Martha and Mary: Dangers and Cognitive Labours of Ministry
Faith of Our Mothers 44
Here we meet Martha and Mary as they appear in Luke 10:38-42. They are probably the same as the sisters who are central characters in John’s Gospel, but we can’t be sure.
When I meet a Christian woman of a certain age, I find that almost inevitably, at some point, she will identify herself as either a Mary or a Martha. Nine times out of ten it is Martha.
This tendency of women to identify with one or the other of these sisters reflects a long history of church teaching that presented women with two paths – two ways to be involved in the work of Christian ministry:
1. The Mary path of quiet, prayerful contemplation
And
2. The Martha path of practical, behind-the-scenes labour.
The question, “Are you a Mary or a Martha?” assumes there are only two paths, and expects women to choose one of them. This interpretation, which appears to be giving women options, actually limits women’s ministry to quiet prayer or quiet practicality – being in the prayer circle of making the sandwiches.
I only see at least three problems with this approach:
Firstly, we read of many more than two ways that women are involved in ministry among Jesus’ followers and in the early church. You have read about many of them in this series. Limiting women’s ministry to two paths fails to honour the work of women in the past and today.
Both women and men are called to quiet, prayerful contemplation and to practical, behind-the-scenes labour. Both are essential for every Christian, regardless of gender.
Mary and Martha do not exemplify the two paths their names have been given to. Let me explain:
The setting of Luke 10:38-42 is Martha’s home. There is no mention of a husband, a father or any other male. It is Martha’s home. She is the household leader. She is acting as a host in a culture where hospitality is vital to community life.
This can be difficult for us to understand. I have observed a decline in household hospitality in Australian cities. I haven’t been able to find any statistics on this and would love to hear whether your observations match my own. It seems to me that we have been infected by impossibly high lifestyle-show standards for our homes and our cooking and so prefer not to invite people in to see our relatively shabby reality.
This trend takes us away from a central value in first century culture that is reinforced as a central Christian value throughout the New Testament for men as well as women (eg Romans 12:13; Hebrews 13:2). There is value and honour in being a good host who provides hospitality to both friends and strangers, to those who can reciprocate and especially to those who can’t (Luke 6:27-36). This is the important and honourable role in which we meet Martha.
Since Jesus is travelling, it seems likely that he is not just there for lunch but is staying overnight and perhaps for several days. Verse 38 is ambiguous about whether Jesus’ disciples are also staying at Martha’s home. Clearly, Martha is not just cooking a meal. She is managing the smooth performance of all the many tasks necessary to showing honour to an important guest, and perhaps a whole crowd of guests.
In a mixed-gender household, it is likely that there would have been hosting tasks that were deemed more appropriate for the men or for the women, and others that would be delegated to children, but it would certainly be an all-hands-on-deck situation. Support might be drawn in from the neighbours if a guest was particularly important, or if provisions were particularly scarce. All this work would be organised and directed by the household leader – in this case, Martha.
In my Bible translation (NRSV), Jesus seems to dismiss the value of these many responsibilities by calling them “distractions” (Luke 10:41). This has always troubled me because it makes Jesus look like an obnoxious houseguest who complains about the very things his host is doing to make him comfortable. Admittedly, Jesus has form for being critical of his hosts at times (eg Luke 11:37-44) but his criticism tended to be aimed at hosts who did too little to welcome their guests rather than hosts who did too much.
My discomfort leads me to wonder whether “distracted” is a good translation here. I’m about to get a bit more technical than usual, but once I started looking into this, I couldn’t help reaching the conclusion that our tradition of Bible translation has been unnecessarily unkind to Martha. If you find this sort of thing boring, you are free to skip this section:
The two Greek words (μεριμνᾷς and θορυβάζῃ) that are used in v41 are both about being concerned, anxious or troubled. “Distracted” is at best a secondary possible meaning. This is reflected in a few other translations:
“you are anxious and worried about many things” (NASB, Revised)
“you are worried and troubled about many things” (New English Translation)
“you are worried and upset about many things” (NIV)
All these translations, however, still use the word, “distracted” in v40. There it is translated from περισπάω, a word found nowhere else in the New Testament and rarely translated as “distracted” in other first century Greek literature. A better translation would be “encompassed” or perhaps, “overwhelmed”. And while we are down here in the weeds, let’s also notice that the phrase translated “many tasks” in v40 is πολλὴν διακονίαν, which means “much serving” or “much ministry”.
