16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C) – July 20, 2025

St. Joseph – Wichita, KS

Genesis 18:1-10a; Psalm 15:2-5; Colossians 1:24-28; Luke 10:38-42

Intro

As I mentioned at the beginning of Mass, my name is Fr. Michael Brungardt and I am the new Associate Director of the House of Formation—I took over for Fr. Joe Gile. I’m one of ten kids, grew up here in Wichita. And the answer to the question you’re thinking is 32. I was ordained a priest by Bishop Kemme seven years ago at the ripe ol’ age of twenty-five. So if you’re doing the math, you’re correct: I’m very young. 32. I spent two years down at St. Margaret Mary on the south side of Wichita, then a year at St. Mary in Derby, and for the past four years I was the pastor of the three parishes up in Rice County, so St. Paul in Lyons, Holy Name in Bushton, and Holy Trinity in Little River. And I loved it up there. I love the people, the swing of parish life, being on the front lines of it all. So it’ll be a new and unique challenge to form priests, but I’m looking forward to it—and to being able to still be involved in a parish (here) on a regular basis. So thank you for the warm welcome that many of you have already extended to me.

“In the extreme cases, it’s easy…

I remember starting as the pastor is Lyons back in 2021, and we had just come out of COVID, and I didn’t know anyone, and the parish needed a jolt. And I was like, “Like, where do I even start??” There was so much that I could do, so much that I needed to do and needed to attend to day after day after day—and so where was I supposed to begin? And I asked my priest mentor this, and he had me take a breath, had me take a few moments in silence, and he asked me to respond to a simple question—simple: “What is the one thing you need to laser focus in on at St. Paul? There are so many possibilities and so many exciting things going on, so much new life—and there are so many things you could do. But what is the one thing you need to focus on in order for everything else to flourish?”

He gave some examples. A doctor has a lot responsibilities, a lot of patients to check on, paperwork to do, prescriptions and treatments to order; and there are so many things going on in the hospital that he could be involved with; and then there’s his family and his community. And on top of that, in the hospital there are many other doctors and nurses and staff who all have the same number of responsibilities and concerns. But—but when the doors burst open, and the paramedic wheels in a person with life-threatening injuries—everything else is dropped, and the doctor is immediately laser focused on that person, leading the trauma team in caring for that one person.

Or you think of a firefighter. Same thing. Lots of responsibilities, lots of things going on at work, in his life, in his family. But when the alarm sounds and the call comes in, there is a laser focus on this one thing. Or think of being a student and a deadline is coming up, or in your job with these situations, or in your family when a big event is coming up: there is a laser focus on one thing. Every one of you could tell me stories.

And in our day and age, these “extreme cases” seem to be more and more normal, more and more frantic. We are constantly bouncing from one thing to the next. There are so many things that demand our time and attention. Bouncing from work to kids’ or grandkids’ activities, constantly addressing the next pressing concern in our life, the next crisis. I don’t envy parents these days: it seems to be an unending race from one thing to the next.

…but in the ordinary, daily grind, not so much.”

But then this is exactly where the rubber meets the road for us. In an ER, at a fire station—this question is easy. In the extreme cases, in things that are super pressing and need to be addressed immediately, it’s easy to determine our laser focus. But—but what is most important for tomorrow, or for the next week, for the next month, the next year, the next ten years? This is the challenge. The question is: what is most necessary for your life? When you take a step back from the “fires” you need to put out… what is most necessary for your life?

An author I greatly admire, Annie Dillard, she wrote something that really opened my eyes. She wrote, “How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and that one is what we are doing.” How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.

We can get so caught-up and smothered by the daily needs, the constant barrage of “stuff” that we need to focus on, that we need to do for our kids, our family, our job—we can get so entrenched in this, fill our days with this, that we forget that this becomes what we’re doing with our lives. How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.

