Martha, Martha
St. Martha ... one legend has her becoming a dragon charmer in France after Jesus' death (the painting above ;-) but she's probably best known through the reading in Luke10:38-42 ...
Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.” The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”
Ouch! This reading is sometimes used as an example of the contemplative live being thought of as superior to the active life, but another interesting thing about Luke's story is that Mary, and Martha too, are shown as non-traditional. Below is a part of a 1998 homly on the reading, by Rob Marsh SJ ...
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... Luke tells us about Martha and Mary. Martha who knows the demands of hospitality, knows how to serve, welcomes Jesus into her own house and Mary who neglects her sister and shirks her responsibilities and puts her religious duty before compassion. And Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken away from her. What do you think?
And just to make it harder to choose let me add another layer. Both Martha and Mary are doing brave things. Neither of them behaves the way normal women of their time should. What’s Martha doing having a house of her own anyway? In her society she has to belong to someone, a husband, a relative, a son even. She has no right to have her own household and be bold enough to invite in a single man like Jesus who ought to know better than consort with the likes of her. Luke pushes it further—the word he uses for what she was doing in the kitchen—serving—is the word Luke’s community used for church ministry. Martha is serving as a deacon and, through it, making Jesus welcome at the table.
Mary, too, is bold beyond belief. Contrary to all rules of propriety she, uninvited, takes the disciple’s place at the feet of Jesus. We are not talking about a starry-eyed, hanging-on-every-word kind of listening as though this was a romantic comedy but a practical, presumptuous, assumption of responsibility. Instead of being some man’s property Mary sits down where she shouldn’t and says without words, "speak your word to me and I’ll speak it to others." Martha is bold but Mary is bolder, neither of them fits their time, both of them of them push beyond their allotted place in the scheme of things .....
- Read the whole homily here
Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.” The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”
Ouch! This reading is sometimes used as an example of the contemplative live being thought of as superior to the active life, but another interesting thing about Luke's story is that Mary, and Martha too, are shown as non-traditional. Below is a part of a 1998 homly on the reading, by Rob Marsh SJ ...
*************
... Luke tells us about Martha and Mary. Martha who knows the demands of hospitality, knows how to serve, welcomes Jesus into her own house and Mary who neglects her sister and shirks her responsibilities and puts her religious duty before compassion. And Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken away from her. What do you think?
And just to make it harder to choose let me add another layer. Both Martha and Mary are doing brave things. Neither of them behaves the way normal women of their time should. What’s Martha doing having a house of her own anyway? In her society she has to belong to someone, a husband, a relative, a son even. She has no right to have her own household and be bold enough to invite in a single man like Jesus who ought to know better than consort with the likes of her. Luke pushes it further—the word he uses for what she was doing in the kitchen—serving—is the word Luke’s community used for church ministry. Martha is serving as a deacon and, through it, making Jesus welcome at the table.
Mary, too, is bold beyond belief. Contrary to all rules of propriety she, uninvited, takes the disciple’s place at the feet of Jesus. We are not talking about a starry-eyed, hanging-on-every-word kind of listening as though this was a romantic comedy but a practical, presumptuous, assumption of responsibility. Instead of being some man’s property Mary sits down where she shouldn’t and says without words, "speak your word to me and I’ll speak it to others." Martha is bold but Mary is bolder, neither of them fits their time, both of them of them push beyond their allotted place in the scheme of things .....
- Read the whole homily here
posted by crystal | 12:21 PM
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