HOMILY WEEK 17 03 – Year II
Memorial of St. Martha, Disciple of the Lord
(Jer 15:10, 16-21; Ps 59; Jn 11:17-27 or Lk 10:38-42)
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“I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.”
According to The Word Among Us, we often think of St. Martha as an example of what we shouldn’t do. When she hosted a dinner for Jesus, she was the one serving at table, “anxious and worried about many things” (Luke 10:41). It was her sister Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus in the posture of a disciple, who had chosen the “better part” (Luke 10:42). Actually, Martha’s problem was not that she was busy. It is more that she was agitated, anxious and worried, and not at peace in doing what she was doing. She was not centered and had lost her peace of mind.
St. Augustine has a word of advice for Martha: “No, there will be none of these tasks there. What you will find there is what Mary chose. There we shall not feed others, we ourselves shall be fed. Thus, what Mary chose in this life will be realized there in all its fullness; she was gathering fragments from that rich banquet, the Word of God.”
Along that same line, Thomas Keating offers an insight into Mary’s stance in that gospel passage. According to him, Mary was not so much listening to Jesus’ words – rather, she was aware that she was in the presence of the Word, and that was enough for her. More important than what Jesus might have been saying, was their presence to each other. As such, Mary serves as an example of contemplative prayer, resting in the presence of God and soaking up God’s love, and that is why Jesus would say Mary had chosen the better part.
In today’s optional gospel, Martha is somewhat vindicated. We meet a more mature Martha. She is not so overcome by worry. She recognizes that God is working through Jesus, and she believes that God will give Jesus whatever he asks (John 11:22). She hasn’t yet grasped that he can raise Lazarus from the dead, but she believes that Jesus is the Messiah. She recognizes that he comes from God, and this strengthened her faith.
In this story, Martha’s faith starts out as the ability to trust God. We might find trust like that difficult, especially if, like Martha, we have just experienced deep loss. But we can learn from her. She found hope in the promise of resurrection for her brother. She saw that her fears and worries were nothing compared to the power of Jesus, so she put all her trust in him. Actually, her profession of faith – “You are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world” – is rather amazing, on a par with that of Peter at Caesarea Philippi, and close to that of Thomas in the upper room. We can do that too. Even if we still feel fear, we can be confident in Jesus, who conquered death and lives forever.
Faith is more than passively trusting in God – it is actually believing that God can do miracles. Martha can help us understand this type of faith. She came to believe that Jesus could do anything, and she told him so. We can do that too, by asking God for help in a challenging situation. We can ask God for a miracle – healing of a love one, the conversion of a friend or family member, a new job. Ask in confidence, but also trust that Jesus in his wisdom will answer our prayer in the best way possible. Exercising our trust and faith like this will help us grow closer to Jesus.
Bishop Robert Barron adds his own insight into these words of Jesus in today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and anyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”
Jesus came primarily as a warrior whose final enemy is death. It is easy to domesticate Jesus, presenting him as a kindly moral teacher. But that is not how the Gospels present him. He is a cosmic warrior who has come to do battle with those forces that keep us from being fully alive.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus deals with the effects of death and a death-obsessed culture: violence, hatred, egotism, exclusion, false religion, phony community. But the final enemy he must face down is death itself. Like Frodo going into Mordor, he has to go into death’s domain, get into close quarters with it, and take it on.
Coming to Lazarus’ tomb, Jesus feels the deepest emotions and begins to weep. This is God entering into the darkness, confusion, and agony of the death of sinners. He doesn’t blithely stand above our situation, but rather takes it on and feels it at its deepest level.
The Eucharist is a sharing in that banquet St. Augustine speaks of, in which the Lord comes to serve and nourish us, with his Word, and his own body and blood. May our celebration strengthen our faith, so that we can say with Martha, “Lord, I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
