Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

"Mary has chosen the good part."

Both the parable of the Good Samaritan (last week) and today's story of Martha and Mary are unique to the Gospel of Luke. Preceding both these sections is Jesus' encounter with the scholar of the Law. In this encounter, Jesus' response connects us immediately to the scholar's question "Who is my neighbor?", and provides the foundation for a further meditation on the nature of Christian service in today's gospel account of Mary and Martha. 
     Luke's gospel uniquely combines "Love the Lord your God..." with "Love your neighbor" to be a single expression of what is the greatest commandment; it is the great Commandment of Love.  In the other two gospels, "Love your neighbor" is appended to the first admonition "Love the Lord your God..." as being like the first; Luke makes them identical, which is characteristic of Luke's gospel ethic of loving the least and the last as manifesting the Kingdom.  The parable of the Good Samaritan clearly develops this theme, but on its heels comes the story of Mary and Martha, which attenuates the missionary zeal of "good works" with the realization that the Kingdom made manifest develops from the Kingdom within.  In short, true hospitality begins at the feet of the guest rather than in the kitchen.
     What does hospitality have to do with justice? So often those dedicated to the pursuit of justice for the poor proceed with hatred rather than love and seek to define the needs of the poor rather than first listening and understanding the needs of the poor. It is easier to organize a march than listen to the poor; experiencing the poverty of my neighbor does not lead me to hate the rich, but should lead me to understand better my connection to their impoverishment. 
    So too does Jesus admonish Martha not to stop what she is doing, but avoid being contemptuous of Mary, who has done the right thing: first listening to the one who is being welcomed.  Genuine hospitality is connected to justice because before "restoring" what has been lost, the true servant endeavors to discover what the guest needs.  William Sloan-Coffin, a great Christian and proponent of social justice, remarked that "The Bible is less concerned with alleviating the effects of injustice than in eliminating the causes of it."
   Christian action must, necessarily, spring from a profound connection to a sense of personal grace experienced as an encounter with the Word, Jesus Christ. Our non-profits, acts of charity and political action committees must spring from this core reality of orienting ourselves as servants towards those we serve first, or we risk becoming jaded do-gooders whose mission to accomplish something worthwhile is done on the backs of those we deem impediments to our mission statements.
     If we truly desire to serve the poor and seek justice for the oppressed, it cannot begin on the streets with signs, but it should start at the foot of the Christ, in the heart of Mary, the listening servant.