Martha and Mary

27th Week in Ordinary Time - Tuesday (9 October 2018)

Galatians 1:13-24

Luke 10:38-42

“Mary sat down at the Lord’s feet, listening to him.”

At the end of his commentary on the Martha and Mary story Joseph A. Fitzmyer, the great commentator on Luke’s gospel, notes that the Mary/Martha episode is addressed to the Christian who is expected to be “a contemplative in action.” There is no comparison between Martha and Mary here. We should not play out Martha against Mary, or Mary against Martha, neither when judging the lives of others nor our own life. The ideal is to combine the two attitudes Mary and Martha symbolize. “Ora et Labora” is the old saying you often see in monasteries and convents: “Pray and Work.”

We need both Martha and Mary; both action and contemplation. The most important word in this is neither action nor even contemplation, but “and.” There is no apostleship (sending out) without discipleship (being with Jesus).

Yet, Jesus speaks about a “better” part (better translated as “good” part), stressing the listening or contemplative side. Let’s not forget, however, that afterward he only could sit at table to eat because Martha had continued fussing in the kitchen. He never asked her to come and sit down with Mary and himself. But only one thing was missing in Martha. She was most likely not present to herself, she was not present to her own feelings of resentment, perhaps her own martyr complex, her complaining attitude. If she was not present to herself, Martha could not be present to her guests in any healing way, and spiritually speaking, she could not even be present to God. Presence is of one piece. How you are present to anything is how you are present to everything. How you are present to anything is how you are present to God, loved ones, strangers, those who are suffering. To repeat, unless you are present to yourself, you can’t be present to others, or to God.

Aren’t we many times like Martha “distracted” with all our serving? We are serving the Lord, but we are distracted. Martha is doing the reasonable, hospitable thing—rushing around, fixing, preparing, and as the text brilliantly says, “distracted with all the serving.”

Jesus, in the same passage of Martha and Mary, doesn’t lose the occasion to affirm Mary, “who sat at his feet listening to him speak.” Mary knows how to be present to him and, presumably, to herself. She understands the one thing that makes all other things happen at a deeper and healing level. Prayer is not one of the ten thousand things, but it is the one thing necessary to see all those ten thousand things. It is the presence that is needed to live those ten thousand things in a healing way.

There should be a balance between word and deed, between talk and action, between prayer and work. Both are important. The two belong together; they are interwoven. Yet, let us not lose sight of the priority of contemplation. Our actions should rather be an overflow of our contemplation, our communion with God and the world. The quality of our lives should define the quantitative activities of our lives. Otherwise it may be mere restlessness or impatience, and a presence that may not be healing.