The Martha and Mary story is all about attitude and staying focused on the main thing. This story brings back memories from my growing up years. I come from a large family of five sisters and one brother. As with any size family, there are many tasks involved in caring for the members. Planning and preparing meals alone can be quite the challenge without proper organization and management. Add to that cleaning house, doing laundry, putting clothes away, and grocery shopping, the larger the family, the greater the need to share the work.
You would miss the mark if you think I got out of sharing the housework because of all my sisters. If the thought had even crossed my mind that housework was women’s work and therefore not mine, my two older sisters would have made certain that I changed my thinking. They knew exactly how to allocate the work, and they made sure I carried my load.
These memories invite me to reimagine the rest of the story about Martha and Mary. Imagine that Martha takes Jesus at his word and decides that she too ought to listen to him, like Mary, instead of preparing a meal for the crowd at hand. So, Martha stops what she is doing, sits down and listens to Jesus as he teaches. Then, when he is finished, he looks to Martha and says, “What’s for dinner?” Martha says, “Nothing—I have been sitting here listening to you the whole time.” A hungry Jesus might very well rethink his original response to Martha when she asked for his help.
Whether that is how the story played out we will never know. What we do know is that Jesus is not providing an excuse for avoiding responsibilities, as Martha seems to think Mary is doing. Jesus is also not gaslighting Martha’s emotional response, or that pragmatic concerns are trivial matters that should take a back seat to discipleship. Jesus is not trivializing what Martha was doing.
In fact, Martha was serving others, precisely what Jesus came to do—I came to serve, not to be served, he tells us, and he urges us to do the same. Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me. Jesus shows that serving others out of love is the fundamental meaning and guiding principle of discipleship. All of which raises a question.
If Mary was doing right by listening to Jesus teach, and Martha was doing right by serving others, then what does Jesus mean when he says Mary chose the better part? The clue is in his response to Martha. His response does not address WHAT Martha and Mary were doing. Rather, Jesus speaks to HOW they were doing it. Jesus speaks to their attitudes. Jesus in effect was saying to Martha, “The main thing is to know the main thing and to keep the main thing the main thing” (Steiner, Homily Backgrounds, June 2013).
As for Mary, we can be sure that she was not being insensitive to her sister or the needs of her houseguests. Martha may have owned the house, but Mary and Lazarus were living there. Thus, Mary would have been aware of what needed to be done in preparing a meal, and how she would have been expected to help. And yet, she risked personal criticism from both her guests and her sister by accommodating the one guest she thought deserved her undivided attention—Jesus. In other words, Mary focused on doing the main thing.
Mary listens to Jesus as he teaches for her own spiritual good and without regard to the momentary cost to herself. She did so with confidence. You might say that Mary acted out of love for Jesus. He came to teach, and she accommodated his wishes by listening to him. Having a right attitude is the sense in which Mary chose the better part.
Martha, on the other hand, seems to be acting out of a sense of duty. Carrying out our duties is important, of course, but when duty is our only motive, we know what usually comes from that attitude. No good deed goes unpunished, as they say. Not surprisingly, Martha felt put upon and abandoned, alone in her efforts to please her guests. She must have felt that even Jesus did not notice or care how hard she was working. Because she is so troubled and upset about the situation, she complains to Jesus. Martha is not focused on the main thing.
We can relate to Martha. She felt much the way we feel at times, especially when we do things for others from a sense of duty, and they don’t even notice. We hope to please, but we often get the feeling they don’t really care. We then feel put upon and abandoned. Whether we complain or not, we usually feel troubled and upset that no one appreciates how hard we work. Perhaps we are not even sure that we did the right thing. Even when we do complain to someone, it can be a bitter pill for that person to tell us that acting out of duty rather than love is not the right attitude and rarely brings us peace or joy.
We can also relate to Mary. We too focus on the main thing and choose to do the right thing as we see it, despite the criticism and trouble we know will come our way. We are aware of how others will think we should have done something different, and yet, we come away feeling content and at peace. We are willing to put up with the cost to ourselves because we know that we have done the right thing. We have chosen the better part.
In the end, we can take comfort in the way that Jesus responds to Martha. His response to her complaint is a clear show of sympathy, not judgment. Jesus expresses concern for Martha in her anxiety to serve her guests. As a true friend, however, he reminds her that acting out of love rather than a sense of duty is the better part and a sure way to find peace and joy. At times, we too need a similar attitude adjustment. We need to be reminded that answering our call to love others despite the cost is the main thing, the better part. May we always stay focused on the main thing.
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