16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C, July 20, 2025)
“Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak.” (Luke 10:38)
Hospitality has always been the hallmark of Christianity. In fact, in every culture, how we welcome another person is deemed of utmost importance. Each culture has its own way of expressing hospitality and if we look closely we will discover how those people express their culture’s way of welcoming and relating to others. It is something deep within the human spirit that reaches out to connect and to care for another. It is how God has hard-wired us.
In the parable of the Good Samaritan which we had last Sunday, we saw how hospitality was expressed by an ‘outsider’ toward a complete stranger in need. Today is the story of Martha and Mary, friends of Jesus. Jesus entered their village and dropped by for a visit. Hospitality called for food, washing of the feet and spending time with the guest and in this case too, friend. Martha was busy about serving, Mary was engaged in conversation with Jesus. Martha became irked with her sister Mary for leaving her with the work and asked Jesus to tell her to get up and give her a hand. After all, hospitality was and is a way of expressing our care for someone. It must have been a surprise to her to hear Jesus tell her that Mary had chosen the better part by remaining with him. In a way, it doesn’t seem fair that all the work is left to Martha.
So what was Jesus trying to tell them? Perhaps he wanted to get them to a deeper level than the obvious needs of hospitality, which by the way, both of them were fulfilling. After all, hospitality is given expression by our spirit recognizing another as a brother of sister in Jesus. Hospitality has to begin in the heart. When we receive the other person in welcome and offer them first and foremost the warmth of a receptive heart, then our actions of hospitality ring true and become a way of engaging our whole person in care and respect for the other. In Jesus’ words, “What you do to another, you do to me.”
We have the immense gift before us of welcoming Jesus in the person of another. It begins with the heart and is made visible in how we express our charitas and care, how we enjoy God’s creative expression of himself in one another. At that level, the level of faith, our differences, no matter how annoying they can sometimes be, dissolve into another discovery of the Face of God shining in another.