Sermon 2025 07 20

Saint Margaret’s

Anglican Church

Budapest, Hungary

Amos 8:1-12; Psalm 52; Colossians 1:15-28; Luke 10:38-42

A woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.

The short account, just four verses, of Jesus’ visit to the home of

Martha and Mary, as recounted for us in today’s Reading from the

Gospel of Luke, has over the centuries received relatively short-shrift

among biblical scholars, most of whom are not quite sure what to

make of it in any case; and not just because it is so short. The outline

of the narrative is of course simple enough. Improbable as it may

seem, Martha welcomes Jesus and his disciples into the home she shares with her sister, Mary; both

of them presumably unmarried. Mary easily assumes the role of disciple or student, sitting at Jesus’

feet and listening to his words, no doubt diligently taking notes on her laptop or iPad.

Martha, her sister, whose name by the way aptly means lady-of-the-house or matron, is distracted by

the demands of ancient hospitality and housekeeping, by the demands of feeding and caring for a

small army of famished disciples who have probably not showered in a week. She quickly becomes

annoyed with Mary, who, she complains, “has left me to do all the work.” Martha, it seems, has

inevitably become the ultimate multi-tasker, and she is not happy about it. Yet surprisingly, again

from our contemporary perspective, Jesus does not chide Mary, that first-century couch-potato, as

her sister wishes him to do, but rather declares that she, Mary, in fact “has chosen the better part,”

whatever that means; whatever the better part is.

And that is it. End of story. Now, it is tempting, too tempting, I think, to see in today’s account of

Martha and Mary the simple story of a domestic squabble between two sisters; a sibling rivalry

needing, you guessed it, the intervention of a man to resolve the issues between them. Not

surprisingly, the story drives many contemporary feminist theologians, and yes, there are such, to

greater distraction than that attributed to Martha herself. But is that all there is to it…?

“A woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.” Amazing enough, when you stop to think

about it. Jesus and his disciples have been on the road; “on their way,” as the text plainly tells us.

Our Lord himself has left his home and in his own words, “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” He now

has, again in his words, “no place to lay his head,” no longer a home to call his own. Surely,

housekeeping is the last thing on his mind. Still, for all that, he and the disciples have been busy, very

busy indeed, proclaiming to virtually anyone who will listen, that “the Kingdom of God has come near

to you,” a message which, it turns out, Mary understands implicitly.

Moreover, today’s account follows immediately upon Jesus’ arguably better-known encounter with

the inquisitive Lawyer and the telling of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, who by the way is called

in Hungarian and other languages, the Merciful Samaritan, a title probably closer to the mark. So, is

the story of Mary and Martha to be understood somehow in context of the mercy and compassion

demonstrated by the Samaritan…? And if so, what exactly is the relationship of the two accountswhich on the surface seem so different…? The one, a heroic tale of selfless giving and compassion; the

other, a domestic scene so common that it could have happened yesterday in most any one of our

homes. “Get up off the couch and help me, you lazy slug.”

The Samaritan, as much as the Mary of today’s account, much as our Lord’s disciples, breaks the

ordered boundaries of everyday decorum, of the expected, of the norm, in order to encounter the

Christ. Think about it. Footloose men on a mission do not normally stay with unmarried women in a

small village dwelling. Samaritans, the despised outsiders inside ancient Israel, do not help Israelites;

they do not even like them. Except, it seems, for the Good Samaritan. And a woman like Mary cannot

be expected to sit at the feet of our Lord; to listen and learn from his words, cannot be expected to be

a disciple. Yet, that is what happens when the Kingdom of God comes near.

Both Mary and the Samaritan in their own way sit at our Lord’s feet. The man robbed and beaten in

the Parable is emblematically the same Jesus sitting comfortably at home with Mary and Martha. For,

the Christ is found everywhere. The Kingdom of God has come near. Mary’s listening is in effect the

Samaritan’s attentiveness to the needs of others, the message at the very core of the Gospel.

Curiously, Luke does not tell us what our Lord said to Mary as she heeded his words. Did he recount

to her the same Parable of the Good Samaritan he had so recently related to the Lawyer? Did he tell

her of the journey ahead to Jerusalem and the Cross…? We will of course never know.

Luke after all virtually never ends a story. Did the Good Samaritan actually return and repay the

Innkeeper…? And then what happened…? Did the Lawyer finally get the point and follow Jesus…?

Did Martha finally sit still for once in her life and listen…? Did Mary actually become the first woman

disciple…? I for one would like to know. Maybe you would, too. Perhaps Luke thought we could

figure it out for ourselves. If we listen like Mary, no doubt we can. The only thing for sure in the

Gospel of Luke is the journey to Jerusalem and the Cross. And of course, the Resurrection.

You are worried and distracted by many things. That too seems to be the point in the telling of this

short interlude and interaction along the long path to Jerusalem: If Christ can be found everywhere so

can distractions. And bustle does not necessarily add up to discipleship and commitment. Like

Martha, many of us still live lives filled with worry and distraction. Sometimes, understandably so.

War next-door; economic uncertainty and political instability across the globe; and our own share of

domestic squabbles and misunderstandings.

Perhaps like Mary, we must remember that we too are with Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem and the

Cross even if we never leave home. “Mary,” concludes Jesus at the end of our brief Gospel account

this morning, “Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken from her.” Ultimately, all our

distractions, all our worries, all our stuff, everything in fact, will be taken from us except for the

presence of Christ in our lives. That, my friends, is the better part. So, as the old adage goes, “Don’t

just do something; stand there.”

Better yet, sit there with Mary and listen.

Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Frank Hegedűs