Daily Worship

Active listening

Norah Summers July 25, 2025 1 1
Norah Summers, Falkirk Trinity Church
Image credit: Unsplash
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Luke 10: 38-42 (NIVUK)

38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!’

41 ‘Martha, Martha,’ the Lord answered, ‘you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed – or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.’

Some years ago we made changes to our house downstairs, building an extension and reconfiguring the kitchen and dining room into one large space. What a transformation! Now the cook could converse with the company!

Now here is another story of hospitality. Jesus is coming to tea! Martha welcomes him, and then gets into the kitchen. As you do.

Perhaps there wasn’t room for two cooks getting in each other’s road. Perhaps Mary wasn’t all that good a cook anyway. Perhaps Martha was not actually shut away in a separate kitchen, but just so trauchled that she couldn’t enjoy the company.

A hymn describes Jesus as ‘amused in someone’s kitchen, asleep in someone’s boat’. (‘Inspired by Love and Anger’, John Bell and Graham Maule). I love that. So human. He is watching the interplay of personalities and perceiving how each sister honours him in her own way. Martha is practical – if we all sit and chat there won’t be any tea! – but Mary is listening.

Listening is not a passive occupation. Jesus is not indulging in idle chit-chat, but teaching, and that demands active participation.

I wonder how the two women talked about this incident afterwards – Was it some kind of turning point for them? Did they begin to understand each other better? Did Martha realise that Jesus had been teaching her too? Did they look back on this day with enjoyment and delight in the visit of Jesus?

 

Prayer:

 

Loving God, thank you for the stories of Jesus in his encounters with friends. Thank you for his wise humanity, his perceptive understanding of relationships, his enjoyment of the company of ordinary men and women – Son of God but living among us, full of grace and truth.

 

Read also the hymn ‘Inspired by Love and Anger,’ (Church Hymnary 4, 253).