Pentecost 6 C: Listening to Jesus Today

Luke 10:38-42 Dear Partner in Preaching, What if their names were Matt and Marty, rather than Mary and Martha? I’m talking, of course, about the two characters interacting with Jesus in this week’s Gospel reading. Because they are two women, and because they seem – at least momentarily – at odds with each other, and because Jesus appears to take a side, we have for centuries tried to read this story as about discipleship and yet somehow regularly made it about women’s roles. Women’s roles in the church, in leadership, in society, and beyond. Goodness, but the pull of this interpretation is so strong that it has escaped...