Who is the Host?
A Sermon preached at St. Mark's Episcopal Church on the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, July 20, 2025
This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
I speak to you in the name of One God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Martha thinks that she is the host.
The Gospel lesson this morning is familiar, maybe even a little too familiar. We know this scene well: Jesus enters the home of Martha and Mary. Martha busies herself with the many details of hospitality, while Mary sits at Jesus’ feet, listening. When Martha complains, Jesus gently rebukes her: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
But our expectations about this story might be changed if we look a little more closely. After all, we know that Martha and Mary were not just any women. They were beloved friends of Jesus. Their home was a palace of refuge for him. In John’s Gospel, we are told that Jesus wept at the death of their brother Lazarus. This family mattered deeply to Jesus, and the affection between them is clear.
So it feels unfair to see Martha’s offering of hospitality, something that in any other context would be praised, as the occasion for correction. She is doing what Scripture, culture, and common decency all commend us to do. She is making sure that the guest in her home is fed, comfortable, and cared for.
And yet, we hear Jesus say that Mary has chosen the better part.
So what is going on here?
We have to start by naming what this passage is not. It is not a condemnation of service. It is not a negative statement on hospitality. And really, it is not even a denunciation of busyness in and of itself, as is often the case when we hear this passage. Because the truth is, if no one had ever worked, cooked, or cleaned, Jesus and the disciples would likely have gone hungry and slept in the dirt unless there was another miracle with fish and loaves. In fact, there is a beautiful connection when we see this same household again in John’s Gospel. After the resurrection of Lazarus, this group appears again and we are told simply that “Martha served.” And there is no complaint, no rebuke, no comparison. Just a quiet honoring of her gift. You’ll remember that in that story, Mary again takes center stage, breaking open a costly jar of oil to anoint Jesus’ feet, followed by Judas Iscariot doing the complaining.
So it is not Martha’s activity here that is the problem. It is her attitude.
The central issue is that Martha thinks she is the host.
She sees herself as the one responsible for managing, producing, and delivering. She is, in her mind, the center of the moment. The one who has to orchestrate it all. And when her sister Mary does not fall in line with the plan, Martha feels justified in calling her out. “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”
It is at that moment that Martha misses the deeper truth. Jesus is the host. Always. In every space where Christ is present, he is the one who offers, who provides, who nourishes, who serves, who calls. Martha has confused her own efforts with the source of grace.
It is easy to fall into the trap that Martha does. The trap of comparison. Of judgement. Of evaluation. It’s easy to look at someone who is resting, praying, studying, or even just showing up, and think, “well that’s got to be nice. I’m the one doing all the work here.” But Jesus doesn’t see it that way. He doesn’t rank the efforts of one over the other. Jesus is able to see what is in the heart. The intention. And he invites each of us to let go of the ladder of spiritual evaluation and join him at the table of grace. Both the gifts of Martha and Mary matter here.
Hospitality, as we see it in this story, as we experience it in the Kingdom of God, is not about proving ourselves. It is about making space for others. And that space begins with what is in the heart.
We hear this echoed in our Old Testament reading from Genesis. Abraham, seeing three visitors approaching, runs to greet them. He offers rest and refreshment for these three men, these three angels. He has no idea who they are. Especially at first. But he responds with generous and instinctual hospitality. And in that moment of receiving his guests, Abraham receives a promise that he and Sarah, both in advanced age, will have a son.
The hospitality shown by Abraham becomes the occasion for a revelation about God’s faithfulness. And it is worth our time to think how showing hospitality reveals something about others and about ourselves when we practice it.
In both of the readings from Genesis and Luke, something holy happens when we receive. And in both stories, the host must realize that they are not at the center of things. God is.
Even when we think we are offering something, God is already at work offering something much more profound in return. The encounter in Genesis points to the covenant. The dinner with Martha and Mary becomes a window into the presence of the Messiah.
The table, no matter the story or the occasion, is not about the food. What is important is who is at the table, and who is hosting.