I have a lot of respect for the NRSV translators, and normally recommend it as an accurate translation, but translators can sometimes be distracted by the history of interpretation, and reluctant to change the way we have always read favourite passages. In this case, I believe their choices need to be challenged. Use of “distracted” leads us to conclude that Luke and Jesus thought the things Martha was taking trouble over were trivial. This is unlikely, since both Luke and Jesus place great value on hospitality, and since there is no hint of trivialising in the Greek.
We might consider translating v40,41 more like:
40 But Martha was overwhelmed by many ministry responsibilities1, so she came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the ministry by myself? Tell her to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are going to so much trouble and you have so many responsibilities to worry about!”
Rather than criticising her, Jesus is expressing sympathy for the mental load she is carrying as the leader of her household ministering to the needs of her guests. (If “mental load” is a new concept for you, here is a link to a good definition.) While terms such as mental load, cognitive labour and emotional labour have come into our vocabulary recently, they describe burdens that are common in all human societies in all centuries.
These terms have a gendered flavour in our culture. In most Australian households, even when couples try to share domestic tasks equally, women are still usually left with most of the mental load. For example, in a heterosexual relationship, a husband might do the shopping, but his wife probably wrote the shopping list. This was not necessarily the case in the ancient world. A woman was usually very young when she married, and her husband could easily be twice her age (say, 14 and 28). The older husband would take the lead in household matters, at least until his wife gained some maturity and experience.
In the household we are considering now there is no husband, and Martha is the one carrying the mental load of household leadership. Jesus acknowledges this. As the eldest son of Mary, who was probably now a widow, Jesus may have known from personal experience the heavy load carried by the household leader. It seems likely that the burden of family responsibility prevented him from commencing his public ministry until he was into his thirties.
Jesus would have understood the mental load associated with hosting because hospitality was essential to the culture he lived in, and he had often encouraged his followers to show hospitality, especially to those who can least afford to reciprocate. Just one chapter earlier, Jesus had said, “Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me”, that is, God (Luke 9:48). If Martha believed that providing hospitality to Jesus could be equated with welcoming God into her home, then we can understand why she wanted to do it as well as possible.
Given the importance of this act of hospitality, it was reasonable for her to expect the whole household to work with her to minister to the needs of their important guest . And that’s where things get a bit tricky for her. Instead of working through the to-do list Martha had given her, Mary has been sitting at Jesus’ feet, submitting to and learning from him. And Jesus says that Mary has made the right choice.
Jesus here affirms that a young woman ought to be allowed to choose her own path in response to Jesus’ call to discipleship. We can see how controversial this affirmation was in the early church when we read the second century novella The Acts of Paul and Thecla where Thecla’s choice to stay single and preach the Gospel leads to her martyrdom.
Yes, ministry can be dangerous.
And yes, Jesus calls young women into ministry, not just young men.
We mustn’t be distracted from this central point, but we can still sympathise with Martha. We have all been in Martha’s position, have we not? We conscientiously work through the many things that must be done to serve the people in our care. We do that willingly, yet it sometimes niggles us that our ministry enables people we serve to do the one thing we really want to do. All leaders are occasionally tempted to envy the beneficiaries of our leadership – the people who are set free by the mental and physical load we carry for them.
If I were in Martha’s position, I would struggle with jealous thoughts about all the disciples who were able to sit and listen to Jesus’ teaching because I was working hard to provide for all their needs. Martha couldn’t criticise all the disciples, though. They were her guests. Only Mary was a member of her household, under her authority. Mary should be following her instructions. But instead, Mary was doing the one thing Martha wanted to do and could not – sitting and listening to their wise guest.
“Sitting at the feet of” a rabbi is an idiom for being the rabbi’s disciple. Being a disciple meant watching, listening, absorbing and imitating the rabbi as much as possible so that, in time, the disciple would be able to teach disciples of their own. By sitting at Jesus’ feet, Mary is offering herself as a disciple, and by insisting on her right to be there, Jesus is accepting her as a disciple and becoming her rabbi. Mary is embarking on a path of discipleship that should lead to her becoming a teacher or rabbi.