One Thing Necessary

So here’s my big point for the day. In her anxious concern about many things, Martha is corrected by Jesus, Jesus calls her attention to a glaring problem in her life, “There is need of only one thing. Only one thing is necessary” There is need of only one thing. Only one thing is necessary. And here’s the kicker for each of us: by the way we live, by the way we live each day, by our actions—we claim to know what that one need, that one necessary thing is. I don’t need you to tell me what is most necessary; your life tells me what you believe is most necessary.

This incredibly famous scene of Martha and Mary, Jesus does just that with Martha. He looks at her life, and reveals her heart to her. We can easily mischaracterize what Jesus says to Martha as being, “Stop working so hard and learn to enjoy life more, enjoy the present moment more.” We can think Jesus means, “Martha, stop with the anxiety and worry. Life’s too short for that!” But no, Martha is already aware of her temperament. “What Jesus reveals to her is her heart, he exposed her heart’s deep, essential, total need—and reveals to her that she was fooling this deep, essential, total need, not taking care of it. Or better, she was clogging it up with things, worries, activities, judgements, fears, irritations, preconceptions [busyness]—just like we do!” (Leopori).

“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. There is one thing necessary.” Jesus isn’t just giving us some good psychological advice, or to get our ducks in a row, no. Jesus is saying that only he responds to the fundamental desire of our heart, of our life.

The Response of Mary

Now pause: many people take this story and start bashing Martha. Any if I had to guess, many of you are “Martha’s.” Many of you volunteer at the parish and keep this place moving, you are a person of great service int the community, at home, in your family. And so notice that Jesus does not take issue with Martha’s hospitality—not at all! I’m sure many of you remember Bishop Gerber; Bishop Gerber was fond of saying that the first pillar of Stewardship isn’t prayer, it’s…? Hospitality! Exactly! So don’t pit Martha against Mary, no, no, no.

The question is: Do our lives revolve around one thing, around Jesus Christ? Is he the one thing truly necessary in our life? Is he the one responding to the fundamental need of our heart? OR—or are we stuffing it full of many other things?

For example—now, I’m sure none of you struggle with any of this, probably just the people up at my parish in Lyons, you’re all perfect here I’m sure!—but for example: is the Sunday Eucharist a non-negotiable? Or perhaps, do we miss Mass because travel softball got in the way, or a vacation, or we were just too busy? Or do we not have time to pray…but we had plenty of time to watch Netflix or the news or some other TV show? Is our family life centered on prayer and meals together and family time, or as parents do you just feel like a taxi service for your kids and you don’t even know how to fit in one more thing? Look, I get it! My temperament is to be busy, busy, busy, go, go, go!

But that’s why I appreciate what my parents did for me and my siblings so much, all ten of us siblings. Our lives were centered on Jesus Christ. We joke, but it’s true, that our life was based off of the schedule of Benedictine monks. We woke up and went to Mass…every day! Came home and prayed before breakfast, Angelus and prayer before lunch, prayer before dinner, family Rosary every night. Sundays were the center of our week; Mass was just a given. (I can only remember missing Sunday Mass once in my entire life! I was five and barfed right in front of my mom and she said, “All right, you can stay.”) And again, I’m not saying we were some perfect family! BUT—but by the way we lived our day, by the way we lived—our lives had one necessary thing at the center: and that was Jesus Christ.

And so I think today’s Gospel really challenges us. I know it challenges me! And it’s not just one of those Gospels where you can hear it and say, “Oh, that’s so beautiful. Thank you, Jesus, for those nice words.” No! This is a Gospel we have to let shake us up a bit, shake us out of the ways we’ve grown accustomed to placing Jesus on the outskirts of our life. And then, here, today, at this Mass, next week, each and every Sunday, allowing this Sunday Eucharistic rhythm to seep into our week and into our every waking moment—Jesus Christ becomes the one thing necessary. Our lives don’t make sense without him. And this Eucharist becomes not just one more thing in a busy week, but the one thing necessary for our very lives.