The Stamford Independent

Sermon: Luke 10:38-42, Genesis 18:1-15 © Katherine A. Heichler; Preached Sunday, July 22, 2007
“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” Trinity Emmanuel Church, Stamford, CT

Lord, open our hearts to receive your gift to us today. Amen.

I don’t know how you are, but whenever I have enough time,
I love to give dinner parties.
A real dinner party to me is a sit-down meal for six to eight people,
with at least three courses, really good food, elegantly served, good wine,
sparkling conversation – or sparkling wine and good conversation.
Pasta for 15 in the living room is fun too, but it’s not a “real” dinner party.

Part of the fun in having a real dinner party is the planning of it:
What am I going to serve? Shall I try something new for a first course?
How am I going to decorate the table? Which dishes? Silver, or stainless steel?
The blue table cloth or the white lace one?
The painted Italian candleholders, or the gold and black ones?
Sometimes I tie the napkins up with a beautiful ribbon and tuck a sprig of rosemary
in. Some Easters I have made individual Easter baskets for each place-setting.
Martha Stewart’s got nothing on me when I get going.

What I want is for my guests to be delighted –
their eyes, their noses, their taste buds,
to know that their host cared enough for them to make food not only
good and nutritious, but beautiful, exquisite to taste, luxurious.
To know they were anticipated and prepared for.
That’s what opens people’s spirits up and makes for a great party.

And what about the guests?
There is often one person or couple I’ve been wanting to have over,
and I build the guest list around them – people whose conversation is interesting,
or people who have been generous to me, whom I’d like to give back to.
I love to have people who don’t know each other,
who I think will really like each other.

I can just imagine the conversation, sitting around the table late into the evening,
the dessert dishes and coffee cups still on the table,
a serious discussion, punctuated by a good laugh now and then.

If the guests stay a long time, I know it was a good evening,
that the food and drinks, the environment, the music, and the company
all worked to soothe people’s spirits and open them up to one another.
But here’s a little secret: I’m not always a participant in these events.
Sometimes I am so busy bustling, carrying dishes back and forth, flambéing
bananas or making more coffee, that much of the conversation passes me by. Sometimes I throw out contributions from the kitchen,
and then realize no one heard me because I’m not in the room.
I’m so busy creating an environment of blessing for my guests,
I sometimes miss out on it.

Is there anyone out there who can relate to that?
I have a feeling I’m in pretty good company –
and I can see by our lessons today that I stand in a solid Biblical tradition.
I think Sarah from the Old Testament,
and Martha from the New might have a thing or two to add to this conversation.

In fact, I think I’ll invite them to dinner.
Maybe since this is just us girls, we won’t make anything fancy, maybe just a nice
salad with fresh tomatoes and feta cheese, a quiche with red peppers and bacon;
Oh, and a warm loaf of fresh-baked country bread,
where the steam rises from it when you break off a piece…
And a blue ceramic dish with black olives, and maybe another of hummus –
after all, my guests are from the Middle East.
Cold, clear cider – or white wine if they want it.
Oh, and you’re invited too, if you want to join us.

Martha speaks first. “It’s nice to be served dinner for a change,” she says.
Sarah agrees. “I never counted how many meals I prepared in how many places. And it’s not like I ever had a kitchen.
We were always in a tent, always traveling. Always the promise of land to settle on.
But I learned to set up quickly and get the meals out. Just because you’re in a tent
doesn’t mean you don’t have to provide good hospitality.”

I can tell Sarah is not a paper-plate kind of woman.
She goes on, “When those three men came, Abraham ran to meet them.
We didn’t get many visitors in Mamre. He begged them to stop, to rest there.
He brought water for their feet, and offered them bread – bread we didn’t have.
I had to make it then and there.”

That stopped Martha.
“I didn’t have a lot of notice that Jesus was coming to the house with his entire
retinue of followers, but at least I did have some bread on hand.”

Sarah said, “Not me. Abraham ran in, ‘Quick, take three measures of flour,
knead it and make cakes.’ Like I didn’t know how to make bread?”

