There are a couple of themes that run through today’s readings from Scripture: hospitality and the inner truth of God and Jesus’s invitation to deepening love. The themes converge in the two stories one in the Book of Genesis and the other from Luke’s gospel.

Genesis relates the story of Abraham as he receives three men and offers them the normal hospitality of the eastern world. He welcomes them and asks them to stay for a bite to eat. That bite turns out to be festive dinner prepared by Abraham and his wife, Sarah. After enjoying their meal, the men leave but one of them says that he will return in a year and Sarah will then have a son.

Abraham/Sarah are confronted by the ways that God works. They are both well beyond the child-bearing years, but God’s desires supersede the normal ways of the world. When she hears what the man says as he leaves them, she LAUGHS! , a kind of “there’s no way!” The story goes on and reveals that her laughter gets her in a bit of trouble.

Luke’s gospel tells the fascinating and familiar story of another act of hospitality on the part of the two sisters, who host Jesus in their home. Mary sits at the feet of Jesus and listens to him as he speaks to her while Martha is quite busy preparing the meal of welcome for Jesus and the sisters.

Frustrated, Martha confronts Jesus about Mary shirking her duties and sitting by Jesus’ feet. “Tell her to help me” she pleads. Even though Martha’s request puts Jesus in an awkward place, he remains firm. “Mary has chosen the better part” and “you are anxious and worried by many things.”

According to the Law, Martha is correct. The Law stipulates that a woman’s place is in the kitchen, not in the living room conversing with the guest. Jesus sees Mary’s actions as legitimate. There’s something But there’s more here than simple observance of the Law.

Mary’s response is deemed better because she recognizes in Jesus who he is and is not afraid to “act like a man” not fearing that the Law says otherwise. In those days and often enough still in our times there are consigned places where men and women can be. Mary has crossed the line and Martha is chastising her for it. She is doing the right thing according to the Law (women need to be in the kitchen)

and Mary is acting inappropriately by entering the man’s world and being a host to Jesus in the living room.

Jesus sees the situation in an entirely different way. He sees in Mary’s response a more deeply appropriate one in this setting: she has chosen the better part. There’s something more her than meets the eye and it’s expressed as love. Mary has the determination to express that love by moving away from the Law’s prescribed rules and spaces in the home.

As disappointed as Martha may have been by doing what she considers the right thing, Jesus asks her to open herself to the deeper reality of who He is. Mary understood that and acted upon it. Was Martha wrong and Mary right? Not really because Jesus agrees with Mary’s response to him and invites Martha to consider that love is the more appropriate response. Both are winners.

Abraham seem to come out on the right side by being faithful to God and to themselves. Martha and Sarah (rebuked for “laughing”) find themselves invited to a deeper love-response to God. There’s no “winner or loser” here. There’s only the love of God and Jesus’ invitation to love.