Quite often after a full, interesting day and evening at the Church, I lay on the couch and watch HGTV to unwind. For those of you who don’t watch this channel, it’s the home and garden network and it’s all about houses. Most of the people on these HGTV shows are looking for an “open concept” main floor. They want a kitchen that is open to all of the other spaces so that whoever is doing the cooking isn’t stuck by themselves all alone, cut off from their guests. So if people are buying a house that does not have an open main floor, they take sledge hammers and knock down old walls, and hoist huge heavy beams to hold the ceiling up and spend lots of money so the cook can be in the kitchen and still gab with their guests. My thought is that both of these Biblical stories are about an “open concept household.” Nobody is swinging a sledgehammer, but some walls are coming down.
Abraham is hanging outside when God comes to him in the guise of three men. When he sees them coming, Abraham doesn’t know that God is hiding out in these strangers. As the story unfolds he figures it out. But when they arrive they are just some folk passing through, and Abraham falls all over himself to offer them hospitality. Now if I were sitting on the front porch of the Parsonage and some strangers stopped to look at the house, as does happen, and I invited them for dinner, they would probably apologize and hurry on. In our culture we don’t invite random strangers for dinner. But during Sara and Abraham’s time, it is a sacred obligation to welcome and serve the stranger. It is core to their religious practice.
Abraham provides these guys with water to drink and water to wash their feet, and not just a plate of cheese and pita bread, but a big meal with all the fixin’s. To get the ball rolling he ducks into the tent and tells Sara to bake some cakes, then chooses a choice calf from his herd for his servant to prepare. Abraham’s got a hospitality crew who do the hard, hot work all alone in their cooking spaces. When the meal is finally ready, Abraham doesn’t sit down to eat, relax, and chat with them—he is their host and their servant, like a waiter in a restaurant who refills our water glasses, makes sure the food is to our satisfaction, clears our plates, and delivers the dessert menus. Waiters don’t sit down and eat with us. Nor do they let us eat for free!
At some point, these strangers ask where Sara is. Says Abraham, “she’s in the tent.” That’s her place, in the tent, on the ready to bake more bread, or plate more cheese. Now, this is the moment that I wish Abraham had said, “she’s in the tent, let me go and get her.” Of course, to do that in his culture would have violated the protocols for men and women. This is not an open concept household situation.
Sara stays in the tent where she properly belongs with her ear pressed up against the thin wall straining to hear what’s being said. And she does hear, that she will conceive and give birth to a son. This is something God had promised her and Abraham years and years and years ago, but it didn’t happen. Now she is an old, postmenopausal woman, and hearing this promise with its very specific timeline, Sara laughs. I don’t know what kind of laugh sneaked out of her mouth. A laugh of delight with a little clap of her hands. Or a laugh of disbelief that says, “yah, right, that’s gonna’ happen to little old me.” Whatever kind of laugh she laughed, God hears it, and asks Abraham, the man of the house, “why did Sara laugh?” That’s how it usually goes. God talks to the men and the men talk to each other, and if they’re lucky the women sometimes overhear.
God addresses Abraham, but Sara answers for herself. She talks back to God. Tells a little lie which is a little foolish. God’s got good ears. Says the Psalmist, God hears us before a word is even on our lips. Sara talks directly to God and God talks back to Sara. This is one of those not normal, not usually possible things that God makes possible. Sara finds her voice and God listens, God engages her. There are no sledgehammers swinging here, but a little wall comes down and we get a glimpse of God’s open concept universe where both men and women share in the full communion with God and one another for which they are created.
This is God’s constant labor with the world, with us, pushing against our social protocols, and rules, and deconstructing the boxes we create for various kinds of people depending on their race, gender identity, sexual orientation, who they love, whether they’re documented or undocumented, or what they believe. Last week it was the Samaritan, who many Jewish people despised, that Jesus got out of his box by making him the surprise hero of the story, the good neighbor who cares for the injured man lying on the road.
Today it is Martha getting out of her box. Like the good Samaritan Martha’s love is active, her care and hospitality are vigorous. She is a doer. She knows what needs to be done, and she does it. I love Martha. She is sweating it out in the kitchen, her proper female place, all by herself, and fretting because sister Mary is sitting at Jesus feet, like a male disciple, soaking up what he has to say about the love of God, the gracious, spacious, kingdom and hospitality of God. Martha might have been more subtle. She might have knelt beside Mary and whispered in her ear “I need your help.”
But she’s boiling hot over the unfairness of her situation and goes after Jesus for not caring that Mary has dissed her womanly duties. She appeals to Jesus’ authority as a male rabbi and tries to get him to take her side. But Jesus doesn’t bite. “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things. There is need of only one thing, and Mary has chosen that one thing, the better part,” says Jesus. I wish Jesus had said, “Martha, come and sit with us, take a rest sister, hear my words, receive my love, and then, in a little while we can all get dinner ready together.” What Jesus actually says feels like a scolding, when what it really is, is a breaking down of the wall, an invitation for Martha to come out of the kitchen, and get out of the gender box she is in, to feast on the goodness of God’s hospitality and care.
And I imagine that Martha did sit down. It took a little while for her to get over her upset and stop worrying about dinner. And it took a little while for her to settle into this “better part,” this listening, resting, wondering, receiving part. It goes against her nature as doer who understands that offering hospitality is a sacred duty. But it eases Martha’s spirit to know that others will share this work with her. It gives her the freedom to get out of the box she was in. And as she sits there with all the others, Martha finds her center in the life and love of God. She finds the deep source that can quiet her anxiousness, and sustain all of her serving, and caring, and doing.
And I imagine that at some point Jesus got up and went into the kitchen and cut the figs, stirred the lamb stew, and plated the cheese with Martha by his side. And I remember that not long after that evening at Mary and Martha’s, Jesus sat at another table with his disciples and he took the bread, and gave thanks for it, then broke it, and gave it to them saying, “this is my body broken and given for you. Take it and eat it. Feast on my love. Live from my life. Love yourself. Serve your neighbors—family, friends, and strangers from within the love of God.” Welcome to God’s open concept universal household where the rich, gracious hospitality of God rests and renews, centers and sends us to serve in freedom and joy.