Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C (2025) - Fr James Baxter

Among the congregations who hear this Gospel read this Sunday, I suspect more than a few people would have quiet sympathy for Martha. Jesus rebukes her, that’s true enough. But doesn’t she have a point? Martha is working, her sister is just sitting there.

It’s a familiar scene of domestic disharmony, in which Martha is the kindred spirit – dare we say the patron saint – of all who work away without recognition, of all who carry the load while others rest, of all the students who actually do the work in group assignments: the unnoticed, the unpitied, the unthanked.

Mary sits there and listens. Meanwhile, Martha quietly works away.

Except she doesn’t.

The first reproach to be given in this episode is from Martha—to Jesus! “Do you not care that my sister is leaving me to do the serving all by myself?” It’s a surprising question to be asking the guest in her house that she has just addressed as “Lord”.

The point of showing hospitality to a guest is to put them at ease. That is not what is happening here. Martha’s internal anger spills out into a suggestion of moral failure directed at her guest. In Martha’s mind, Mary is at fault for sitting instead of serving, and Jesus is at fault for not caring.

Jesus’ response – “Mary has chosen the better part” – is not a dismissal of Martha’s hospitality. To ensure we don’t see it that way, this reading is accompanied in our liturgy this Sunday by a first reading from Genesis, the famous “hospitality of Abraham”, when Abraham welcomes three men into his tent. The passage identifies the three men with “the Lord”. Abraham shows the men respect, invites them to wash their feet, and puts cream, milk, bread and meat before them. In very ordinary ways, he welcomes the Lord into his home.

Hospitality was something that Jesus prized and praised. When he was a guest at the house of Simon the Pharisee (Lk 7:36-50), who didn’t greet Jesus with the customary signs of hospitality, Jesus pointed this out to Simon. He had, it seems, received Jesus a bit coldly, in contrast to the affection of the weeping woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her tears.

Throughout Christian history, hospitality has held a special place as an act of charity. The Benedictine tradition in particular is famed for its emphasis on hospitality. St Benedict in his Rule required that all guests should be welcomed as Christ. He went into some detail as to how guests should be treated and shown honour. Poor people and pilgrims in particular were to be shown great care and concern, because “in them more particularly Christ is received.”

In our parishes today, creating a culture of hospitality is one of the best ways of building a community. When people are greeted, introduced to other parishioners, welcomed to morning teas, invited to parish events, these are in the same worthy vein of Abraham’s offer of a footbath and lunch. They are everyday signs of hospitality that say to longtime parishioners and visitors alike that they matter, their dignity is recognised, and this is a place where they belong.

But the Church does not exist for morning teas. We welcome people so that in our community they can meet Christ in word and sacrament, and grow in holiness as a people of praise and contemplation.

That is why Jesus praises Mary as having made the better choice. She knows that Jesus did not come into their house primarily to eat. A relatively few number of households in history ever had the privilege of receiving Jesus as a guest during his public ministry. Mary and Martha’s was one of them. They both had the opportunity to sit at his feet, hear his teaching from his lips, and ask him questions. Some degree of service was evidently called for. We can assume though that that has already been done, and now is the time to receive divine wisdom.

So Martha is rebuked in this episode of the Gospel. But the rebuke she receives is one that we all deserve, whenever we lose sight of the need to be attentive to God. The temptation to lose oneself in business is a perennial one. There is always going to be more to do, more reasons not to sit still, not to pray, not to listen.

The comforting thing is that Martha was, in spite of her common faults, a woman of very great faith. Her confession of faith after the death of Lazarus is reminiscent of Simon Peter’s: “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world.” (Jn 11:27). So while we remember and learn from her faults, we honour her as Saint Martha—a holy woman and a friend of Jesus.

Fr James Baxter, OP is the Parish Priest of Broadway, Glebe, and Pyrmont, New South Wales.