Today we celebrate three of Jesus’s closest friends: Lazarus, who is described as “the one you love” (John 11:3); Mary, who performs the intimate act of anointing Jesus with oil (John 12:1-8); and Martha, their sister, who often gets the short end of the stick.
Luke 10:38-42 is frequently interpreted to say that Martha was the lesser of the two sisters, since Jesus says, “Mary has chosen the better part” when she chooses to sit at Jesus’s feet rather than help serve the meal. Among very service-minded people, I often hear the objection, “But someone had to do the serving!” And from a feminist standpoint, it feels like just another example of how women are told to sit still and be quiet.
In both gospel options for today, Martha readily participates in what is happening. She is the one who actively welcomes Jesus and speaks her mind – confronting Jesus when she feels offended about her sister’s inaction in helping her serve, or Jesus’s own inaction in failing to show up when her brother was dying. So why isn’t that action celebrated?
I was prepared to feel offended on Martha’s part when I sat down to re-read Luke 10:38-42, but I was surprised to feel consoled instead. The passage states that Martha was “burdened with much serving”, and this is a state of being that I am intimately familiar with in this season of my life, as a stay-at-home mother to two young children.
My summer has been complete with occupational therapy appointments for my 9 month old who needs help learning how to eat solid food (which I still need to prepare and clean up several times a day, despite it mostly not going into his mouth), potty training for my older son (who turns 3 today!), and just trying to make sure they get enough sleep. On top of the usual laundry, diaper changes, and dishes that never end.
These are all necessary tasks, which I know I am called to do at this time and place. But I often take on additional, less necessary tasks as well – like making sure all toys are off the floor and all crumbs are wiped off of the table before I can sit down to rest at night.
For too long, the mental and physical burden of serving in the home has fallen on women, causing us to be “anxious and worried about many things”. I have thought often of Eve Rodsky’s book Fair Play, in which she created a deck of cards to more equitably divide up the tasks and mental load of the home between partners. A key step in her process is having a conversation about which of the tasks are truly necessary, and throwing out the cards that are not a high priority.
As I have adjusted to being a mother of two, I have seen how taking on unnecessary tasks can deplete my energy and make me worse at the more important things. If I only ever focused on my to-do list, I would be constantly anxious and resentful, much like Martha sounds when she says, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me." I have felt God nudging me to let go of things that are unnecessarily stressing me so I can be present to my children and also be healthy myself.
While we don’t have all of the information, I imagine Jesus was inviting Martha to do something similar. When Jesus says, “Martha, Martha,” I imagine it was with a loving tone that was trying to get her attention through her frenzied state and invite her to rest.
I don’t think Jesus was trying to silence Martha, or that he wanted her to leave her entire personality behind. Rather, I think he valued her boldness, and he wanted to make sure she was free to be her best self, unencumbered by unnecessarily stressful tasks. I think he is inviting her whole self – bold personality and all – to join Mary in her posture of discipleship, which was a position usually privileged for men, who were not “burdened with much serving” in the same way.
And aren’t these the best types of friends? The ones who know who you are at your best, and support and challenge you to be that version of yourself – even if it means calling you out on behavior that isn’t serving you?
That is how we know our friends truly love us.
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