Readings: Genesis 18:1–10; Psalm 15; Colossians 1:15–28; Luke 10:38–42

It would be easy to see in our Gospel reading only the conflict and contrast between Mary and Martha: shame on Martha the complainer, praise for Mary the listener. But the readings taken together suggest a more profound focus. The hospitality offered to the Lord (Genesis 18); the profile of the righteous person (Psalm 15); the image of the invisible, reconciling God (Colossians 15) — these draw our attention, as indeed both Martha’s and Mary’s attention was drawn, to the visiting, righteous, God-imaging Lord Jesus.

Martha and Mary enter the Gospel story offering hospitality to Jesus, as Abraham did to (the three-personed…!) God. But this means that the details — Abraham’s and Sarah’s meal of flour cakes and tender calf, the matters of preparation occupying Martha’s mind to distraction, as deliciously important and urgent as they may seem — can only be secondary, supporting. Martha did well (as did Abraham, interceding with the Lord for Sodom later in Genesis 18) bringing her concerns — even if they had to be judged and corrected — to the Righteous One.

So we do, too, when we gather in worship. And as we hear him, hear his teaching, his correction, his promise, we may by grace share in his righteousness. The table is turned (!) and he becomes our host, giving himself to us, giving his whole person, in a meal of salvation, in the bread and wine which he makes his own by his word and with which he feeds us forgiveness.