16th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2025c

Old Testament - Amos 8:1-12

New Testament - Luke 10:38-42

 

The Kitchen Saint

 

INTRODUCTION: Sibling rivalries. They are as old as, well, Cain and Abel, right?

 

Yep, the pages of history are scattered with one incident after another of siblings fussing, arguing, and sometimes just coming to actual blows. Granted, there are plenty of siblings that also get along spectacularly, but where’s the fun in hearing about those relationships? I’ll admit it, it’s the siblings that feud and argue that really get my attention. The more drama the better, as far as I am concerned. 

 

That famous physician John Kellogg, who created Corn Flakes, and his younger brother Will apparently had a troubled relationship even as youngsters. John, eight years older, apparently loved to boss his younger brother around whenever he could. 

 

But Will got the upper hand by using Corn Flakes to turn Kellogg into a hugely successful cereal company. But after Will set up Kellogg, John started his own cereal company only to be promptly sued by his younger brother, which tore the family apart. After the judge sided with Will, the two brothers rarely spoke - and when they did, it was to argue and bicker.          

 

And then there is the less known rivalry between Jackie Kennedy and her younger sister Lee Radziwill. Raised in a wealthy and competitive family, the two spent their lives reportedly trying to out-do one another. Yes, Jackie ended up married to a President, but Lee did one better, some think, by snagging a Polish Prince for a husband. While one sister became First Lady, the other became a Princess. 

 

But the real drama had to do with the Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis. According to many, Lee was about to leave her first husband, the Polish Prince, for Aristotle Onassis. Until, that is, Jackie reportedly swooped him to steal Aristotle Onassis away.  

 

So it happens. While there are plenty of siblings that get along swimmingly, there are also plenty of others who don’t. 

           

ONE: Well, given our reading from Luke this morning, it’s easy to wonder if Martha and Mary maybe didn’t have their own sibling rivalry. Granted, it doesn’t sound like they had a deep seeded dislike of each other like John and Will Kellogg, but it seems likely they had their own strained way of getting along.  

 

Martha, after all, is pure business. If something needs doing, Martha is likely the one to take notice and see to it. She starts each day with a checklist and as the hours pass along she dutifully goes about jotting down those check marks after completing each task. 

 

So when Jesus shows up in her home, Martha gets busy taking care of the practical stuff. Food and drink, after all, just aren’t going to fall out of the sky, are they? So water gets set to boiling, a chicken meets its maker, and dough is quickly kneaded, set aside for rising, and then put in the oven for baking. 

 

But Mary? Well, Mary hardly seems so interested in such practical matters, does she? Mary, it turns out, is the contemplative one of the two. As Martha dashes around the house and town taking care of her checklist, Mary is in the backyard quietly writing in her journal and pondering the mysteries of life. 

 

While Martha notices everything that needs to be done, Mary just sort of rolls through life. Her plan each day is, well, not to have a plan. So when Jesus shows up, getting busy with meal preparation isn’t even on Mary’s radar. Nope. Instead, she plops herself at Jesus’ feet in rapt attention soaking up everything he has to say. 

 

Years ago, the Bible scholar Renita Weems did her own imaginative retelling of Mary and Martha and their story. At one point, she has Mary say this about her sister Martha: “. . . [F]or as long as I can remember, my sister, Martha, and I have always been different. We look different. We talk differently. We behave differently. We see the world differently. I suppose we dream different dreams…Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve never wanted to do anything other than read, write, and study.”

 

Well, sounds about right, doesn’t it? So maybe Martha and Mary had their own uneasy relationship. While Martha was busy getting things done and grumbling about her absentminded sister, Mary was off in the backyard roaming around in her own head while also reading and journaling. 

 

TWO: Of course, after she gets to complaining, it’s easy to imagine Jesus’ response to Martha might have only made things worse between the two sisters. After all, Jesus does seem to be taking sides and showing favorites. 

 

Martha, rightly I think, gets to objectioning about the way Mary seems to be lounging around while she is in the kitchen trying to throw together a meal, and Jesus gives that well-known reply: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” Well, that doesn’t seem quite fair, does it?