We look at each other and roll our eyes a little at the folly of men.
“He went out and got a calf, had the servant kill it and prepare it.
By the time everything was ready, those men must have been starving,
but Abraham took it all out and served them.”

Martha sat up. “You mean he helped you? I was on my own. My sister was there,
of course, and you’d think she might have lifted a finger with all those people
there, but she just plunked herself down in front of Jesus and listened to what
he had to say. It sounded interesting, what I could hear from the kitchen, but— ”

Now it’s Sarah’s turn for surprise:
“You mean she stayed in there while the men were eating?”
Martha: “Oh, I couldn’t drag her away.”
“Women didn’t eat with men in my day,” Sarah said.
“Abraham stood with them while they ate, and I stayed in the tent,
just listening behind the entrance, to make sure everything was okay.”

“That’s right,” I throw in,
“You were in the tent when they said what they said, weren’t you?”

Now Martha is curious, “What did they say?”
I refill their wine glasses while Sarah tells the story:

“Oh, it sounds so silly to repeat it. It sounded silly then –
and it would sound silly now, if it hadn’t turned out to be true.

Martha: “What was it?”
Sarah: “They asked where I was, and Abraham said I was in the tent.
It’s almost like they knew I was listening, because one said,
‘I’ll be back in due season, and your wife Sarah will have a son.’”

“Why was that so silly?” Martha asked
Sarah: “My dear, we were old! Ancient. I was way past menopause.
It was ridiculous. I laughed my head off –
I’m old, my husband’s old, and now I’m supposed to have the pleasure of a child?
When I can’t even chase him down the path? I said it right out loud, it’s ridiculous.”

I agreed that it sounded pretty unlikely, and Martha nodded too,
but she was quiet, like she’d had some experience with God’s amazing ways.
Sarah went on, “I guess the men heard me laugh,
because they asked Abraham why I said what I said.
And that man said, ‘Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?’ And he said again
that he’d be back next year and I’d have a son. And then they left.”

“What a gift,” I said. “When you weren’t expecting one.”
Sarah said, “I don’t offer hospitality expecting gifts.
I put the meal out, let them eat it, and when they’re gone, I clean up.”

Martha interrupted.
“Well, I want a little more from it than that – I want to give to my guests.
That day that Jesus came to my house, I wanted him to have a wonderful
and to be refreshed and rested when he went back to his travels.
That’s why Mary was so irritating to me – she was so selfish. She only seemed
interested in what she could get from Jesus, not what she could offer him.

But when I took him aside and asked him to say something to her about it,
about the fact that here I was doing all the work and she was just taking,
he acted like I was in the wrong. Not at all what you would expect him to say.”

“Hmmm,” I said. “Seems like whenever God comes to visit,
unexpected things happen.”

Martha nodded, “I just wanted everything to be perfect for him, you know?
It was hard enough to invite him, being a woman and all, and when he said yes
I had to really scramble. I got a lamb and roasted it with some garlic – ”

“And some mint and yogurt?” Sarah asked.

“Oh yes, it was moist. I baked fresh bread and cut up some cucumbers…
and setting the table for so many people –
we couldn’t eat on laps when he was the guest of honor.

So I’m rushing back and forth, and I see Mary just sitting there like one of the men,
listening to him teach. I kept dropping hints to her... ‘Mary, why don’t you get
the Teacher some water, and the rest of us too, while you’re at it?’
But she didn’t move! Just like she was one of his disciples. It was all wrong!
Made us all look bad. Finally I thought, maybe she’ll listen to him.
I took the Master aside and said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister
is leaving me to do all the work by myself? Then tell her to help me.”

“And did he say something to her?” Sarah asked.

“No. He said to me, ‘Martha, Martha…’ – just like that, he said my name twice.
‘Martha, why are you fretting?
You are worried and distracted by many things. You only need one.
Mary has chosen the better part, and it will not be taken away from her.’
The better part – well, I can see how it might be better to sit on your rear end
and soak in Jesus’ wonderful teaching, but we can’t all spend our lives doing that.”

