Homily for Sunday, 21 July 2019

Readings of the day: Genesis 18:1-10a; Psalm 15:2-3, 3-4, 5; Colossians 1:24-28; Luke 10:38-42

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This homily was given at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, Sherwood Park, AB, Canada.

What are some cultural or other norms of which we are aware? How might our norms differ from those of other people or cultures?

Our readings today speak of the tension especially between hospitality and cultural or social norms. In Genesis, “three men” visit Abraham and Sarah “by the oaks of Mamre.” We might imagine “the oaks of Mamre” as a remote area. Abraham and Sarah were nomadic; they were constantly on the move, but had camped out at this location “by the oaks of Mamre.” There, they would have been vulnerable should just anybody walk into Abraham’s and Sarah’s camp and ask them for their hospitality. Abraham and Sarah would have had to protect themselves against the potential of being robbed by unscrupulous “guests” in the middle of nowhere, so to speak, let alone against guests who would simply overstay their welcome.

In Luke’s Gospel, the cultural norm among Jews in Israel of Jesus’ time we hear about today is one of gender: It was rare and culturally discouraged for women to take up the posture of a male disciple before a male teacher or master, as Mary does before Jesus in today’s Gospel reading. In Jesus’ time and culture, it would have been more acceptable for women receiving a guest in their home to behave as Martha does, preparing and serving the food to her male guests first. Martha, not Mary, chooses “the better part” insofar as the norms or expectations for women in the culture of their time were concerned.

Yet Jesus turns this cultural expectation on its head: Mary, not Martha, he says, “has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” And in Genesis, Abraham and Sarah receive their three guests in the middle of nowhere, “by the oaks of Mamre,” despite the risk to them that their guests could have had dishonest motives or simply overstayed their welcome. The three guests in fact leave Abraham and Sarah with a bizarre and, as the next lines in Genesis after the reading we hear today say, at least initially laughable prophecy: In their old age, Sarah and Abraham would “have a son” by the time the guests returned to them “in due season.” I suppose it could have been worse for Abraham and Sarah than one of their three guests leaving after telling what Abraham and Sarah might have perceived as a weird joke. Might Abraham and Sarah have perceived their guest’s parting words much as we would when our stereotypical eccentric relative says something weird or inappropriate at Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner, when the whole family is gathered together? Of course, we know the rest of the story for Abraham and Sarah: Ultimately the guest’s prophecy is true. The joke is God’s, and the prophecy thought to be a weird joke is at Abraham’s and Sarah’s expense: Sarah bears a son, Isaac, whose name means “the one who laughs.”

This episode shows, I think, that our God has a sense of humour. But God’s sense of humour—communicated to us so often through guests toward whom God invites us to show hospitality; through people we encounter on a day-to-day basis; through the guest who overstays his or her welcome; through the eccentric relative who says something inappropriate at a family dinner—has a way of challenging our cultural or social norms.

I have had the joy, over the years, of witnessing personally to God’s sense of humour in this way, in the people I have encountered in their countries and cultures around the world and in the people from other countries and cultures I have encountered here in our country, Canada; people who become immersed in or try to integrate into our culture. I have now lived for the last four years in Paris working on a PhD in theology, so I am becoming more and more used to particular aspects of French culture that occasionally differ from Canadian culture. And I observe that the people of Paris and elsewhere in France tend to appreciate and welcome tourists and expatriates to a greater extent now than even eighteen years ago, when I lived in France for the first time, on a year-long exchange in Lille. When I first arrived in Lille in 2001, even the simple French (and more broadly European) custom of a greeting kiss on both cheeks, “la bise,” was sometimes a bit awkward for Canadian or American students among us. Now, suffice it to say, I am more used to “la bise” than I was then.

Interestingly, just over fifty years ago, Vatican II re-integrated a custom like a greeting kiss (although usually, especially here in North America, it takes the form of a handshake… or a long-distance wave or peace sign) into our Mass, as the sign of peace. I still encounter the occasional Catholic, especially of an age so as to have been familiar with the pre-Vatican II liturgy, who finds the sign of peace to be an unwelcome or awkward distraction from the rest of the Mass.

“La bise” or the sign of peace aside, for about five years when I was a Basilian novice and then seminarian, I worked in refugee ministry in Windsor and Toronto, driving new arrivals to Canada to various appointments. Once, as I was walking between appointments with a Colombian couple and their nine-year-old daughter, having a lovely conversation with the daughter and translating what we were saying into Spanish for her parents, she paused suddenly and asked (as more typically Colombians have few reservations about asking): “How old are you”? Before I could answer politely (I was not shocked by her question, since I have also lived in Colombia), the girl immediately caught herself: “Oh, wait, I’m not supposed to ask that here, right”?

In the Holy Land on our Basilian Peace and Justice Pilgrimage a few years ago, we pilgrims encountered similar cultural norms around table fellowship and hospitality as those of which our readings today speak. The traditional roles of women preparing food and serving us at mealtimes while men were more likely to join us at table and in conversation persist, although to a less absolute extent, from the times of Sarah and Abraham and of Martha, Mary, and Jesus.

In Genesis, Sarah and Abraham behave as would have been expected of them around table fellowship and hospitality. At Abraham’s request, Sarah and “the servant” prepare and serve the food to Abraham and the three male guests. In Luke’s Gospel, it would seem that Martha, more than Mary, behaves according to the cultural expectation for women of the time. Martha busies herself with “many tasks” associated with welcoming Jesus “into her home,” whereas her sister Mary sits “at the Lord’s feet and [listens] to what he” says. It would seem, then, that Martha would be justified in asking that Mary join her in the more customary household tasks for women of service at table instead of allowing Mary to take on the more accepted role of a male disciple, listening and learning at the feet of his teaching master. So why does Jesus, however gently, chastise Martha, “You are worried and distracted about many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, and it will not be taken away from her”?

From the beginning of this story of the encounter among Martha, Mary, and Jesus, Luke shows his great teaching and writing skill and nuance as a Gospel writer. Luke describes Martha as having “welcomed [Jesus] into her home.” It would have been rare at the time (although the New Testament includes other examples of this in early Christian communities) for a woman to be the head of a home and therefore responsible for welcoming guests into her home. Already, Luke subtly but pointedly challenges the accepted gender roles in Middle Eastern societies of the time. Jesus’ reply to Martha’s demand that Mary help her to serve at table flows, then, from the challenge already inherent in Luke’s description of Martha as head of her home.

Still, though, Luke’s and Jesus’ challenge of cultural norms (which are not in themselves wrong) through this story of Martha, Mary, and Jesus is not only a challenge to the social-cultural norms of their time, but a “friendly challenge” to us: What social or cultural norms or, for that matter, norms of the Church and of this celebration at table, the Eucharist, might we allow to distract and worry us to excess? How might our worries and distractions inhibit our hospitality, especially toward anybody who needs our Eucharist to be a sign to them of healing grace, to point them toward greater holiness? This is not to say that norms, cultural and otherwise, are not important. Abraham and Sarah; Jesus, Martha, and Mary demonstrate that these norms are important and even good, but that there is something greater than slavishness to the letter of social, cultural, and even Church norms in ways that can close us off to God’s grace and hospitality. We, like Martha, are invited to choose this “better part.”