The Simplicity of the Gospel
William Willimon at Theolog Blog (the Blog of the Christian Century) starts out this week's Gospel post this way:

The gospel gets domestic as Jesus—who is homeless, without a job, traveling from place to place, and looking for a free meal—intrudes into the home of two unmarried women.

Such is the story of Mary and Martha. He gets there, does his thing and the famous story of the hard-working sister and the lazy, sit-about sister. Oh, wait a minute. Which is which? Well, I guess it has more to do with which side of the picture you're on. As Willimon tells it is is just another story of discipling by Jesus. Some of us get part of it- others of us get other parts of it. Put them together and you get a whole.

But we do that by listening to Jesus and seeing what he is saying. In other words, don't allow ourselves to believe we have the final answer. Let Jesus move us further down the line.

Willimon ends this way:

For this Sunday then, here’s a definition of a Christian disciple: A Christian is anyone with the guts to open his door and let Jesus in, to listen to Jesus even when he criticizes the way the Christian spends his time. A Christian is anyone willing to be mystified by Jesus, to stay with Jesus, and to let Jesus work within him.

By the way, a quick glance will show that this wonderful story is actually the connecting link between the Gospel of Doing Story - the Good Samaritan (& Martha) and the Gospel of Being Story - the Lord's Prayer (& Mary.) Isn't it amazing how it all fits together?