And this theme of radical hospitality is something that we have heard about for several weeks in Luke’s Gospel. Just two weeks ago we heard about Jesus sending out the seventy disciples to proclaim the Kingdom of God. And what does he tell them to take? Nothing. No staff, no bag, no money. Not even a change of clothes. He sends them out simply with vulnerability and the expectation that they will rely on the hospitality of strangers. And then last week we heard the story of the Good Samaritan, a man who shows extravagant hospitality to a stranger in need and brings him back to life after being beaten and left for dead on the side of the road.
In this passage, however, the question turns inward. What does it look like to show hospitality to Christ himself? What does it mean to receive the presence of God in your own home, in your own heart, in your own daily life?
It might mean that we recognize that we are not in control.
It could mean that we have to accept that our efforts are not what make Christ present.
It may be that we have to step out of behaviors of comparison and enter into communion.
The activity in this story is all about hospitality. And hospitality isn’t always easy. There’s a vulnerability to it. We have to open our doors and our homes to others. It can also be exhausting. You might be feeling that right now.
Hospitality, especially in the early church and in the ancient world, was a way of life. Christians, and others, were known by how they received the stranger, how they cared for widows and orphans, how they made room at the table. That is why connecting the readings from the past two weeks are so important for us to hear. People depended on hospitality in a way that we simply don’t understand today. Jesus sends the seventy out with nothing because they depended on the hospitality of others.
Can you imagine if our lives today were centered in the same way? Imagine driving for hours in Wyoming and stopping to ask someone for a meal. And they just give it to you. And expect nothing in return, because at some point, they will be doing the exact same thing.
Human culture no longer operates like that. Our lives today revolve around personal independence. We drive for hours and instead of stopping at someone's home, go through drive-thrus, barely interacting with people. Or stopping somewhere to eat, only to find out that they only take cash and not debit cards. We have to be the ones to arrange our own hospitality.
Many of you, myself included, are hosting family and friends for Holy Week - I mean, Frontier Days. You have stocked the fridge with specific food or drinks for your guests, you’ve laid out towels and inflated mattresses. You’ve cleaned relentlessly and made plans that have to be open to change.
Many of us gathered yesterday in the Bell Garden to offer some hospitality to parade goers, handing out home baked goods and cold water, knowing those passing by would be spending lots of time outside in the heat. And there is an intense busyness that goes into that, making sure that everything is ready, bringing supplies in before the streets close.
And perhaps all of that feels a little like Martha.
The good news is that your efforts in this hospitality are worthy. What you offer in love and care and do in the name of welcome is not forgotten or overlooked. It matters. It is part of how the Kingdom of God shows up in the world.
Jesus does not rebuke Martha’s hospitality. He does not tell her that she’s doing too much or doing the wrong thing. His rebuke is one that asks her to let go of resentment and stop measuring herself against her sister. Jesus invites her to receive his presence instead of simply trying to orchestrate it.
Sometimes the most faithful thing you can do is to sit, like Mary, and listen. But sometimes the most faithful thing you can do is to serve with joy, and not envy.
This Gospel is not about choosing one over the other. We don’t have to pick Mary or Martha. We don’t have to elevate one type of faithfulness over another. Instead, we have to realign our focus so that we see both our service and our stillness as coming from a place of grace.
Jesus calls us to carry this lesson forward. It isn’t just what we do, but how we do it. It is in acting with joy, not resentment. It is in offering hospitality with love, not judgment.
If you find yourself worrying that your work goes unnoticed, or if you feel the weight of comparison creeping into your heart, then hear Jesus’s words again: “You are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.” The one thing is not to disregard your efforts, but to remember who the host really is.
The “one thing” to remember is that Christ is already here. You are enough, you are welcome. If you find yourself more like Martha, or perhaps more like Mary, then know this: there is a place for both at Christ’s table.
Martha thinks that she is the host, but Jesus does not need our help, because it is he who comes to serve. All any of us need to do is to participate in whatever way we are called. And today, God is calling you to the table.
Amen.