Mary and Martha: a protest
Once again, Jesus of Nazareth,
you offend
our Aussie sense of a fair go.
Martha’s our preferred saint,
not your friend
Mary who sits like a drone
when in the end
the boring work must get done.
Once again, Jesus the troubler,
you make light
of all those extra hours
your Marthas still put in
late at night,
while your ‘precious’ Marys make
it their right
to smile and hand round the cake.
Once again, Jesus the prophet,
you confuse
our sense of right and wrong.
It’s tough enough now, when
we must choose,
without this little side show
that you use
to dismay our righteous ego.
© B.D. Prewer 2000
“You confuse
our sense of right and wrong.
It’s tough enough now,
when we must choose…”
That’s quite an accusation to make against Christ, isn’t it? That Jesus confuses our sense of right and wrong?
But that is actually what happens so often in bible stories: people are confused, either by what Jesus says or does.
At West End, in our congregation, we have been following the lectionary gospel readings in recent weeks, and we find time and time again that Jesus does the unexpected thing or says the unexpected thing and, as a result, confusion reigns.
Last week it was the story Jesus tells of a man set upon by bandits who is saved, not by the righteous priest or the respected Levite but by the despised and unexpected Samaritan. Salvation for the unfortunate depends upon being willing to be helped by the very person one doesn’t want to be helped by. Confusing? Yes.
The week before it was seventy disciples being sent out as missionaries, but being sent out without purse or bag or even sandals for their feet. Being a follower of Christ means letting go of independence, letting go of being able to sustain oneself in favour of putting oneself at the mercy of strangers who may or who may not provide what is necessary. Off you go, without purse to pay your way, without bag to carry what you might need, without even the veneer of dignity afforded by footwear. Confusing? Yes!
That’s how it is with the gospel: the adulterous woman is dismissed with kind words; the prodigal son is welcomed home while his brother who does no wrong is castigated; the Pharisees who keep the law are challenged but tax collectors and prostitutes are welcomed. Confusing? Well, if it’s not confusing, it jolly well should be.
And here’s the problem that I struggle with: I’m not confused. I’ve heard these stories so many times; I’ve read them, seen them dramatised, listened to children’s talks, sung them in hymns and choruses and cantatas and rounds; in the end, they are so familiar that I know the answers, or think I know the answers, even before I realise I am being asked a question.
I began with the poem by Bruce Prewer, and I did that because it helps me to see that there is a question here, an important question: Mary or Martha? It’s not just a simple “Mary does the right thing by sitting at Jesus’ feet” because, after all, providing for the visitor – doing what Martha does – was a crucial aspect of life for the first century Jew. Providing for the visitor is what made it possible for the seventy to go out and proclaim the good news. Providing for the stranger is what saved the man who fell among thieves. It’s not simply a question of sitting down to listen to nice words from that nice man Jesus who does all of those nice things for all of those nice people.
It’s a question: Mary or Martha? Martha or Mary? And last week the answer was Martha, and this week the answer is Mary. Confusing? Yes! Indeed, yes.
But we don’t like to be confused. At least, I don’t like to be confused, and so I find ways to avoid being confused. I come up with answers to how these stories are understood, answers which make it all neat and tidy. For example, the good Samaritan becomes a story about how to help others, ignoring the fact that it is really about how others help me. For example, the prodigal son becomes a story about going home and begging for forgiveness, rather than seeing it as an indictment of stay-at-home self-righteousness. For example, Martha becomes a figure of scorn because she protests when she should be sitting down, although Jesus himself is happy to accept her hospitality, is happy to eat the meal she prepares, to sleep on the mattress she provides, and to dilly-dally around when her brother Lazarus is dying (although that’s another confusing story and we really shouldn’t lump the two together).
Prewer suggests that Jesus uses this as an occasion “to dismay our righteous ego”. And surely that’s a good thing. Because when we have all of these Jesus stories all nicely sorted out, suddenly having the rug pulled from under our feet, confusing us is perhaps the only way to get us to think beyond ourselves to what God might really being saying to us.
Prewer, in that last verse, also says, “It’s tough enough now, when / we must choose” There is a great deal of insight in those few words: we must choose.
I don’t think Bruce Prewer is going all holy and religious on us here. I don’t think he’s talking about the spiritual choices we have to make for salvation, redemption, forgiveness and so forth. I rather suspect that he means the daily choices of life: the decisions we make each day at work; the choices we make in relating to others; the ordinary, everyday business of working out what do we do next and how do we do it. We must choose, and there are good choices and there are bad choices, there are choices which draw us closer to God and closer to our neighbour, and there are those which don’t.
Sometimes those choices are Mary and sometimes those choices are Martha. Confusing? Yes.
But we must choose. Choose wisely.
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