Poor, poor Martha - so obsessed with straightening doilies and pinching pie crust that she missed the chance to hear Jesus preach in the flesh! At least, that’s how generations of preachers have told it. For about two thousand years now, busy, fussy Martha has had tongues a-clucking.

But there’s also a deep, mostly unspoken truth here: most of us do not relate to the quiet, contemplative sister who never left her place at Jesus’ feet. We relate to the hard-working sister, the determined hostess who was, after all, getting things done. And as I recall, not two weeks ago, we heard Jesus say that his disciples were to go out and receive hospitality from whoever welcomed them. Martha is doing just that! So if she is bothered by Mary loafing her way through dinner, well, Martha’s entitled to be annoyed. Because now it’s time to clear the dishes –they’re not going to clear themselves! (You hearing me, Marthas?)

She doesn’t get credit for it, but I expect Martha wanted to listen to Jesus, too. It’s just that she had to prepare her house for an honored guest! In her place, who wouldn’t be busy? Frankly, if you and I found out that Jesus was going to have brunch at our house today, Sunday July 17, we might want to get out of here before the benediction. Right now, is your house ready to welcome the Son of God? Speaking for myself, I’d like to get home and get a few things off the floor. If you had an hour to get your home ready for Jesus, what would you do? Maybe make a quick run to Kroger, do one of those no-time-to-move-the-furniture vacuuming jobs? Would you reshelve the novel you’re reading, maybe put a Bible on the coffee table instead? (“This stuff you said is great, Jesus. I read it all the time.”) If Jesus wanted to check his E-mail, would your website history be ready for his arrival? Or would Jesus even know, visiting us, that he was in a home of those who follow him?

We might just as easily ask: what makes a house a Christian home? If you’d say it isn’t a Bible on the coffee table - you’d be right, of course. Such things do not make a home Christian. We could say that what makes a Christian household is the presence of Christians in it. Maybe. But there are plenty of homes populated by one or more Christians, in which the routines, the conversations, and the activities look very much the same as homes in which people make no pretense of faith in Jesus Christ. So it must be something else that makes a Christian home. What?

The one thing needed, it seems, is Jesus. Put simply, in Jesus’ day and in ours, the house in which Jesus is welcomed – that’s how you identify a Christian home. Which brings us to further sympathy for Martha, struggling mightily as she is to welcome our Lord! We might expect Jesus to praise her, but he doesn’t. Somehow, despite the bustle and blur, Martha does not succeed in the fundamental task of welcoming Jesus. Neck-deep in her errands and chores, running just to stay in place - that sounds pretty familiar, doesn’t it? Maybe we could be in danger of failing to welcome Jesus into our homes. And not because we’re unwilling to receive him. No, we want to make a place for the Son of God in our homes, in our lives. It isn’t willful refusal to open the door to the one who knocks. It is rather our breathless and constant busyness that’s the problem. We would welcome Jesus more often and with greater ease if there were just someplace we could wedge him in! But the day is already pretty full, and so is our home.

We don’t want it to be like this. We admire Mary’s place at Jesus’ feet. We tell ourselves that we are just so much busier than folks in the old days, our jobs are so much more demanding, than back when people sat on the front porch and drank lemonade all day. That’s why our time is so scarce – we work too hard! But in fact, the converse is true. Go back a few generations, and our ancestors overwhelmingly were farmers. And if you know anything about farming, you know those guys get about forty hours off every week! I saw an article in Newsweek a few years back, confirming this: on balance, our work hours do not exceed those of our great-grandparents. We are just more scattered than they were.

Why would that be? You may have an idea. Maybe there’s more than one answer. But a big part of it is this: our expectations for leisure are greater than ever. We have far more opportunities, far higher expectations, for what we cram into our off time. We leave work, pick up the kids in two places, take one by the church for Scouts, the other to softball, notice on the way back to church that our inspection sticker has expired, stop by a red-roofed pagoda to pick up dinner in a flat, square box. If you do the occasional grandkid shuffle, then you’re doing a variant of this. (Frankly, many of the retired folks here make the rest of glad we’re still working, because we hear you wondering when you ever found the time to work in the first place.) And as for so-called stay-at-home moms - hah! Blessed are we who go to work. It’s a whole lot less chaotic there! We are all about as busy as bees in a hive, we 21st-century Americans, passing by each other at high speed, wishing we could do more with others or the church, maybe even take our family to a movie next weekend, all the while trying mightily to fulfill our obligations the best we can before it all starts again tomorrow....

“Here I am!,” sayeth the Lord. “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me” (Rev. 3:20). But the microwave is going, an Ipod is playing, a Twilight DVD is on the TV – are we going to hear that knock? And if we do, is our home ready to invite him in? So what are you going to do about it, Martha? What’s the solution? You could pull a John Wesley and put in three hours of morning prayer. You could spend the evening in unbroken silence, having tied up the kids in the basement. But is it realistic to pull a Mary and just drop to the floor wherever we are, never doing laundry, just letting the grass grow? Appealing, maybe. Not realistic. How do we welcome, when do we welcome, the One whose name is Life?

The best answer anyone’s yet found, friends, is the present moment. Welcome the presence of Christ in the common places of your life, and he’ll never be an uncommon presence. Find a repetitive task, like mowing the yard or washing dishes or paying the bills, and reflect on how Christ did ordinary, time-wasting things, menial things, like cooking a meal or washing feet, for the love of his friends. If you’re taking the kids to go swimming, remind them of their baptism, and that how they act at the pool shows whether they’re living it out. I’m told some people pray when they drive. (I’ve tried that - I just can’t talk to God when I drive. Although I have said an incredibly sincere prayer when I spied a Trooper on I-81.)

So if we can’t empty our days of routines and chores, then we need to learn to inject them with holy meaning. Could you overcome your embarrassment, and the momentum of the past, to lead your family in praying before a meal, if you do not do so already? Could you be the one to find five minutes before bed to read a Bible story or devotional, or read one to a family member? Instead of telling someone you’ll pray for them, here’s an idea: pray for them first, and then call just to say you were doing so and wanted to ask how they are. How can you leaven the loaf of your day, so that you will be nourished by the Bread of Life? You can. He is knocking. He just needs a home into which he can be welcomed. Will it be yours?

Paul wished for the Corinthians that they “might live in a right way, in undivided attention to the Lord” (1 Cor. 7:35b). I always thought that seemed beyond possible. But the next time you feel scattered, overburdened, as if you are no longer able to give your best to anyone, remember: we merely think we are supposed to do extraordinary things for Christ. To welcome him, all we have to do is to learn to do ordinary things, in a Christ-like way. In the words of Horatio Bonar, a 19th -Century Scottish preacher and hymn-writer: "A holy life is made up of a multitude of small things. It is the little things of the hour and not the great things of the age that fill up a life like that of the apostles…. Little words, not eloquent speeches or sermons; little deeds, not miracles or battles or one great heroic martyrdom, make up the true Christian life.” I think Horatio got that right. If we can learn this, then ‘happy’s the home’ in which we sit at his feet and wonder, or in which we laugh with him as we clear the plates.

You hearing me, Martha?

Thanks be to God.