Sarah laughed,
“He would have been one hungry man that day if you’d done the same!”
Martha persisted, “I didn’t want more for myself.
I just wanted to make it perfect for him, and I needed her help. But Jesus – ”

She fell silent.
I let the silence sit for awhile, which is sometimes what a good host needs to do.
I had put out some beautiful peaches for dessert, and I ate a slice of one.
Martha took her time. Sarah and I just waited.

Then she spoke again. “I’ll tell you a secret,” she said,
“Something that Jesus said to me that didn’t make it into the story as Luke told it. It’s a conversation we had in the kitchen. Jesus said he wanted me, us,
to receive his love, the fullness of his blessing.
That’s what he would consider a perfect party. And I said, ‘Lord, this is enough,
just to have you in my house. I don’t need more.’ But he said,
‘Martha, what you think is enough isn’t even a fraction of what I want for you.’

He said, ‘Mary has chosen the best part. She has chosen to take my most
precious gift, myself, to follow me. I will not take it away from her.’
‘But Lord, it’s such an honor to feed you. I don’t mind the work…’ I started to say. And he stopped me. He said, ‘You will not always have me with you.
Take the opportunities to sit with me when you have them.’

Then Martha shook her head, remembering her own stubbornness.
“And again I argued with him – I said, ‘But I do stay close…
I can hear you while I work, I always leave the door open from the kitchen.
And someone needs to cut the bread, chop the vegetables, take out the roast.”

He just looked at me and said it again,
‘What you think is enough isn’t even a fraction of what I want for you.’
I said, ‘You want me to come and sit too?’ He just smiled.
‘Can I go turn down the oven so the meat won’t burn?’
He didn’t answer. Then he said, ‘I want you to trust the roast to me.’

Sarah said, “So did you sit down?”
Martha, “I did, for awhile. I learned a lot. My sister and I, we knew who Jesus was, even before a lot of the men did. We understood. Later, when our brother Lazarus died and Jesus finally came, it was me who said I believed he was the Messiah, the Son of God. They all talk about Peter’s confession of faith – but I made one too.

I asked her, “Did you learn to slow down? To sit at his feet more often?
Did Mary learn to do more?”

“Nope – we were still who we were. She was always more devotional than me.
But I did learn that when it’s God who’s coming to dinner, God’s the one
offering the gift, and the best part is to receive it, not try to compete with it.”

“Oh boy,” Sarah says. “I guess you could say I learned that too.
We offered the Lord some bread and a few steaks;
God gave us the gift of a son when we’d given up the possibility of one.”

And I say, “Wow. When have I had God over for dinner?
And what did I miss while I was bustling around?”
They both look at me like I’m a little dense.
“God’s here right now,” they say. “And you haven’t missed a thing.”

Well, my friends, God is here right now with us.
We don’t call this a dinner party – we call this church.
But that’s what it is – when we gather together as brothers and sisters in Christ,
it’s a family party, a family party at which guests and friends are always welcome. What we do every Sunday is gather here for a feast, one we call Eucharist,
at which Jesus is not only the guest of honor, but the Host himself.

And we bustle a lot – we write sermons, we prepare bulletins,
we rehearse hymns and fix flowers, the altar guild lays out the linen
and the silver and does the dishes when it’s all over.
We fret when something’s not right, like we have to make it perfect for God.

But God is saying, “No, no, no, my friends. You’ve got it backward.
I have called you together here so I can make it perfect for you.
What you think is enough isn’t even a fraction of what I want for you.
Let me bless you.”

And what we can do is be like Mary, and just drink in his presence.
Not coming to do, but coming to be – maybe the only place in our lives
where we are defined by who we are, not by what we do.
When you come to church, come into a time of being –
of praising God with our voices and our hearts and bodies;
of listening to what Jesus is saying to us when the Scriptures
are read and preached;
of resting into the prayer times and coming in touch with God’s Spirit
praying inside of us;
Come here like a dinner guest – expecting to be well fed and entertained,
to enjoy each other’s company and that of our Great and Mighty Host.

That’s what church is about – as the poet, George Herbert, knew so well –
Listen to his beautiful words as we close:

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked anything.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.

Amen.