  Are there more people besides Mary and Jesus?  If there isn’t, why all the fuss?  Is Martha trying to impress Jesus by the perfect food and drink, served in the best manners and the best presentation?  Is she trying to be a Martha Stewart ahead of her time?  I see several things in this passage, but mostly I see this: 1) Martha is annoyed at both Jesus and Mary, 2) Martha is anxious, and 3) Mary is taking on a non-traditional role by listening to Jesus’ teaching.  Mary is learning how to be a disciple, a place previously reserved for men.  Role reversal, to use a modern term is more common now than at that time in history, although still fraught with gossip and wonderings by others to this day.  Just a few years back, we didn’t see male nurses and assumed that all nurses were female and most doctors were male.

            Anxiety can lead one to drink caffeinated beverages which leads to dehydration, confusion, and increased chances of incontinence, as well as high blood pressure.  Anxiety and excessive worry can wreak havoc on a body and produce hyperactivity and excessive verbalization. Anxiety can decrease productivity and ability to concentrate causing poor performance in job interviews, on the job, and on examinations for class. It can pretty much paralyze a person both emotionally and behaviorally. It can cause stomach upset and gastric reflux.  “What am I to do?  Jesus is here!  Mary, please help me!”

            It only takes one unusual occurrence to set a person on edge. A male nurse friend of mine and I were recently discussing certain things that certain aids somehow can’t handle in the performance of their jobs.  I personally never thought that there was the option and always picked up the slack for my co-workers.  But as I say, it only takes one unusual occurrence to set a person on edge.  One such situation occurred at the beginning of this past week.

            The daughter had been there just the day before and had returned to Seattle.  It was Monday, and as with many Mondays, things do not go smoothly.  It was also dinner time when we set up the tables with ice water, set out the butter and creamer.  It was when we gather the residents who are unable to walk by themselves.  My co-worker was becoming frustrated and anxious with a resident.  She asked me to take her down the elevator to the main dining room, the other option for our residents.  As I was descending the elevator with the server for our kitchen and her, she began not feeling well, so asked to eat in her room or our dining area.  We pushed the button to return to the third floor.  By the time we arrived at the third floor, the resident began to collapse.  I was unable to move her, so I called out to my co-worker to help me, “Svetlana, please help me!”  She came and helped me put the resident in a sitting position and we wheeled her in her walker quickly to her room, just a couple of doors down the hallway.  Not responding, so I called our male nurse and got out the blood pressure cuff and stethoscope.  Svetlana asked me if I heard anything, and I nodded and said, “No.”  The nurse arrived and cranked up the oxygen, but still nothing.  She was gone.  The nurse picked her up and placed her on the bed and we were ordered to make her look comfortable for the family.

            We did what we could with what we had.  There was no time to be anxious.  Afterwards, my co-worker wanted to know if she did wrong by ordering me around.  Well, I had not seen it that way.  I felt we had done what was necessary and I told her that.  Some anxiety is necessary because it motivates you to perform.  In the case of Martha, though, it was overwhelming to where she could not think straight.  Both Mary and Martha were trying to do a good thing and I think that both of them had their hearts in the right places.  Martha probably had higher expectations than Jesus, which fed into her anxiety.

            Relating to Martha and Mary’s hosting of Jesus, how do we welcome Jesus?  Do we make people feel comfortable or do we, by our anxiousness, cause them to feel anxiety? Are worried and distracted by many things, or able to focus on the one thing needed? There was a lot more to that story of our resident who died.  There were many questions about procedures and protocols where we could have been distracted, allowing our anxieties to take over, but we kept our focus and will deal with some of those details at a later time. 

            How do we welcome Jesus into our lives?  I don’t think we should take sides.  There are elements of both Mary and Martha in each of us.  I think Jesus is trying to point out here that when we have a guest, our focus should be on listening to and being attentive to the guest.  A guest is like a stranger.  In light of the previous story in Luke about the Samaritan left on the road half-dead, the question becomes how do I make a stranger feel at home?  A guest is to be treated with dignity and respect.  A guest is invited so that you listen to the guest with all of your focus and attention. In a culture of hectic schedules and the relentless pursuit of productivity, we are tempted to measure our worth by how busy we are, by how much we accomplish, or by how well we meet the expectations of others. We often see Jesus’ words to Martha as a rebuke or scolding. However, Jesus’ words to Martha are more of an invitation rather than a rebuke. “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.” The one thing needed is for Martha to receive the gracious presence of Jesus, to listen to his words, to know that she is valued not for what she does or how well she does it, but for who she is as a child of God.

            God asks us to be of service to our neighbors, our strangers, and our guests; but our service needs to be grounded in our active seeking of God’s presence, strength, and guidance.  If, in all our activities, we have no time to be still in the Lord’s presence and can’t make room to hear God’s word, we are likely to become anxious and troubled. We are likely to end up with a kind of service that is devoid of love and joy and resents others.  It takes both listening and doing. Being open to receiving God’s Word and serving others in the spirit of Christ are vital to living the Christian life.  They go hand in hand.

            Jesus invites all of us to sit at his feet and learn the way of God, to learn servant hood, to drink in God’s mercy in order to be strengthened for the journey of discipleship.  He who calls us, who calls all of us, has paved the road and gone ahead of us.  His invitation remains to follow him.  His hospitality to us is the standard to imitate.  He calls us to bind ourselves to him in outrageous abandon, focusing on nothing else but his abiding words and presence.  You will not always be certain of the steps to take, but God has promised to walk with you and forgive you all your missteps.  God has done far more for us by his sacrifice on the cross than we can repay.  Indeed, we owe a debt that we are unable to pay.  But God has won for us the victory of life, life in the here and now as God’s disciples.  Let us heed his words and share his hospitality.  Amen.