This might be hard for Martha. For a start, this was an unconventional choice for a girl. Also Mary was a member of Martha’s household, under her authority, but if Mary becomes Jesus’ disciple, her primary loyalty will be to Jesus, not to Martha. That would be hard for the leader of any household, but especially hard for an older sister who has always, perhaps, felt responsible for her little sister’s safety in a world that has never been safe for women. With all his talk of laying down one’s life, would Martha’s little sister be safe with Jesus? Or might he call Mary to follow him into dangers where Martha could not protect her?
All Christian leaders in churches and families face this dilemma. I remember my Mum’s anxiety about where my hyper Christian teenage zeal might take me, and as I look back over my life in ministry, I must concede that she good reason to be worried. If my daughter were to move toward vocational ministry, one part of me would be overjoyed but another part would want to tell her to run as fast as she can from the dangers and challenges she would face there.
Church leaders love our people and live to nurture and protect them. But they are not our people. They belong to Jesus, not us, and Jesus might call them to places we would prefer they didn’t go. I may beg Jesus, “Tell her to stay here and help me, where I can keep an eye on her; where I can keep her safe!” But Jesus will answer me as he answered Martha. He will sympathise with me over the heavy burden of ministry that I am carrying, including my burden of anxiety for keeping the people in my care safe. He will understand my need for co-workers. And he will remind me that, just as I chose to be his disciple, and my discipleship led me to the arduous life of Christian leadership, so each person in my congregation has chosen to be his disciple. The unique path of each one’s discipleship is between them and their Lord. Jesus will not let me divert them from that path.
So, my friends, next time someone asks if you are a Mary or a Martha, consider one of these responses:
“I’m more of a Martha, since I conscientiously juggle all my ministry responsibilities, and can get overwhelmed when I sense I’m doing that alone. Jesus sees all this, and understands the pressure I’m under, and keeps reminding me that I am of infinitely greater value than the sum of all the ministry that takes place under my leadership.”
OR
“I’m more of a Mary, since I’ve chosen to walk the unconventional path Jesus has called me to. Though I don’t like disappointing people who want a different life for me, Jesus keeps affirming and defending my choices.
OR
“I’m a bit of both, since I’m called to an unconventional leadership role.”
OR
You might try asking a man in your church whether he is a Mary or a Martha, since Jesus also calls men to leadership and to unconventional ministries.
So, let’s pray:
Servant Lord, You see the burdens we carry And the dangers we face As we minister to your people and to you. You know the heaviness of leadership And the pain of being alone And the fear of letting precious people down. Hear the voices of our enemies, And our brothers and our sisters, When they question your call on our lives; And let them hear your affirmation: “She has my invitation, And I insist that she has chosen well. Let no enemy or sister, or lover or leader Dare to divert her from my call!” Amen
Rev Dr Margaret Wesley serves as parish priest at St Paul’s, Ashgrove, and Area Dean in Brisbane North West. Having begun her ministry in a diocese that does not ordain women, she served the church as a Bible teacher, Spiritual director, retreat facilitator, poet and liturgist since long before she was ordained. In serving the Anglican church across three dioceses, she has struggled to be a person of peace in a fractured and fractious church. Like most of us, her heart is broken in many directions over the violence in the world, in society, in Australia’s homes and in Australia’s history, so she is always looking for ways to promote peace and wholeness.
Margaret is the editor and instigator of Faith of our Mothers, and has another Substack blog for her sermons, prayers and poetry.
I suggest “ministry” rather than “serving” here because in English “serving”, in relation to hospitality, often simply means putting food on a plate and handing it to someone. The word here means much more than that. It is about providing for the needs of others. Using “ministry” keeps the sense that she is doing something of great value to Christians.
Thank you Margaret for unpacking "distracted" and allowing a more appreciated and valued Martha to rest within me. I have always aspired to be a Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus absorbing every thing that came my way. But the Martha embedded within me is now so much more confident and at ease as I live out my called ministry trusting that what I do is based upon and sustained by the amazing, nurturing love of God.
Thanks Margaret.