A friend gave me a
book of devotional readings, and I’ve got one that I need some help with. It’s
to do with the story of Martha and Mary, as told in Luke 10:38-42. If you’re
unfamiliar with it, here’s the deal:
Jesus and his cohort
come into a village where a woman named Martha invites him into the house she
apparently shares with her sister Mary. Mary sits down with the men to listen
(not to speak, of course), while Martha is in a whirlwind of hospitality-related
bustling—hanging up their coats, stirring up the fire, getting a meal ready,
maybe giving the downstairs loo a quick wipe, and other suchlike. But Mary just
sticks with the guys.
Finally, Martha drops
a word in the Lord’s shell-like generally encompassing, “Hey—I’m doing all the
work, here, while my sister just sits there like a slug. Why don’t you tell her
to get up and help?”
And Jesus replies (as
per NKJV): “Martha, Martha—you are worried and troubled about many things. But
one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be
taken away from her.”
Well, I have to say
that I’ve always been a little troubled by this.
Yes, fine—it’s swell
that Mary’s apparently felt called to Jesus, and is soaking up what he’s got to
say (even if she’s apparently not allowed to contribute). I get that.
But if both the women
just pitched up in the living room and hung on every word, everyone would be
sat there in a cold room, with rumbling tummies and mice scampering across
their feet. Because you know it would never occur to one man among them to get
up and throw a log on the fire, much less slice up some bread for the hummus.
No—it would take a
miracle on the lines of the wine at Cana (and even then, there were servers
involved) to make that sort of thing happen.
So I’m really
puzzling about this. There’s no one likes a good intellectual discussion more
than I, but to basically dis the person who’s making the necessities of life
work seems not only counterproductive, but potentially life threatening.
If what he in fact
was telling Martha (and us) was, “Hey, we need both the contemplative and the
active principles in our life,” then I get that. But what he (reportedly) says isn’t “horses for courses, honey”,
it’s, “Your sister chose better than you did, so put a sock in it.” And that gets right up my nose.
So what’s going on
here? What am I missing? Because as it stands, I’m not finding it either
enlightening or encouraging.
