Martha vs. Mary: Service vs. Contemplation

This coming Sunday’s Gospel lessons happens to be one of my favorites. Luke 10:38-42 allows us the readers to enter into a gathering at the home of two sisters, Martha and Mary. Martha busies herself playing the typical role of women in her day (and many ages since then). Most notably she was the dutiful host of the party. Martha took care of everyone else’s needs, so that the herd of humanity that followed in the wake of Jesus would get their needs met. Even if Martha herself was unfulfilled, her attitude of service was admirable.

Mary, on the other hand, sat eagerly at the feet of Jesus waiting to gain some new insight or understanding from his teaching. In her proximity to Jesus and her act of engaging the teacher Mary bucked the typical, given tasks of a woman. Instead of cooking, cleaning, refilling cups, and fluffing pillows, Mary did what male disciples so often did, she listened and learned. Not only was Mary’s contemplative action redefining gender roles in that time, but it was also a model for disciples of any age to follow.

However, this story almost inevitably leads the reader to make a choice: Martha or Mary? Service or contemplation? The crisis moment at which point hearers have to make a decision comes in Martha’s request for Jesus to tell her sister to get back to helping host this gathering. Jesus’ response telling Martha that her sister has chosen the better part allows the reader to rejoice in a rebuking of typical gender roles both then and now; however, at a quick glance the passage still lends itself to an either/or view of discipleship (contemplation outweighs service). John Calvin did not like this passage precisely because he believed that it could lead to putting the contemplative life over actively serving others. If we believe that Jesus chides Martha for her service, we have fallen into a pitfall that will hinder how we follow Jesus.

Jesus corrects Martha not for her service, but for her worried and distracted approach to helping others. I believe that if somehow this story were reversed and Mary sat at the feet of Jesus, but was daydreaming about or fretting over a trip to the Sea of Galilee, and all the while Martha lovingly poured her heart and soul into caring for her guests, then it would have been Martha and not Mary who chose the better part. What Jesus gives to us in this passage is not an either/or option of choosing a life sitting at Jesus feet or begrudgingly caring for others, but rather a gift of making our entire life dedicated to one thing.

Whether we are making coffee for a guest, teaching a third grade class, trying an important case, taking care of a patient, praying quietly in our bedroom, meditating in a chapel, or preparing a sermon there is need of only one thing. Life is full of the many things, the distractions that cry out from inboxes and dings on smart phones, from family and friends, from local and national news, but what Jesus gives to us in this interaction with two sisters long ago is not just a bucking of typical gender roles. Jesus frees us from the belief that we have to choose a contemplative life or a life of service. There is only one thing, only one true choice as followers of Christ. When we focus upon Christ whose Divine spark lives within each of us, and when we keep our lives truly fixed upon living in that relationship, then whatever it is we do or don’t do will be “the better part.” Both serving and sitting is the one thing. The mistake is to believe that this passage is about two divergent ways of discipleship when the truth is that Jesus frees us from an either/or way of following him. There is only one thing: following Jesus!