Sun. Aug. 14, 2011 (Lydia Cruttwell)

Regent student Lydia Cruttwell focused on Luke’s brief account of the well known Mary/Martha story: two single women living with their brother. Drawing on her experience working in a bakery, Lydia talked about the amount of work involved in meal preparation. Even if Martha wanted to prepare a simply meal, the complexities at the time were enormous compared to our day: no refrigeration meant meat had to be freshly slaughtered, no yeast, and wheat had to be ground before baking bread. Martha, steeped in expectations to be good hostess, chose to welcome Jesus and his disciples. Martha publicly shames her sister in front of her guests. Jesus sweeps away her concerns and says Mary made the right choice. “If I were Martha I’d be angry,” said Lydia. Lydia then posed three questions about the story: Who is the host? Who is the guest? What is being served? When Jesus comes, he welcomes us – he is the host. Mary found this truth; Martha could not see beyond the literal food. If we pay attention to the guests we’ll begin to see Christ. (HN)

Listen to the sermon audio MP3 recording from Sunday, August 14th, 2011 using your browser's preferred media player.