The story of Mary and Martha is one of the more well-known stories of the Bible, like the story of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan, the story which this immediately follows, by the way. And I don’t know if this ever happens to men, but I can tell you that if you are a woman and you’ve attended enough women’s retreats, you will eventually spend some time talking about the Martha and Mary story. You’ll be asked to indicate which one you identify with, and the vast majority of the women in the room will identify with Martha. And since Martha is scolded by Jesus, the whole thing ends up deteriorating, with the Martha-identified women commenting that if Martha hadn’t been cooking and preparing, how did Jesus think that dinner was going to get on the table? No one else was jumping up to help. Behind the scenes women are under-appreciated, and no one really understands what it takes to run a church. In the end, what is one of the few passages that two women as main characters, turns out the be one of the most-disliked passages by “behind the scenes” women.
Now, a moment of personal caveat. I would probably be one of these Martha-identified women. After worship this morning, I will be leading a BWCA Mother/Daughter camp, so this has been my prep week. Nothing brings out my Martha side more than the BWCA. On Friday, I was simultaneously making brownies, rice krispie bars, and prepping some hamburger with the spices to be dehydrated for jerky. At the same time, I was running through what I would be saying to my campers at dinner on Sunday evening. And that was just on the first 30 minutes of my food-packing day. I’m definitely a doer. On a trip to the BWCA with friends, once, as I jumped for probably the fifth time in 10 minutes, to see if we maybe needed to firewood cut up for kindling, one of my friends told me to just sit down and stop! Firewood, and everything else, could wait for a bit, and we all just needed to sit and rest for a little bit. She was right, of course.
In my own defense, I can learn from these kinds of things. Two years ago, I planned a trip that would have more down time than any other BWCA trip I’d taken. It was wonderful! It was hot and windy and mosquito-y, but what I remember the most from that trip was sitting on a rock at the edge of the campsite at the water and just watching the surface of the water. For long periods of time (for me!).
But now I’m getting caught in that Martha/Mary comparison, so let’s go back to that passage and see if we can redeem it.
Jesus depended on the hospitality of his friends and followers. He needed people like Martha, who would house and feed him and his followers. And, according to Middle Eastern hospitality code, Martha was obligated to offer this hospitality. When Jesus and his followers showed up, she couldn’t just hand him a key, show him the fridge, and then go out to get her hair down. And there is no indication that she bore resentment to this hospitality. Elsewhere in the gospels, Martha and Jesus are shown to have a pretty tight friendship. But for whatever reason, Martha was having a hard day this time. She was left alone to care for a house full of guests, and while she might have expected that her sister would help her, her sister was instead listening to Jesus with the others. So she pleads with Jesus to intervene on her behalf and cause Mary to help out. Having read all the stories of when Jesus is asked to intervene, he never sides with the requester, so it’s no real surprise that he turns the whole request on its head. He doesn’t scold Martha for offering hospitality, but he does let her know that Mary is also doing something important at that moment. The role of being instead of doing was very acceptable for men in Jesus’ society, but not for women. Jesus affirms that the role of being is just as important, and invites, in his own way, Martha to join in that experience.
It’s not about choosing one or the other. Jesus doesn’t indicate in any way that doing isn’t also important. It’s the worries and distractions that Jesus chides Martha for. In my dream ending, this story concludes with Martha sitting down with the others, and then when it’s time for dinner, everyone gets up and helps prepare the meal. It’s not about determining if you are a Martha or a Mary type, and then trying to develop your Mary side. It’s about balancing our lives with doing and with being. Because they do fall on each other. Doing something can cause reflection, which can lead to doing in a different or renewed way, which causes more reflection, etc. And if you are at a place in your life where doing just isn’t possible right now, Jesus words about Mary are good news – just being is perfectly fine.
The trouble with Mary and Martha is that we think we have to choose. Packed in my car right now is all sorts of equipment – paddles and saws and sturdy hiking boots. But I’ve also packed blank paper, binoculars, and a Frisbee. I thought about what else I might need, and realized that I could just sit on a rock and watch the surface of the water and listen to God. The things in my pack are real, but they are also a metaphor. A metaphor for the way I hope we might all live our lives – doing the works of the Good Samaritan, offering the hospitality of Martha, and taking time to just listen to God with Mary. Amen.