Scripture Sisters: Martha and Mary

Luke 10:38-42

January 24, 2010

We’ve been visiting some Bible stories about women this month to spice up the post-Christmas season. In case you’ve missed any of it and want to see what we’ve said about Lot’s Wife, Ruth, and Esther, they are all here on my blog.

Today our subject moves from the figurative “sisterhood” we’ve had as our subject matter, and goes to a pair of literal sisters. At least they are called that. Judging from the story in Luke, and also in John, to call them sisters may be stretching the point. I like what Maya Angelou says:

‘I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.’

So whether Martha and Mary are sisters according to this definition, I’ll leave for someone else to decide. The fact is they did apparently share parentage, and lived in the same house. We don’t really know if they worked at sisterhood or not.

So on to our story…

Modern readers often regard Martha as a "homemaker" type of woman, concerned with household details. Some also view her as hospitable, a highly esteemed practice in Jesus' day. Mary often is seen as a more scholarly or spiritual woman, with a feminist personality. She sat at Jesus' feet, a scene that has portrayed by painters such as Tintoretto, and as was the custom of the day that means that she was his student or disciple.

Let’s start with Martha. I think you know this woman.

Johannes Vermeer has painted Martha as the perfect hostess, serving Jesus.

She’s the first century equivalent of another “Martha” of whom you have heard.

When Martha and Mary were growing up, Martha was her parents’ shining star.

They loved how she helped out around the house, and she was praised often for it. She took to cooking like a fish to water.

She didn’t mind the housework, because, frankly, the attention she got was far more than Mary ever got.

Not only that, but in this first century Palestinian culture, the primary goal for young girls – like it or not – was to snag a man who would take her as his wife, promising her a future of security. All she had to do was be a good wife and she wouldn’t have to worry about having a roof over her head.

So when Jesus arrived, she had swept the house, baked bread for the table, lit a fire under the kettle, and had something cooking that filled the house with a pleasing aroma.

Notice how Luke tells us she greets Jesus at the door of her home (note – “her” home). In a culture that put a premium on hospitality, Martha was simply the “hostess with the most-ess”. She was surely on her way to a secure life in this world and the next.

Mary is a different story. Probably younger than Martha, while Mary was growing up her head was filled with ideas; she listened to the conversations of the men no doubt, often to the dismay of her older sister who wondered why she wouldn’t help out, and worse, wondered if she was going to get them both in trouble for her behavior.

At the same time I’m guessing that Martha may have envied her younger sibling, wondering how come she – Martha – never got to just relax at the feet of Jesus. Put that alongside the normal sibling rivalry that exists in every household with more than one child, and you get an older sister who was following the script, causing no trouble for anyone, and a younger sister who was at the beach with her friends, carefree and may have been labeled just a tad lazy. In terms of eternal life, her culture would have put their money on her sister Martha, not Mary. There were young men with egos strong enough to go one-on-one with a female scholar. Jesus certainly was that – but why would any young woman want to risk competition, if there was no real need to compete as a scholar in that culture?

Before we go off the deep end with this stereotyping, it’s worth mentioning that in The Women’s Bible Commentary Jane Schaberg tells us that Mary’s academic tendencies were not really all that radical, and Jesus’ behavior toward her wasn’t all that risky –because in fact there is research that indicates women could be students and disciples in that day learning the Torah alongside their brothers and fathers at least while they were young. And remember, in this story, it’s safe to picture Martha and Mary as either adolescents, or young adults in their twenties. Martha is old enough in Luke’s telling of the story that she is the head of the house, and we don’t know anything of their parents.

¹Jane Schaberg, "Luke" The Women's Bible Commentary, ed. Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe, (Louisville: John Knox/Westminster Press, 1992), p. 289.

That said, it is still obvious that these sisters were near opposites and opens the door to speculating about Mary; in any event she was apparently more at home with the Torah than the teapot. Can you say “feminist”?

The bottom line of Luke is this: Jesus gently rebukes Martha for being "worried and distracted" by her many tasks and her resentment of Mary's behavior. Jesus tells her that she has lost her focus; she needs only one thing. And what is that one thing?

Let’s hold off on the answer for a few moments.

There is something else to consider as well, and that is that this story from Luke is only one version of the lives of Martha and Mary.

While Luke has the more popular version, there is a story in the gospel of John about these two sisters, and to muddy the water a little, let’s look at John’s story for just a moment.

The first difference you notice is that John starts his story as if it is about Lazarus – “a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany” and then adds “the village of Mary, and her sister Martha.” John has already signaled his bias about the sisters, putting the finishing touches on his thought by giving Mary a tagline: “Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair.”

Don’t you just love the way the gospels have these subtle nuances?

John then tells us the sisters send for Jesus, but he doesn’t come right away, and Lazarus dies. By the time Jesus arrives in Bethany, Lazarus has been dead four days.

