Homily
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
“Martha and Mary”
Over the past two weeks I've been teaching a graduate course in inculturation. Just a few days ago I finished writing the final exam, which will be administered at the end if next week.
I am certain that as my students prepare for this exam the one thing they would most like to see would be the answer key. Because if you know the answers to the exam, it's easy to prepare for it.
Well we have the answers to our final exam. Not the one which Msgr Moroney will give to his students, but the one which Christ will give to Msgr Moroney and to each one of us. Christ gave us the answers when he told us that we would go to heaven or hell based upon how we treated the least of our brothers and sisters:
I was sick....did you care for me?
I was hungry....did you feed me?
I was in prison.....did you visit me?
I was naked....did you clothe me?
We've got the answers to the final exam. Shouldn't be too hard to prepare for it, then!
And remember when the Lord told about the rich man who failed the test. Remember Lazarus, the poor wretch who used to beg for food on the front steps of the rich man's house, and how the dogs used to come and lick the sores on Lazarus' body, while the rich man turned his head the other way and stepped over the beggar on his front stoop.
And you remember how Lazarus went to heaven and e rich man went to hell.
Why did the rich man go to he'll? Because he was rich? No...there's no sin there. He went to tell he'll because he failed to love his brother. And who is his brother. Well, that was last week's parable.
Hospitality, love for the stranger and the alien, the poor wretch and the one whom everyone else forgets is the only correct answer to get into the Kingdom of Heaven.
That's what Abraham and Sarah teach us today when the three strangers go walking by their tent on a stinking hot day. They could have ignored this trinity of strangers, but they did not. They invited them in, bathed their feet, gave them something cool to drink and cared for them. Why? Because they knew they were divine messengers? No. They invited them in because God would have wanted them to. And because they did, God fulfilled his covenant with the elderly and childless couple, promising them a son, Isaac, the son of laughter in their old age.
The first path to heaven, then, is hospitality, for hospitality's sake.
And the second is like unto it. Today we hear the story of another Lazarus, Jesus's dear friend, and the one he would raise from the dead. Lazarus is there along with his sisters Martha and Mary. Martha understands hospitality. She's cooking the meal, running around the kitchen, setting the table, seating the guests and breathlessly exhausting herself in order that everyone might be at home.
But then she looks over at Mary, who, we are told, is sitting at the Lord's feet, listening to him, deep in conversation with Jesus. The sweaty and exhausted Martha is enraged....so enraged that she goes right up to Jesus, and in words that could only have come from a friend says to him: tell that sister of mine to help me rather than sitting on her....chair chatting with you all day.
And then Jesus tells us something extraordinary. He tells us that there is an even more excellent way, a better part than hospitality. The better part which Mary has chosen, is to spend time alone with the Lord, and that better part shall not be taken from her.
So, hospitality, feeding the poor, forgiving and embracing the stranger, welcoming those rejected by everyone else...are indispensable to those who seek to walk the path to the Kingdom of God. But one thing more is required, to pray, to listen and to dwell with the Lord.
I have a lot of friends who are great social workers, selfless advocates for the poor and the downtrodden. Indeed, for many years, I used to do spiritual direction with a lot of Catholic Workers and Jesuit volunteers and the like. And you know what one thing they struggle with more than anything else. Its not the getting up in the middle of the night to drive someone to detox, or having the patience to put up with all the stresses of working with the poor...it's shutting up long enough to pray, and stopping “doing stuff” long enough to sit at the feet of the Lord and listen to him. The Martha in them would keep them going, twenty-four hours a day, like the energizer bunny, running in circles. But what they need is contemplation, and quiet and peace with the Lord, if it's all ever going to make sense.
I also have friends in monasteries, like the Trappists in Gethsemane Abbey in Tennessee, where I preached their retreat a couple years back. They are wonderful monks, who pray five times a day with an intensity and a joy which is a marvel to behold. But you know what their struggles are? Forgiving that monk who gave them a dirty look, or putting up with that guy who entered with them thirty years ago whom they've never been able to stand, or seeking out and caring for the monk who is struggling and alone.
A true story: A few years ago the Abbot of Gethsemane hired a P.R. firm to make a video about the monks which would be shown in the gift shop. It portrayed the monks as devout and caring, always at peace with God and one another, and devoted whole-heartedly to the Christian life. The night they showed it to the monks, asking them what they thought, one of the oldest members of the community raised his hand and said,
"Father Abbot, I’ve been a monk here for 52 years and I am now going to say something I thought I would never say.”
“What is it, Chrysogonus,” the Abbot inquired. “Didn't you like the video?”
“Oh, I liked it all right,” he responded. “But I liked it so much that I’ve decided to leave this crazy monastery and join the perfect one depicted in that film!”
Two paths get us to heaven: hospitality and prayer, Martha and Mary.
And not really two paths at all, but the one path which leads to the cross of Jesus, to the perfect sacrifice of love and devotion, which is our hope, our salvation and the only way to heaven.
Monsignor James P. Moroney
Rector
