My hard-working mother came home from Sunday Mass after hearing today’s gospel about Mary and Martha and said, “If there is one story I would rip out of the New Testament it would be that one! Poor, hard-working, unappreciated Martha! And Mary sitting there doing nothing!” I imagine there will be many who feel the same when they hear today’s gospel proclaimed. Since my mother gave her declaration many years ago we have become a nation that works even harder and longer hours each week. Most women now work outside the home, while still having household responsibilities. If asked, these women would likely stand with my mother today. Can we redeem the Mary and Martha account for them? Can we draw out the good news in the passage, not only for them, but for the rest of us?
The traditional approach to the story has been a comparison between two aspects of the Christian life: the active life, represented by Martha and the contemplative life represented by Mary. We moderns might not notice the radical nature of today’s story. In our society men and women mix easily in our work, social and family lives. But that was not the case in Jesus’ world. Except for the home, men and women were strictly separated. In accepting Martha’s hospitality Jesus was breaking a strict social code. Luke doesn’t mention the sisters’ brother Lazarus, so the setting is a man welcomed into the home of two women.
Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus — another example of a code being broken. It wasn’t that she was in a subservient posture, a woman taking a humble position in the presence of a man. Mary was exhibiting a humility of a different kind. Sitting at the feet of a teacher, or rabbi, was the posture of a disciple. (Remember what Luke said previously about women being among those who traveled with Jesus and the 12 and how they “provided for them out of their resources.” — 8:3.) Mary is sitting where a male disciple would be, at the feet of the teacher. Normally she shouldn’t be there, yet Jesus welcomes her by treating her like a disciple and teaching her. Still, the story really revolves around Jesus and Martha. Mary is there listening and observing, but she is not in the action.
We preachers have made the story into an allegory: Martha, the model of a harried, Christian worker and Mary, the model for the contemplative and reflective Christian. What can help in interpreting this, or any scriptural passage, is to note the context of the story.
The Mary and Martha story follows right after the parable of the Good Samaritan which ended with Jesus telling the inquiring lawyer, “Go and do likewise” (10:37). So, immediately preceding today’s story Jesus has affirmed and directed disciples to imitate the Good Samaritan by doing what he did. Placed alongside that passage is today’s, which teaches the need for being still and listening. Luke is not asking us to choose one way of Christian living over the other. We are not to accept just one way of being Jesus’ disciples. Nor is one way superior and the other inferior.
Instead, with the Good Samaritan passage held alongside the Mary and Martha one, we are invited to follow both ways. The challenge is deciding when we are to choose one and when we are to choose the other. One scriptural commentator (“Preaching through the Christian Year,” Trinity Press, 1994) sums it up this way. “The Christian life involves, among other things, a sense of timing” (P. 345).
Again let us return to the context of today’s story. Immediately following the passage Luke gives us Jesus’ teaching on prayer (11:1-13). He begins with the Lord’s Prayer (11:1-4), and follows it with further teachings on prayer. So, the sequence of the three passages goes like this: at the end of the Good Samaritan parable, “Go and do likewise”; in the Mary and Martha account, sit and listen; then, comes the instruction to pray. Go-Listen-Pray. Not always in that sequence, but each is essential for the Christian.
The lesson for the preacher today is not to pit Mary and Martha as sibling rivals, or to extol one form of Christian living over the other. In the spiritual tradition sisters symbolize two realities, they are meant to go together. If we put them in opposition then one will wind up diminished and the Christian life will be off-balance. Our challenge is to see how the two integral parts of the Christian life complement one another. If we hold Jesus’ teachings close to our hearts as listeners, then his words will overflow into wise and appropriate activity. Martha seems to want to dissolve the integrated world, represented by the two sisters, into a narrow, single-dimension world represented by her alone.
Previously (9:51) Luke told us that Jesus had turned deliberately towards Jerusalem, with his disciples following. Along the way they will need hospitality and caring people to help them. Those who receive them will be the example of what we, as a church, are to do: offer hospitality to the Word and respond by tending to the needs of others. We are a Mary/Martha church and both faces of the church are necessary, if we are to be called Christians, followers of the Lord.
There is an examination of conscience for the church implied in today’s gospel. Parishes are understaffed, very busy places. In the rush to serve we can lose our focus on the Word of God. We can be efficient at getting our jobs done, but in the rush forget hospitality and welcome.
Luke’s story presumes that as Jesus and the disciples travel towards Jerusalem there will be listening hearts and gracious hosts to welcome them into their homes. Martha and Mary are models of the hospitality Jesus and his disciples will need as they travel to Jerusalem. The kingdom of God is coming near. Will we welcome it humbly? Will we respond to its daily entry into our lives with hospitality and then service in the world?