Deacon Pierce homily given on July 21, 16th Sunday Ordinary Time M&M candies: who doesn’t like them? They melt in our mouths, not in our hands, so the tagline goes. M&Ms are like Martha and Mary who are the chocolate M&M sisters in today’s Gospel. These women have different M&M-colored shells, so to speak. They have different appearances and behaviors described to us by Luke. Martha is burdened with much serving. She’s anxious and worried as she rushes to prepare their home for a meal – one we can assume is for a house-church service, typical of Luke’s time near the end of the first century. We can just imagine Martha’s hair in disarray with sweat pouring down her forehead. Mary, on the other hand, seems calm, cool, collected, and she quietly listens to Jesus. Martha and Mary give us a close-up view of two ways to follow Jesus. Luke shows us through these two sisters the red M&M way and the green M&M way – the red way of Martha involves passion, fire,