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Hospitality
Have you ever been to the Masters Golf Tourney in Georgia where 40,000 avid but well-behaved fans are following the masters of golf? You move from one hole to another, or you find a spot for the day, trying to preserve what shade you can find as the hot sun passes overhead — you are there from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. — and you have your special green “Masters” chair to unfold and set up to mark the spot you’ve chosen from which to watch the drives or putts. If you leave to get a freshly made egg salad or pimento cheese sandwich, or watch a putt on another hole, you can be assured that your chair will still be there (your name is on it), no matter where you roam nor for how long. It is a Master’s guarantee. True, you feel insignificant among such a throng of people, and yet you are there, among the greats, and are the envy of everyone who isn’t there. And maybe you have the treasured ticket to get into the clubhouse to escape the heat and watch the thing on TV.
 I’m not good in crowds, not even at my Memphis Grizzlies basketball games where I might be sitting among 17,000 fans, next to my cancer doctor or some giant ex-athlete wearing his jeans dropped below his butt, as has been the gross fashion in my country. But at the Masters, everyone dresses conservatively, and keeps quiet, doesn’t breathe actually as a contender swings his club. It is unique, believe you me.
In Uruguay, doesn’t everyone want to sit in that elaborate architectural miracle for Penarol, filled with 70,000 fans, watching two soccer teams battle it out, while hoping to get a high five, or an autograph, or a tossed sweaty jersey from Suarez or Forlan, the local superstars? All 70,000 want to be there. Even in torrents of rain. My husband took me to an important game in the giant new Penarol Stadium. The crowds were huge, pushing and shoving and pressing hard to get in - we had reserved seats but apparently, they weren’t reserved for us, but shared with others, and finally we had two seats unused by others—and we watched the game we lost. Exiting was a true nightmare because we had to wait until the opposing, enemy team from Brazil had to get into their buses and slide on away from the masses. Then all of us packed shoulder to shoulder could then exit the stadium and walk a mile to where someone was to pick us up. If I hadn’t had such a strong, super husband, I’d have never made it. I kept feeling I’m in the masses, thousands of people I didn’t even know, pushing and shoving, but my husband was like a savior — he just short of carried me out and into an open space. I was so thankful and began to wonder is this what going to heaven was going to be? uncontrollable crowds of people not interested in you or me but just getting there before everyone else?
Thin that down a bit to 2000 years ago in Palestine, with its deserts, its soft hills of wild bougainvillea and thick palm trees full of dates, the constant movement from one shade tree to another, in the era when there were still a few giant cedars of Lebanon. A crowd of 5000 had climbed up a mount not far from the Galilean Sea. And they followed not a golfer, but Jesus of Nazareth, the healer, the teacher, the hope for the moment in their valleys and deserts. This Jesus was walking, probably with a shepherd’s crook, not riding around on a bicycle or a Chevrolet. His transport was his feet in sandals, and on occasion a donkey stumbling down pathways where big stones vied against dirt. Nothing was flat or easy, but it was life, and I doubt if many complained. Outside Jerusalem, Jesus was the curiosity, the celebrity of sorts, the man of the hour, was news. like miracles and cures, happened. But in his humanity, like any of us, Jesus also needed friends with whom he could relax, breathe, enjoy a meal and trust.
It is assumed, and we can imagine, although we only have two references in the Bible, that he was very close to Martha, Mary and Lazarus and often stayed at their home in Bethany, which was just outside Jerusalem. Surely his ministry could get frustrating, exhausting, upsetting, dealing with the apostles who often didn’t see what he was telling them, and could not absorb the magnitude of his life and miracles, and always on his mind was his destination. He knew it was close, although none of his apostles understood when he hinted of his dying and returning in three days, which had never been done before. And surely, he was tired of being constantly touched by the needy, which drained him, and hounded by soldiers and priests, who couldn’t figure out who he was. He carried little with him, and he was usually covered in dust and surely suffered tired or sore feet from covering such long distances. Jesus wore down because he was living in his Human skin. And we see in scripture, that Jesus often went into the hills, or across a lake, or to a distant place to escape the crowds so he could be alone.
Mary and Martha knew him like family. They were in his comfort zone. Martha was the busy one, keeping things in order, washing the dishes, picking up clothes and debris, while Mary would be the equivalent of our thinkers, poets, meditators, sitting at the feet of a master, and listening and imagining and praying - the quiet type, it seems. But isn’t this the same Mary we call Mary Magdalene, whom we know adored Jesus, and was the first to the tomb on Easter morn? The quiet, meditative, gentle one? Her sister, Martha of Bethany, was a tireless worker and probably a worrier, it seems. She was worried about her brother Lazarus when he died, and she worried about the meal she was fixing for Jesus, and why Mary didn’t help, and I have a feeling she was at the cross worrying about who would take Jesus down from the cross when wealthy Joseph of Arimathea showed up and got permission to give Jesus a proper burial in his own tomb. Most crucified bodies were just dumped in a field. Martha wanted order in living and getting things done quickly if there was a quickly 2000 years ago. Did she see Jesus as a savior and healer? or just a friend with an enormous task and calling on earth. Did the sisters believe he was really the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior? We don’t see Lazarus making any comments after he was resurrected or carrying out a crusade although he did end up in France as a Bishop. But We never know how he felt and only have words written here and there about what happened later in his life.
It takes all types of people to fit into a puzzle that makes up a tribe, a barrio, a nation, or the world. Jesus was more than this. He was God’s only begotten son. He walked straight among every kind of person, and dined with the worst of society, because he was needed everywhere and was not prone to judgement. No man is so evil that God cannot cure him of that evil somehow. In those days, God allowed his only begotten Son to be crucified. And it broke a lot of people’s hearts. But its purpose connected you and me, believers 2022 years later, to Mary and Martha. Are you a Mary or a Martha?
There are many kinds of service to the Lord - the quiet way, and the noisy way. Mary’s way or Martha’s way. Mary knew a good moment when it was presented to her, so she dropped everything to sit at the foot of the great Lord, Jesus. Martha on the other hand, serves, moves, stirs, organizes, and gives the needs of others the priority in her life. She was the epitome of hospitality. The word Martha in Aramaic means lady or mistress; it is the feminine of Lord. She is even described as “busy with much service” and the Greek word for that is “diakonia.” She prepares meals. It is the Eucharistic ministry. The deacon today is the one preparing the table, and feeding the poor, always concerned for the comfort of others. She would have probably been one of the first women deacons, or like Mother Teresa who devoted her whole life to taking care of the poor and dying, while suffering from her own osteoporosis. Today, Martha would have taken risks in Africa working with the AIDS epidemic; or comforting refugees in the Middle East. She got involved and was miffed because her sister didn’t do likewise. But Jesus loves all and defends Mary, the more reclusive one.
It is interesting that Luke tells the story of Christ’s visit to Mary and Martha’s house in Bethany right after the Good Samaritan story where we saw love of Christ and love of neighbor in action; and right before the discussion on how we should pray the Lord’s Prayer. It is as if Martha’s activity opens the door to welcome us and Mary’s quietness comes through it.
Mary shows us how to adore the Savior, that no expense be spared to award Him the best in our lives, the richest of our prayers, the best of what we have to offer to serve him. So, we must be who we are. We must use the tools we have been given to love and serve. We must continually seek new ways to open our heart to the most desperate and depressed of men, women, and children, and to take new challenges and risks that will give Christ a chance to speak to us, to tell us what he has called us to do, and to reconfirm his constancy and caring of us. If we are inactive and non-meditative, nothing happens. If we act and pray, Christ speaks and the whole world opens for us to serve for Him. Go forth in his Name.
~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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