Salvation has Come to this House

Martha and Mary is not a compare/contrast; it's an exchange of gifts.

The lectionary Gospel passage for Sunday is Luke 10:38-42.

It’s odd that so many should turn the Parable of the Good Samaritan into a call to duty when Luke immediately follows it with praise of the sister of Martha. Or at least we think this is that story— the tale of two sisters: one bustling and one still, one doing and one being, one missing the point and the other, we suppose, getting it.

Ironically, very often we fail to mimic Mary. We do not sit with the scripture. We do not attend to the passage as a word through which the Word may pass. Instead we rush to do our work with it and, bustling ahead to our predetermined moral, we miss the mystery happening here.

As with the parable which precedes it, the temptation is to moralize.

Martha is owed an apology from nearly every preacher who has attempted to proclaim this scripture. You’ve heard the sermons, “Don’t be like Martha, be like Mary.” Not only is such moralism the opposite of gospel, it’s far too easy an interpretation— and, in fact, it’s not true to the story as Luke gives it to the church.

Martha, after all, is the one who invites Jesus into their home.

“Don’t be like Martha, be like Mary,” is not even faithful to the manner in which Jesus deals with people; the moralistic interpretation turns the Lord of Hosts into a terrible house guest.