Preparing the Banquet

I have been thinking a lot about hospitality lately. I hope it’s something we do well here at St. Aidan’s, and I also think there are always ways to deepen the experience of hospitality we offer the neighbors, travelers and friends who find us here. This week we celebrated St. Benedict, who offered the world perhaps the best expression of hospitality: Let all guests be received as Christ.

The word hospitality comes from the Latin hospes—and is also the root of hospital, and probably hostel. It implies a reciprocal relationship, a place for people to stop along a journey, and the blessing of being able to share one’s hearth and home.

Both today’s lesson from the Hebrew Bible and from the Gospel are stories about hospitality. Abraham recognized that he was in the presence of God when he saw three people standing outside his tent. They came from God to deliver the unbelievable message that Sarah, who was about 90 at that time, would bear a son. Abraham asks them to stay, so that he may have the privilege of offering hospitality to them, in the form of foot-washing, bread, water, and the shade of a tree in the desert. The icon on our bulletin cover, the Rublev icon most commonly called the Old Testament Trinity, is also called the Hospitality of Abraham, which I think is a more apt title. In any case, the image illustrates the holiness of the three heavenly beings—men or women we cannot really tell—but we see them experiencing the holiness of hospitality.

Abraham practices hospitality and receives a divine message. How do we experience the divine when we practice hospitality?

Jesus and his disciples are on their way to Jerusalem. Everyone knows that this is no random journey; he is headed toward suffering and death. Martha’s house would have been just a couple of miles from Jerusalem, and so we know something is going on with this particular stop. We don’t know why Jesus and his circle of disciples stopped so close to their destination. Perhaps it was dinner time. Perhaps Jesus needed to be in a welcoming place among friends for a day or two before moving on to his final destination.

Regardless of why Jesus was there, we hear that Martha welcomed Jesus and his disciples into her home. Martha is the head of the household; a woman in her position was unusual but not unheard of in ancient Palestine. We know that she is a woman of substance, because she is able to accommodate not just Jesus but his whole entourage.

Martha’s many tasks which distract her from the luxury of sitting at Jesus’ feet are not necessarily cooking and cleaning—she would be arranging for food to be served, figuring out where everyone was going to sleep, making sure that there were servants on hand to wash her guests’ feet, and so on. Not unlike Abraham’s preparation for his three visitors.

We often condemn Martha: she is too task-oriented, too distracted. Her Myers-Briggs is probably an ETSJ; her enneagram is probably 1 or 6. She is probably distracted by wanting to prepare a wonderful dinner and a fabulous evening for the One whom she already recognizes is the Savior. How distracted would you be if Jesus of Nazareth came to your house?

And yet, we tend to think of Martha as lesser, perhaps because Jesus says “Mary has chosen the better part.” We think that he is condemning Martha, but perhaps he is talking about something else: Martha’s work is necessary and worthwhile, but it is, in some ways, temporal. Jesus is heading toward Jerusalem and death; the only thing that will remain is his teaching, which will remain eternally. This is the part that will not be taken away from Mary. Mary sits at Jesus’ feet the way any disciple would; once Jesus is gone she, too, will be expected to help spread Jesus’ teaching. But Martha, too, is doing discipleship work in her acts of hospitality.

Saint Augustine, who wrote in the late fourth century, had a wonder take on this story:

Martha was absorbed in the matter of how to feed the Lord; Mary was absorbed in the matter of how to be fed by the Lord. Martha was preparing a banquet for the Lord; Mary was already reveling in the banquet of the Lord (Sermon 104.1).

The story is a dance between temporal and timeless, between Chronos and Kairos.

When we are asked—as we often are when this story is read—do we identify more as Mary or as Martha? I’m guessing that most of us would say that we wish we could be Mary, but we are Martha. So when we decide that Mary is superior to Martha, what does that say about us? If we are to be bearers of Good News, we need to be kind to ourselves, not dis ourselves because we are more Martha than Mary.

This is not an either/or story, but a both/and story. This may be why Jesus stops in Bethany: there is a fullness of ministry where Mary and Martha make up one whole. We know, because we know the end of the story, that both Mary and Martha will see Jesus resurrected, and be bearers of Good News. And our faith teaches us that the kingdom of God is ours for the unveiling, whether we are Mary, or Martha.

One of the ways that we experience the Kingdom is through our practices of hospitality. If we are to be good Benedictines and welcome all as Christ, then we, too, must prepare a banquet for Christ, each time, with the care that Martha employs, and the quality of attention that Mary offers.

As we prepare to join in this banquet which, like the meal Martha is preparing for her guests, connects the temporal and the timeless, let us pray that we may always recognize Christ in everyone who comes through our doors.