"Better is Better" - Sermon for 6 Pentecost 7-20-25

Way back in seminary I learned that if I stopped and prayed before studying or writing, I was more focused and less frustrated. The same was true during my hospital chaplain internship. Stopping between visits to pray and to give thanks for the one, and to prepare for the other made my time much more fruitful than when I rushed from one patient’s room to the next.

It’s a practice I still try to keep. There’s one set of prayers I say before Mass, and another set before hearing confessions. Sometimes I even pray before writing sermons; I wonder if you can tell?

Of course, pausing before doing isn’t just for obviously holy tasks. Long ago, Saint Benedict taught his monks to pray before serving meals or working in the woodshop. All necessary activities are in and of themselves holy, or made holy, by doing them with holy intention.

Nor is this practice reserved for the professionals. Did you know that you can pause for a brief prayer of intention before you head into a meeting, or care for a client, or fold the laundry, or brew a cup of tea? No task is too rote, too menial, too ho-hum not to be started with just a moment’s holy reflection. Try it sometime, if you don’t already do so. It will change you for the better.

I expect Jesus wanted his lunch. I expect Martha – ever the good host, long before the one surnamed Stewart came along – Martha wanted Jesus to have his lunch. Her beef with her sister was a fair one. Send her to help me!

Ah, but Martha, Jesus said, I wonder if your worry and your distraction arose because you didn’t stop even for a moment to sit at my feet. Mary did, he might have gone on, and I expect that she’ll be a better helper for you once she joins you in the kitchen. But there’s still time. Come, sit down right next to her and let’s chat. Then we’ll eat.

In a few months we once again will be busy in the church kitchen. Our guests will want their lunch. You and I, ever the good hosts, will want them to have their lunch. And our lunch, too. We build community, remember, by sharing tables and eating together.

As we refashion our meal ministry, I wonder if we All Saints’ Marthas and Marys might envision how first to sit at Jesus’s feet, as Mary once did – and make sure that Martha, converted, is right there with her.

That is the better part, Jesus said – so how can we refuse?  

Father Daniel S.J. Scheid, SCP

Sixth after Pentecost C: Proper 11 – July 20, 2025

All Saints’ Episcopal Church, San Francisco

“Better is Better”