The Hospitality of Attentiveness

Many people have told me that the scripture passage about Jesus’ visit to the house of Martha and Mary (Lk 10:38-42) is one of their favorite Gospel stories. I suspect that is so because it captures such a human moment—resentment when others don’t seem to be working as hard as we are.

It is noteworthy that when Martha complains to Jesus that Mary is not helping her, Jesus does not discount the importance of hospitality. However, he highlights that how we offer hospitality is a choice. When we have guests, we can choose to rush around in an attempt to make everything perfect (which gives us an ego fix through the compliments we receive), or we can offer guests the hospitality of our full attention. When it is time to eat, we might need to ask our guests for their help in setting the table and dishing up food, but that invitation to assist in meal preparations allows them to feel useful and part of the family, which is another aspect of hospitality.

I like to think that Martha wasn’t always as stressed as she appeared to be in this Gospel story. Sr. Mary Faith Schuster thought so too, as she wrote in one of her poems:

We keep ignoring

the most important thing in Scripture

when Jesus dropped in for coffee

at Bethany.

The words were gentle

and the laughter lovely

and the wind blowing

so kindly over the waters

outside somewhere

for there was always

the sound of wind and water

and the long sweet laughter

of being happy.

Behold how they love one another

is another thing so easy to forget

in the scramble for doing

something with our lives.