 

Is it any wonder to hear that monastic traditions have long relied on Jesus’ words to Martha as one of the reasons for their contemplative and reclusive practices. For Jesus does seem to be endorsing the life of quiet reflection and introspection over the life of work and action. 

     

Back in the 1800s the Italian poet Giuseppe Belli wrote a sonnet about Jesus’ visit with Mary and Matha. After Jesus has informed Martha that Mary has chosen the better part, Belli actually has Martha reply this way: “So says you, but I know better. Listen, if I sat around on my salvation the way [Mary] does, who’d keep this house together?” Who indeed?

 

So Jesus, strangely, probably only made things worse between the two sisters. Martha is simmering away in the kitchen over yet one more example of Mary’s lackadaisical approach to life, only to have Jesus say Mary has actually chosen the better part. Why, I can see Mary even now. With a hand held against her mouth so Jesus can’t see it, she sticks her tongue out at Martha in the kitchen as if to say, “Na-na na-na boo-boo.”   

 

THREE: Of course, as more than a few scholars have noted over the years, it is a bit of a misreading of the passage to think Jesus is simply favoring the contemplative life over the life of action and doing.    

 

After all, the whole scene with Mary and Martha takes place immediately after Jesus has just told that famous story about the Good Samaritan. After talking about that Samaritan stopping to lend a helping hand to that robbed and beaten man, Jesus then says, “Go and do likewise.” So Jesus clearly sees the life of doing to be an essential component of discipleship. 

 

The real issue, it seems, is that Martha, in her doing, seems to have forgotten why she is serving as host in the first place. Jesus’ council for Martha not to be worried and distracted is a call for her to remember that as a disciple she is to do all things for Jesus Christ. In the process of prepping and preparing, Martha is so concerned with what needs to be done, she loses focus on the very person she is doing things for in the first place - her Lord and Savior. 

 

Someone else has put it this way: “When Jesus praises Mary’s having chosen ‘the better ‘part’, he refers to her singular focus on Jesus himself...To be genuine, acts of discipleship - whether contemplative, active, or anything else - need to maintain such focus. Martha’s problem is that her service strays from attending to its rightful object of devotion, the Lord Jesus.” 

 

Well, a helpful reminder for all of us, right? For it can be easy to forget whatever we do in life, we are to do it for the honor, glory, and sake of Jesus Christ.                                                            

 

FOUR: Back in the 1600s, after having his fill of battle in the 30 Years’ War that had ravaged so much of Europe, a man named Nicolas Herman headed off to a Carmelite monastery in Paris, France. 

 

Entering as a neophyte, Nicolas took the name of Lawrence of the Resurrection, or Brother Lawrence. Assigned to work in the kitchen as a new and lowly member of the monastery, Brother Lawrence eventually became famous for the way he would peacefully go about his duties. Even though he was stuck washing dishes and cooking meals in the kitchen, Brother Lawrence went about his duties with a quiet grace and even joy. So much so, that people from the neighboring countryside would come seeking his guidance and advice. 

 

The guidance he provided in conversations and letters was eventually collected into a classic Christian text called The Practice of the Presence of God. And again and again in that classic text, we can hear words from a disciple who seemed to understand that he did all things, even those that seemed small and minor, for the glory of God.  

 

Listen, for example, to what Brother Lawrence once said about his daily work in the kitchen: “We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of Him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before Him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God.”

 

And then there are still these words: “We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.”      

 

Well, no wonder Brother Lawrence is also known by many even today as “the Kitchen Saint.” For in his life we see a model for all of our lives. For Brother Lawrence never lost sight that whatever he was doing, whether as a cook slaving over a stove, or still later as a sandal maker for his brothers in the monastery when his health turned poor, he was doing it for God.     

 

CONCLUSION: So there are all kinds of ways to be faithful, right? For some it’s burying a nose in a book, or reading Scripture, in order to contemplate the wonders and mysteries of life.

 

But for some others, of course, discipleship is more about doing. It’s about rolling up the sleeves and taking care of business. And then let’s not forget about those people who tend to fall in between those two extremes. Yep. There are all kinds of ways to be disciples, that is for certain.  

 

The trick, it seems to me, is to never forget for whom we are doing such things. For while the type of the devotion we engage in as disciples is surely significant, keeping the object of that devotion ever before us is even more important.        

 

And now to the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.