Martha comes running to meet Jesus, but notice that she is an assertive, well-spoken woman with deep faith. After complaining about his tardiness, Martha affirms her belief that even now God will do anything Jesus asks. Jesus says to Martha, “Do you believe I am the resurrection and the life?” Martha says “Yes, I do.” Meanwhile, as they are talking, Mary stays at home.

Now it gets interesting. Martha then runs back to the house and fetches Mary, telling her privately that Jesus is asking for her.

Where did that come from? I read John chapter 11 back and forth, and Jesus didn’t say that in the story, but John puts the words in Martha’s mouth. Was this John’s way of adding something that favors the relationship between Jesus and Mary? Or was it Martha’s way of including Mary? Did Martha want Mary to become the student and disciple here? In other words, was Martha saying to Mary, “I can’t figure him out; maybe you can. So go, greet him and see what he plans to do.”

So now what?

As we’ve been asking all along with regard to the women in our series, ‘what do we learn from their stories about God, and about God’s relationship to us?’

Lets first say this: there is nothing in either version of the gospels to suggest that Mary had the better path to faith. When it came to their faithfulness, Martha’s personality appears to be more suited to “doing”, and Mary’s personality more toward “being.” So be it. In faith, those are two sides of the same coin. So, (and if you Mary’s have been wondering what to do with the insert inside the bulletin, here’s where you can write in: In faith, Martha and Mary were equals.

Some of you have been resonating with Martha’s personality. She is your patron saint. You are first in line when an appeal is made. When help is needed, you sign up – it doesn’t matter what the occasion is. You don’t care so much for meetings; in fact your secret thought is that they are a waste of time. You may pray formally and read the Bible on occasion because, well, those practices are pretty important pieces of anybody’s faith journey. But study and prayer are not your favorite forms of spiritual growth. You are more likely to pursue acts of compassion and mercy that require hands-on ministry. Your gifts are employed in service, projects often requiring physical effort. You are completely happy at letting others plan worship, write policies, discuss how the budget lines up with priorities, and so forth. You are essential in the life of the congregation that believes in good works as an expression of faith. What’s more, and here is where you Mary’s can fill in the blank on your bulletin insert, Number 2: you share a gift for faith in service

Some of you have been resonating with Mary. You love the cognitive form of learning. When you see the words “Bible study” or prayer group, you start salivating. You love to bisect the bible, or hear it done; the characters of the Old and New Testaments are more like companions to you than historical figures. You want to know their personalities as much as their deeds. When it comes to prayer, you are dead serious in practice, moving through your daily routines with a constant awareness of being connected to God. You sometimes count your breaths per minute as prayers, and you secretly wonder how some people get through the day without pausing, reflecting, perhaps closing their eyes and breathing deeply. When it’s your turn to serve in the church or outside, you faithfully fulfill your obligation as a devoted disciple, all the while quietly retreating to whatever place in your mind that you call your sanctuary. Your gifts are employed in leading prayer, teaching others about faith, attendance in worship and holding up others in prayer. Meetings to you are an opportunity for spiritual growth as you connect with God and others through discernment, conferencing and dialogue. I know you’ve been waiting with baited breath for this, so in the blanks for sentence number 3 on your insert please write that Mary is the model of faith “through knowing.”

As some of you are already thinking, the truth of the matter is that none of us are totally like Martha, or totally like Mary. We are probably one of them some of the time, but never one of them all of the time.

But each of us who wants to grow our spirituality is probably prone to one or the other personalities. Unless we are a tiny fraction of the population, we are not balanced perfectly in the middle; we favor one or the other.

And yet, Jesus told Martha that her sister Mary had chosen the better part. So, back to that question – what did he mean?

The answer is more clear in Luke than in John, and it’s because of the setting that Luke has painted in the verses that come before this story.

Perhaps you recognize the story of the Good Samaritan, which precedes this one in Luke’s Gospel. It begins with a question from a lawyer who wanted to know, in legalistic terms, the way to inherit eternal life. When Jesus replied to just keep the commandments – you know what they are – love God and love your neighbor – then you’ve done what is necessary.

The lawyer had Martha’s genes, and wanted to be certain he had done everything, so he pushed – “but, in legal terms,” he asks, “how do you define “neighbor?”

Jesus answers the way he often did, with a story, the point of which was that somebody who nobody thought deserved a place in heaven was an example of a neighbor. The disciple in the story was not the lawyer, but the Samaritan.

Mary’s ‘better part’ was that she had no limits on discipleship.

Martha needs to focus on loving God and her neighbor as herself – in other words – to be a disciple of Jesus. To do this one thing is to choose the better part, to be at peace with her unique version of discipleship. Peace in Christ isn’t found in one or the other, but in loving God and neighbor with whatever tools we have been given.

Like the Good Samaritan, Mary saw no barriers to discipleship.

Martha and Mary are both models of faith; they illustrate how people can live as servants of God; but Mary shows how to live without being confined by culture or gender, to embrace the promise and the possibility of life that is available through Jesus Christ.

Peace of heart and mind and soul; that’s the better part.