Martha and Mary Eat with Jesus

Proper 11/Sixth after Pentecost, Year C 2025; Luke 10:38-42

The famous story of Jesus’ visit to Martha and Mary is only found in Luke’s Gospel. That the passage seems often to have been a mirror to the concerns of its readers may be an inevitable part of interpretation, but it does not tend to do full justice to the story itself, or to the women in particular. Martha and Mary are not mere tropes or proxies for any other agenda, ancient or modern, but images of faithful discipleship.

The opening phrase (“on their way”) reminds us that this is not a random anecdote, but a stage on the fateful journey of Jesus. The hospitality Jesus seeks and receives belong to this intentional pilgrimage, and the Martha household—who are introduced here for the first time—demonstrates its support of the cause by taking the itinerants in. This is an instance of what was referred to in the mission of the seventy-two, where locals receive the messengers of God’s reign two by two and offer them hospitality; this however is on a larger scale. This gift of hospitality is a powerful example from which we should be distracted (cf. v. 41) by the subsequent events.

Martha is the householder, which was not unheard of in this time and place but still noteworthy for a woman. The Gospel of John is also aware of this family, but includes Lazarus among them. Martha’s status would be harder to make sense of if a male sibling had also been resident, yet however we harmonize the stories, this is the first of a number of ways gender plays a part in the episode.

In Martha we are not simply dealing with someone working hard (although she is), let alone with someone who has succumbed readily to gendered busy-ness. She is a person with authority regardless of the size of the establishment, and her receiving the whole group signals generosity, and probably also implies significant resources. Many depictions of the story assume a household of some size and not just two generous but overwhelmed sisters. So it is her own implied role as a women of substance (not Mary’s choices) that might first push against the reader’s assumptions concerning gender roles. Mental pictures that tie her to sink or stove may be quite misplaced.

Mary’s role has been given more emphasis than Martha’s both in traditional interpretation, and in more recent readings with feminist leanings. In the former case Mary represents the contemplative life, or that dimension of all life, and her choice is the prioritization of prayer, study, and reflection; Martha of course then represents action and practical service. In some more recent assessments though, Mary takes the bold or even transgressive step of acting as a disciple rather than as a drudge. Her sitting at Jesus’ feet—already a traditional formulation meaning “studying with,” made even more a by-word because of this story—means she claims her own and all women’s capacity to be at the forefront of Jesus’ work of seeking God’s reign.

These ideas have strengths, but limits too. The first starts with an abstract or universal individual, and the idea that all people have such choices or tendencies, and that this represents a challenge to priorities. The second approach starts with the social reality of gendered roles, and draws a lesson from Mary’s choice to criticize traditional assumptions for gendered roles in community. These approaches are not mutually exclusive, but both involve some risk of subordinating the individuals and the story to issues of concern to later readers.

Jesus with Mary and Martha; St nikita Church, Skopje, Macedonia

The center of the story is the exchange between Martha and Jesus, beginning with the householder’s complaint. Martha, we should note, is the only one here doing any criticizing. And it is Jesus himself, not Mary, who is on the receiving end: “do you not care” makes him responsible for the situation, not Mary herself, although some might suggest Mary could have been directly accountable.

Interpretive anxiety still seems, however, to travel quickly to Jesus’ response and its valorization of the two women’s actions. Jesus’ response is often taken, both traditionally and more recently, as a negation of Martha personally or symbolically, but this is a misreading. Jesus’ words to Martha are not dismissive, but quite tender; Martha’s considerably harsher complaint about Mary is the evidence of anxiety or trouble (v. 41 again), not her hospitality itself. Yet the tradition has tended to assume his response is not to Martha’s complaint but to her generous provision and hard work, which makes little sense (although see further below).

Worse still, the assumption tends to roll on to fantasizing that Martha is being reprimanded rather than reassured. For instance when the editors of the original King James added “helpful” summaries at the head of each chapter, they claimed at the beginning of Luke 10 that in this scene Jesus “reprehendeth Martha but commendeth Mary.” This distorts Jesus’ response to Martha considerably. He never disparages her effort, but only how her choices had prevented her celebrating Mary’s own choice.

The words of Jesus’ response to Martha and his affirmation of Mary’s choice involve a deliberate and artful ambiguity; the statements could quite readily be understood as referring to the meal itself rather than to states of mind. When he says “‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing” (vv. 41-2) this literally means (or could) “by many [dishes]; there is need of only one [dish].” Martha’s revolutionary hospitality to the messianic movement did not really require finesse; there was virtue in generous simplicity.

And when Jesus says “Mary has chosen the good part”—it doesn’t actually say “better part,” as we find in NRSV and other translations, although the implication may be there— this “part” (meris) means literally the good “portion” of what was on offer at a meal. Since however what Mary was enjoying wasn’t just dinner, but Jesus’ presence and teaching, the ambiguity works with the whole narrative to offer the reader a choice a bit like those depicted in the story. Will we be anxious about the family dynamic or receive our own invitation to join this movement and this journey?

Although Augustine is one of those early interpreters whose treatment of Mary and Martha as the ideal types I have complained about, his presentation of how the meal and the offer of following Jesus stand for each other is worth enjoying:

Martha was absorbed in the matter of how to feed the Lord; Mary was absorbed in the matter of how to be fed by the Lord. Martha was preparing a banquet for the Lord, Mary was already reveling in the banquet of the Lord (Sermon 104.1).

The two sisters’ courageous welcome of the controversial prophet and his movement, their fulfillment of the invitation to receive the good news, and this joyful anticipation of the feast of God’s reign in their house is the one thing—the best portion— to take away from reading.