First Reading, Genesis 18:1-10a

Our Liturgical Setting: Today's gospel, Luke 10:38-42, is the familiar story of Jesus at the home of Martha and Mary. The hospitality theme links the gospel to the first reading, although the hospitality is secondary to other themes in both cases.

The Literary Background: The detailing of Abraham's obsequious courtesies are meant subtly to give hearers two important notions about the grand status of the patriarch. He was wealthy enough to play the very generous host with the best of his contemporaries, and he was spiritually keen, sensing that his visitors were disguised angels. His life was imperfect, and he needed God, of course; his protracted childlessness is a constant reminder of that. Thus the visitor's prediction that Sarah would have a son within the year is really the point of this story.

Another interpretation: Roger Karban argues persuasively that the lesson really is hospitality. The kernel of his interpretation: If you believed in the "total otherness" of God (i.e., if you believed God was essentially different from the hand-made idols worshiped by your neighbors), then you honored your God by being courteous to those who were like God in their otherness. Those were the strangers and the travelers you encountered. Abram's God had already inserted plenty of strangeness into the patriarch's life. Our natural instincts are to distrust strangers and view them as competitors for scarce resources (Abram and Sarah had escaped a nasty dose of pagan inhospitality in Egypt, and Abram's kinsman Lot, in the company of two of these mysterious visitors, would experience reprehensible inhospitality in Sodom in the next chapter.)

Proclaiming the Passage: Let's stick with the hospitality theme, since it prepares the assembly for the gospel, if only for a secondary theme of the gospel.

Speak the first sentence as if it were a title, and pause. Dan Nelson explains convincingly "The first half of the verse is the chapter heading. Without it the story is about three messengers; with it, these are no messengers, earthly or heavenly, but Yahweh himself. In 18:22 the men (cf. 19:1, "two angels") go toward Sodom, while Abraham remains before Yahweh." So your pause lets the story begin at a logical place, "Looking up, Abraham saw three men ..."

Make sure your hearers can picture Abraham's exaggerated gestures. Overact it, if you will. First he promises water, then food. Then he orders Sarah to bake rolls, and a servant to cook a steer. He adds curds and milk to the menu, then serves as waiter while his guests eat. The lavishness borders on the comic.

Make a pause, that is, (forgive me) a pregnant pause, before the last sentence, the visitor's promise, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah will then have a son." That's how this passage fits into God's whole scheme to make a people, choose them, and from them to bring forth the Savior.

To prepare to read this, imagine yourself as Abraham telling the story of how you entertained the three divine visitors. You're regaling friends and admirers. How would you sound if you were telling the story in the first person? Recreate the breathless frenzy of one making a meal for drop-in visitors. Make your listeners wait for it as you prepare to announce the promise of a son.

Second Reading, Colossians 1:24-28

The Historical and Theological Background: Paul did not establish the Christian community at Colossae, but the elders there appealed to him for help in some doctrinal and disciplinary issues (see last week's Notes and next week's for details about these issues). So here and in the following sentences Paul establishes his credentials:

• First, he accepts in his own life the continuation of the persecution of Jesus, for the sake of the church that is the new body of Jesus. This lets him identify with Jesus, always a good thing, if not always a pain-free thing.
• Then he uses his title "minister"
• and states that this accords with the stewardship God gave him.

This lets Paul make a segue to a favorite theme, the revelation of God's plan for humanity in Christ. That plan:

• has been hidden for ages
• but is now revealed in history's recent events, including Paul's own ministry.
• The plan calls for Christ to be revealed to the Gentiles
• and for them to accept Christ into themselves as their hope of glory.

Paul's contribution, further specified, is to admonish and teach everyone, so to prepare them to be offered more perfectly to God.

Proclaiming the Passage: Unless you have in your mind an outline like the above, your proclamation may sound like an aimless ramble. Modern punctuation in translations of ancient texts is by nature arbitrary. Supplement the punctuation here by pausing where the logic demands it.

The passage may still be hard for people to understand. You may decide to go for modest, reachable goals, such as one or two memorable phrases. One is "I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake ..." Another, "in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ." And a third is "Christ in you, the hope for glory." Say these with clarity and conviction, and some listeners may take away a morsel for meditation and spiritual nourishment that sustains them for a long time.

Gospel Reading, Luke 10:38-42

The Historical and Theological Background: Saint Luke's Gentile audience would have wondered:

• Why was Jesus unsuccessful among most of his fellow Jews?
• Why were they, as Gentiles, welcome in a religion with roots among the famously exclusive and proud Jews?

The answers are intertwined. That Gentiles were interested in Christianity would have only tainted the movement even more in the eyes of mainstream Jews. But the tension started with choices and statements made by Jesus himself.

We're quite used to reading this gospel passage as an injunction to do contemplative prayer, figuratively sitting at the feet of the Master and letting him speak to our hearts. It's easy to let this story raise the imagine a veiled religious woman adoring the Blessed Sacrament, and say, "Yep, that's what it's about. I have work to do but I have to pray first."

Good advice, that. But Saint Luke meant something else. Remember, the evangelist is explaining how Christianity grew apart from its origins, why Jews were so hostile to it, and how Jewish Christians were moved to welcome Gentiles. So Luke remembers and emphasizes things Jesus did that defied the customs and expectations of his people. And this is a pretty incendiary act on the part of the itinerant rabbi from Nazareth. He taught a woman! For a measure of how unprecedented that was and would remain for centuries, see "Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy," by Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902-1991), or the 1983 American movie derived from it.

And That's How to Proclaim it: Let there be astonishment in your voice when you say the words "Mary, who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak." If you're not the preacher, proclaim this in a way that obliges the preacher to comment on it.

Hearing the gospel reading as a community, or as leader of one

Suppose I'm a bishop giving a retreat to the clergy, and I use this gospel as the kernel of a conference. I could enjoin my fellow servants to sit at the feet of the Master and learn from Him, not getting so Martha-like that we fail to pray. But in addition, we could let ourselves be challenged by Jesus' defiance of two taboos. He teaches a woman, and he teaches that learning is more important than domestic work, even hospitality. A bishop moved by the latter challenge might re-evaluate the diocese's policies on clergy sabbaticals, continuing education, and the pursuit of advanced degrees. (A bishop moved by the former lesson might be an Episcopalian.)

A parish council noticing Jesus' love of learning might establish a library and professionalize its adult education program. Members sharing responsibility for any aspect of their church's mission can ask if they mindlessly reproduce the larger society's low expectations of minorities.