Homily Outline for the 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C
Recently I spoke to someone who had a very large number of family members visiting over the 4th of July, and she described how tired she was after the visit! Sometimes it is said that the only thing better than seeing your guests arrive is seeing them depart! Where does this weariness come from? It is precisely from the offering of authentic hospitality: when a guest enters our domain, however humble, we become in a certain measure responsible for them, for their welfare, for their comfort. There is a certain pride in this, in offering what we have, however small. One of the hallmarks of Middle-Eastern culture all the way back to the Old Testament is a very strong sense of the care and respect to be shown to a guest.
And so these three strangers arrive in the heat of the day at Abraham’s tent. Notice how the place is named because of the presence of a single tree, the terebinth of Mamre! This is a desert land where vegetation is scarce, and where a traveler is very much at the mercy of his host. Perhaps this very vulnerability is what sets up such lavish hospitality. Abraham runs to them, greets them with great deference, and prepares a feast to them. Notice his haste, notice the lavishness of the feast. It is one thing to take something out of the freezer, quite another to immediately butcher an animal. When the food is ready, Abraham doesn’t preside at the banquet, rather he serves the guests while they eat. In light of Abraham’s hospitality, a blessing is bestowed upon them, that Sarah will conceive a son! In the Gospel we see this generous reception offered to Jesus. Martha and Mary both welcome him, Mary listening at His feet, and Martha preparing the meal. As faithful Jewish women, they offer their guest hospitality, a warm and generous reception. Jesus embraces all the goodness of the Jewish culture and the Old Testament, but then purifies and fulfills it. If Martha and Mary were both to imitate what is best about Abraham and Sarah’s hospitality, it seems that they both should have hurried about preparing and serving. Yet Mary, rather than rushing about, is absorbed and attentive at the Lord’s feet, listening. I think most of us can very much understand Martha’s frustration. She approaches the Lord with a certain boldness to complain! Jesus doesn’t rebuke Martha, He doesn’t get angry with her or denigrate her anxious hospitality; rather, He calls her deeper, not only to what is good, but to what is best. “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”
Let those words sink in, “There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part…” As I gaze upon you and as I look within my own heart, I know God sees the many different holy things which occupy us: our parents, spouses, and children, our work, the upkeep of our homes and cars, our legitimate hobbies and recreation. As I picture my inbox, my office, my calendar, they are full to the bursting with many things. As we pause to pray, our hearts and minds are often full of many things. Jesus does not condemn all these legitimate duties as evil. God has created all things, and no thing is in and of itself evil. But, what about the one needful thing? What about not only good or better but best? What about priorities? Jesus doesn’t harshly rebuke Martha, or level withering criticism, but He does gently correct and invite her to something deeper, something more. God calls us to Himself, He desires to give us Himself. As He has created all things, as He constantly sustains us in existence by love at every moment, God desires us to offer ourselves to Him: not just our work, our efforts, our results. He is not a pagan idol that must be fed lest it become fractious and discontented. First and foremost God wants us to give Him ourselves: our minds, hearts, souls, attention, and our deepest desires. He wants us to gaze into His Face, to sit at His feet listening to Him speak.
Mysteriously, we are not only to give hospitality to God Himself, but even to welcome all that comes in His name. St. Paul speaks of rejoicing in his sufferings, confident that they are united with the afflictions of Christ, confident that God is at work even in the midst of his own failure, weakness, and pain. By our baptism we are united with Christ in all things, even the Cross and our crosses. When we receive as from God’s hands all that comes, and when we offer it back to Him in the intimacy of our daily prayer, then Christ is in us, and as St. Paul says, here we find hope for glory… hope for the final victory and joy and peace of heaven. God longs for us to entrust into His hands all that is in us, good, bad, ugly... to unite all things to the Cross.
This Gospel passage is special to us in the Diocese of Marquette: Venerable Frederic Baraga chose it as his
Episcopal motto, using the first part of the last verse. In Latin, “Unum est necessarium,” in English, “There is need of only one thing.” Bishop Baraga was par excellence a man of action! He pushed himself and all those he worked with to the very edge of their physical and spiritual limits. He had an intense sense of the urgency of the mission, the great need for the Gospel. In 1841, then Fr. Baraga was in LaPointe, on Madeline Island in the Apostle Islands, and he made a renewed and deeper commitment to give the Lord two or even three hours in meditation each morning. He was 44 years old, and had been in the mission fields of Michigan for about 10 years. The true immensity of the daunting task before him was clear. Bishop Baraga didn’t doubt the need for vigorous and sustained action and zeal, but he realized that his own resources were radically inadequate. He realized that unless he sat at the Master’s feet, he would not be able to sustain the Master’s work. He acted on the insight that unless he was in intimate friendship with the Lord, he could not propose to invite others to that friendship. Until the very last days of his life, some 27 years later, he remained faithful to this commitment to daily morning meditation. 
Certainly none of us here face the same physical hardships that Bishop Baraga did, nor are we entrusted with quite the same vast spiritual responsibility: to serve the people from the Northern Lower Peninsula all the way to Northern Minnesota! Nonetheless, the same basic challenge lies before us: as we recognize God’s call to love our families, to perform our daily work with integrity and zeal, to be salt, light, and leaven in our broken world, do we attempt to answer that call and to do that work out of our own resources? How often do we feel harried and stressed out and angry? There is need of only one thing… and how easily we avoid or ignore or postpone it! God calls us first to intimacy with Himself, first to give Him some jealously guarded and defended time of prayer and attention, and then out of that we are empowered and equipped to fulfill our many obligations. Indeed the person who seeks God first will do more and do it better! The person who loves and listens to God first will love and listen to those around them more and better. We come today not only to sit at Christ’s feet, but to receive Him. May we open our hearts now, may we choose the one needful thing, and receive abundant grace from God.
+ A. M. D. G. +
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