Proper (11) 16 – Year C
SIXTH Sunday after Pentecost: July 20, 2025
Gospel Lectionary Text
Luke 10:38-42
10:38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.
10:39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to what he was saying.
10:40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me."
10:41 But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things;
10:42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."
Context
Welcome to the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost. In today’s Gospel, Jesus enters the home of Martha and Mary, who were outsiders in the broader culture, but insiders in Jesus’ community. Luke tells us Martha is “distracted by many tasks.” Mary, by contrast, breaks from the culturally acceptable role of women and sits at Jesus’ feet.
Martha is frustrated. She addresses Jesus with a thinly veiled question that’s probably more like a comment: “Don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work?” You can hear the sting in her voice: the loneliness, resentment, the desire to be seen. Jesus gently redirects: “Martha, Martha…you are worried and distracted by many things. One thing is needed.”
It’s hard not to hear this as Jesus mansplaining. And it’s hard not to imagine Martha blowing a gasket. But what if we are witnessing a moment that not only challenges patriarchal culture (an invitation to join Mary and the other men as a fully authorized disciple), but also does something more?
In a world obsessed with roles, titles, and achievement — where we’re the initiators and main actors in our own story — Jesus invites Martha into something countercultural: a life that begins in receiving, not producing.
What’s on offer here is the invitation to accept what James Alison calls our “secondariness”: our contingent-ness, our humanness. The recognition that we are utterly dependent on the other to survive. Jesus is not the guest in this story who needs to be served. He’s the host. And that changes everything. Martha is being invited to become the guest: to sit down, to join the others, and to receive the gift.
But let’s be clear, secondariness should not be confused with second class-ness — something Martha knew all too well. Secondariness is what allows us to discover ourselves as first class citizens, co-heirs and co-creators in Christ, no longer bound by social structures that dehumanize. Instead, it calls forth an identity and posture that frees us: one that releases control, relaxes anxiety, and lets love come near so that we can become fully human.
Question
Søren Kierkegaard said, “Purity of heart is to will one thing.” In this week’s text, Mary wills “one thing,” and Jesus praises her for it. What is the one thing Mary sees in Jesus? What is the one thing the Spirit is inviting you toward?
Reflections
Praying Eucharistically - Weekly Homily by James Alison:
Girardian Lectionary Weekly Reflection:
Understanding the Bible anew through the Mimetic Theory of René Girard.
Poetry
This week, we invite you to read and reflect on the poem, “A Brief for the Defense,” by Jack Gilbert. “Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies / are not starving someplace, they are starving / somewhere else.” This is a vivid, hard-hitting opener, hardly inviting to anyone sitting down to read this poem. We are immediately shocked with the suggestion that our imaginations are not sufficiently engaged with the suffering of the world. Today’s media landscape reinforces the idea that the only ethical way to live is in a state of constant, melancholy outrage. We hear from others some version of Martha’s words in Luke 10:40 — or, perhaps we’re tempted to complain ourselves:
“Lord, look at the state of the world. Do you not care that so many of our brothers and sisters have left us to do all the work by ourselves? Tell them to help us!”
Gilbert knows all this. Worry, distraction and sorrow weigh down every word he writes. Still, he offers us a possibility, his own version of the gentle Lord’s answer: “We must risk delight.”
A Brief for The Defense
by Jack Gilbert
Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.
Prayer
Come, Holy Spirit, wild and free. Do as you please. Shine your light on me that I might see things as they are, not as I am. Free me to act in your name with courage, creativity, and compassion.
