6 Pentecost/Year C – July 20, 2025
Scriptures: Genesis 18:1-10a, ; Psalm 15; Luke 10:10:38-42
Rev Julie Platson
Opening Prayer: (Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals))
Lord, grant us the ability to think with your mind, to hear with your ears, to see with your eyes, to speak with your mouth, to walk with your feet, to love with your hearts. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
In today’s gospel, Jesus and his disciples are still on the move and traveling from place to place…
Today, they arrive in the village of Bethany and are welcomed into the home of Martha and Mary.
And it is in these few, short familiar verses, that we might instinctively turn our thoughts to identify closely with either Martha or Mary…and could probably easily come up with some remembrances of when you were in the same position, and places of preparing for a group of visitors…and once they arrived, you and others of your household, would have had different “tasks” in welcoming your guests.
We often default to that type of reaction when we listen to Jesus’ teachings in the gospel…we are quick to align ourselves with the various parts and people of the story…often unintentionally, perhaps…falling into that “us vs them” narrative that I spoke about a couple of weeks back.
While I believe it can be a helpful practice, to consider where we find ourselves in the stories and teachings we hear in the gospels…I’m not sure the intention is to set us up into separate categories that can lead us to judge one another...but rather to help us see where God is, where Jesus is, in the midst of our interactions with one another, in the midst of our tasks that distract us from one another, and in all the variety of ways we will be called to welcome one another, and walk in love with one another, throughout our days here on earth.
So, this week, what’s jumping out at me…is a reminder that we need not focus our attention on who is doing what or not doing what…but to ask ourselves a few questions…
Is Jesus and the love he has proclaimed to us, in our midst…what we are focusing on, when we welcome others into our homes, our churches, our communities?
Is it Jesus and his love that we allow to guide us, move us, and strengthen us to do the things we do to stand up and advocate for the oppressed, and the vulnerable in our communities?
Is it Jesus and his love that we believe with all of our heart, soul, strength and mind, is the “better part”, the one thing we believe can help us to love and serve one another, as we have been so loved?
Jesus is always calling us forward in ways that encourage us to be mindful of others, to hold fast to the hope for co-creating a world when it’s no longer about us vs them…but us…all of us…
He is always encouraging us to go…to go and walk in the way of love…yet he teaches us time and time again, about setting time aside for prayer, for stillness, to be loved by God and inspired by the Holy Spirit, to be nourished by his presence and a relationship with him, to be enabled, and equipped to go in love and peace to serve one another.
I leave you with this today.
There is need of only one thing to focus on in all of our worries, anxieties, fears, and in all of our endings and new beginnings…Jesus and his love. Whether we are sitting at his feet, or whether we are prepping the meal for him and all the guests we will welcome to the table:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light of His glory and grace. Amen.
Closing Prayer/Hymn: (Praise Chorus Book #97) - Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace. Amen