Proper 11, Year C | Luke 10:38-42
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
July 17, 2022
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
To watch the full service, please visit this page.
Sometimes sermons are hard. There are a few different reasons for that. Sometimes there’s something in the text that’s simply difficult to explain. Sometimes it’s more like there’s a message that sits at odds with society or touches on a modern polarized issue. But sometimes, even when dealing with some significant concepts or amazing imagery, it just feels like the words just don’t want to speak, and you have to wrestle them both off and back onto the page. This is one of those weeks for me.
It isn’t that our passages don’t have anything to say. Each has some unusual details or longstanding traditions attached to them that could provide a variety of jumping off points, such as what many Christians view as a prefiguring of the Trinity in our Genesis reading, Colossians’ universe-reconciling vision of the Cosmic Christ, or even the familiar but often-abused story of Mary and Martha. Each has its own messages. Each has a few levels of meaning we could play with.
If nothing else, it rarely hurts to offer a congregation some context. Looking at our Gospel reading, one of the first details to point out is that this tale of the two sisters falls immediately between last week’s parable of the Good Samaritan and next week’s presentation of the Lord’s Prayer. Commentators make a lot of connections between this account and the parable, but I have yet to see someone address any sort of commonality between either story and the prayer.
Secondly, there are some cultural things going on that, while not necessarily unexpected, should probably still be pointed out. The primary one would be an awareness of normative gender roles in Jesus’ day. Any reader from the time would have observed Martha fulfilling her expected duties and respecting her position as a woman in the First Century Middle East. Much like older American culture, with its influences drawn from various interpretations and understandings of the Bible, the women of a household would have been expected to see to the comfort of guests and the management of their visit and experiences. Men, on the other hand, were much more likely to sit together in conversation while everything was being prepared for them behind the scenes. So Mary’s behavior would have stood out, not necessarily because she was subverting gender roles—that would be reading modern expressions of the self back onto the scene—but people would have certainly noticed her underfunctioning in regard to social expectations.
Luke has also planted a few oddities within the text itself. One is his word for Martha’s “many tasks.” The verb form of this term, normally translated along the lines of “to serve” or “to minister,” is found throughout the New Testament. However, the noun form that appears here is uncommon outside of Luke and Paul’s writings. If we were to use a consistent translation wherever it appears, we would probably notice a familiar title within our word: “deaconing.” This is the same kind of activity the Early Church thought was so important—meeting the physical needs of orphans, widows, and the poor—that they set aside specific individuals to ensure it was managed and accomplished well. So despite what we might read as Martha simply futzing around with menial tasks, Luke is actually emphasizing the dignity and significance of her labor within that community.
Another unusual thing here is Luke’s description of Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet. While it sounds more or less passive to our ears, there’s a subtle intensity to his word choice, suggesting something more like she had been begging or imploring to be allowed to take that position. She knew that her participation in conversation with a renowned teacher was an uncommon privilege. She hadn’t simply felt a little lazy and snuck away from helping Martha out behind the scenes only to hide among the other guests; she had struggled to take on the mantle of a full disciple.
The Church has a long history of pitting these two sisters against one another, accusing Martha of demonstrating the “inferior” way of works while Mary embodied the more enlightened path of “faith.” We mistakenly deride the first while lifting up a false image of the second, and, in the process, end up placing impossible demands on Christian women in general. While still expecting women to manage and fulfill all the duties of traditional gender roles, they’re also required to give their full, demure, and unquestioning attention to God—or (more directly) the male authorities within their community, if we’re being completely honest. To speak up and ask for help is to reveal oneself as a complaining “Martha,” while to genuinely interact with what one is being told is to fail to live up to the ideals of a “Mary.”
That interpretation, both misguided and abusive, is not what we should be taking from this passage. Both women are struggling—one under the weight of impossible expectations and the other in trying to maintain herself in a position typically reserved for a more privileged class of people. Neither has chosen an easy route, and neither is to blame for their present circumstances. Both are doing their best.
This is where I think the Good Samaritan preceding this story might offer a little bit of insight. That parable encourages us to fully embody God’s command to love our neighbors as ourselves while Jesus, at the same time, expands our idea of who exactly our neighbor is. But here Luke is pointing out another important aspect of our relationship with our neighbor: that is isn’t our job to judge or control one another.
Luke’s friend Paul tells us that a worker stands or falls before their boss, not on what that boss told someone else to do but on what the boss told them to do.[1] Here we have a physical example. Martha is working hard in genuine service—the same level of service expected of other leaders throughout the Early Church community. And you’ll notice that Jesus’ response to her demand doesn’t rebuke her for either her work or for her struggling to complete it all. What he does is essentially tell her not to worry about what Mary is or isn’t doing.
Martha’s work is good and important, and Mary’s work, although different, is good and important as well. Both sisters, although placed under similar expectations by society, are both seeking and serving God to the best of their ability. Each is doing something worthwhile, even if the other can’t recognize it in the moment. Martha, being overwhelmed, may indeed have a right to ask for Mary’s help, but she doesn’t have the authority to demand it of her, especially by publicly triangulating with a guest to shame her sister into compliance with her agenda. “Mary selected this useful lot, which shouldn’t be stolen from her.”[2] Each of us may be responsible for seeing to the needs of our neighbor, but none of us get to dictate the way our fellow disciples fulfil their duty of service to God or one another.
[1] Romans 14:4 | NRSV
[2] Luke 10:42b | my translation