Peace be with you.
Yes, it’s Martha and Mary Sunday. That Sunday when we, the slackers of the world, turn to the worker and say, “According to Jesus, I have chosen the better part!” Much of the time, the message that is driven home in homilies is about the contemplative life being more important than the active, charitable life. You can just feel the smugness of the Trappist monks and priests and Trappistine nuns sitting their chapel at prayer as you drive past New Melleray Abbey and Our Lady of the Mississippi. I’m only kidding of course. Still, hearing Jesus say, “Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken of her” sure seems to imply the superiority of Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet in quiet contemplation over Poor Martha slaving away in the kitchen all day. I mean, she’s been trying to put together a nice meal for Jesus and his followers and, when she asks for help, she gets rebuked for being “worried about many things”. Maybe if the apostles would have been worried about many things, they wouldn’t have found themselves in the middle of nowhere trying to feed 5000 people with five loaves and two fish.
But, if we pull back and little from this simplistic explanation of the supremacy of the contemplative versus the charitable, this simple message gets muddled. Let’s look, for instance, at the first reading from the Book of Genesis. In it, we hear of Abraham seeing three men standing in the heat of the desert. He takes them for travelers. He could have gone back into his tent to keep Sarah, his wife, safe from these strangers and taken some time, to pray with her. But, instead, he kicks into a high gear of hospitality. He asks them to stay, bathes their feet with his precious water, and finds a shady tree for them to rest. Then, he organizes everyone in his party to prepare a feast for these three men who turn out to be angels. Although, it’s only after they leave him that he realizes he’s entertained angels. Before the leave, they inform him that he will be given the gift he’s been continually promised by God; to have an heir, a truly humourous suggestion given the advanced age of both Abraham and Sarah. It seems pregnancy is the reward for Abraham’s charitable hospitality. He’s not admonished for being “worried about many things”. Is God being sexist by rewarding a man for a hard days work but chastising a woman for the same work? No, I really don’t think that’s what’s going on.
I think part of what is happening has to do with worrying Martha turns her concerns for a nice meal into worry. And it appears she’s worried about many things, not just the quality of the meal she’d like to provide. And Mary allows her worries to become a barrier to hospitality. Jesus is suddenly having to arbitrate a disagreement between siblings. One wonders what would have happened if Martha had gone to her sister and asked her for help instead of tattling to Jessus.
But, I think both stories focus our minds and hearts on the importance of relationships over labor. Work is important, but only if it makes us more connected to others and we should seek to be in loving service to those around us while we work. If we use work as an excuse not to spend time with our spouse or kids and allow the concerns of work to spill over to our home life, we will quickly find that we are missing the better part. If we allow work to take precedence over Mas or our personal prayer, we may find that we are constantly anxious and worried about many things instead of finding consolation in the one great commandment to love God and neighbor. That is the better part that we must not allow to be taken away.
