Martha, Martha, Martha

Luke 10: 38-42   
July 20, 2025

 

Does anyone here relate to Martha?

Are any of you here do-ers?

Do you like to get things done and be productive?

Do you like to keep yourself busy doing things?

One Thing
Mollie Walker Freeman

Do you like to make and complete a to do list?

Do you enjoy taking care of
people and being a good host?

Do you like serving others with helpful tasks?

Making a difference? getting that check list done?

In other words, turning your faith into action in solid and real ways?

Good.

 

Some pastor somewhere is going to say that

this story is telling you that you should stop that

and be more contemplative and spend your time in prayer.

But I’m not.

And not just because the church would collapse

without all the helpful people that are here.

It’s more than that.

 

If you’re a “Martha” your service is valued, and necessary.

God needs our work and tasks.

I don’t think Jesus was at Martha’s house to

scold her for being so busy and task oriented.

 

We serve a God and a Messiah who was incarnational.

Whose love wasn’t just an airy fairy kind of statement of love.

It was real, it was solid and practical.

The Word became flesh and lived among us

and our words are expected to become flesh too.

 

We say that love is not just feelings or sentiment.

Love is shown in day in, day out actions.

Making meals, giving hugs, taking out the garbage.

We just got finished with Jesus parable of the Good Samaritan.

Being a neighbor is stopping to help, tending wounds,

and lifting someone out of the dirt.

It’s not just saying “God loves you, but I’m going

to hear a lecture on Jesus, so I don’t have time for your problem.”

So Martha putting together an olive and cheese platter

and sweeping the floor was not just idle busy work,

it was her way of showing her love and respect for a special guest.

 

It was also very much her job and duty,

and not completely a choice she made.

In Martha’s time, women were not expected

to sit and talk to guests.

They were expected to be up and doing stuff,

making the meal, getting what guests needed, cleaning up.

 

Martha is doing exactly what is expected of her.

She is filling the role that women had filled for almost ever.

 

And frankly, we’re not too far away from that mindset.

In my last church one of the major objections of opening

up their child-care center in 1980 was that, in doing so,

the church was encouraging women to work outside the home.

 

In Martha’s time and beyond, women did all the home

stuff so that men could run the business or go to work,

and also so the men could be the spiritual guides for the family.

 

The man was to attend and participate

in the prayer services, he was to go and spend

the afternoon at the synagogue and listen to the teachers,

and contemplate God’s will for everyone

and then come home and teach his family.

The men were the ones who were supposed to sit at the teacher’s feet.

The men were disciples, the women were supposed to

tend to their homes so that the men could do that.

 

So then we come to Martha’s home.

And it’s referred to as Martha’s home, which is very interesting.

and she’s doing exactly what is expected of her.

She’s doing the “right thing”.

She’s filling her duties, she’s earning her keep

She’s doing what is necessary to keep the system running.

 

 

It’s Mary who is changing up the equation.

Mary is not doing, she’s just sitting and listening.

She probably looks lazy and presumptuous by a lot of

people’s standards those days.

Certainly, she’s not doing what was typical for a woman to do.

 

So Martha demands that she help.

But I think that Marthat’s actually got this under control.

What I think Martha mostly wants is for

her sister to come back and be normal again.

She wants Mary to fill her expected role.

And she wants Jesus to back her up on this.

“Jesus, are you just going to let her be crazy like this?

You’re the teacher, tell her to get back to what she should be doing.”

And the first hearers of this story would probably have been with Martha.

Mary is acting weird. Jesus, tell her to stop it.

 

But Jesus won’t. Jesus actually says that

Mary has made a good choice.

This is exactly what Mary should be doing.

This is exactly what women should be doing.

And maybe Martha could do that sometimes too.

Come and sit at Jesus feet and hear words of

love and forgiveness and not worry about the world,

not worry about the world’s expectations,

or about the role that she’s supposed to fill.

 

I don’t think this story from Luke’s gospel

is a statement from Jesus about how the church

should be weighed towards worship and learning

instead of hospitality and service to the outside world.

Although some preachers have tried to do that.

 

And I don’t think that Jesus is scolding the doers of the world,

the social workers, the service project people,

the habitat for humanity, or food pantry people,

the Sunday school teacher, or anyone who is moved

to do the work that needs to be done

this is not Jesus telling everyone to just sit down

and pray and read the bible.

And I don’t think the world is divided into Marthas and Marys

We’re not divided into busy workers and contemplative thinkers

and this is not Jesus saying “yay” for the Marys of the world

and “nay” to the Martha’s.

I think the truth is that we’re all Marthas and Marys.

 

We all have that Martha side of us.

We are driven by our need to fill our role

We live under the pressure of what the world

wants and needs us to do, at home, at work, at church,

in our communities.

 

We stress about our to-do list and get frustrated and distracted.

We set out to accomplish what the world expects us to accomplish,

and when it doesn’t happen, we get filled with anxiety,

and self-doubt and we wonder whether

we are worthy of Jesus company.

 

But also have that Mary inside us.

That part that often needs to be coaxed out.

To be reassured to be told that

just sitting and being is good enough.

 

Sometimes when we’re the one who is running distracted,

Jesus reminds us “Martha, Martha.

You’re trying to do too much.

I don’t need you to do everything.

Your presence with me is enough.”

 

Jesus reminds all of us at times,

it is enough to just sit at Jesus feet,

and hear the word of God --

 

The word that says that we are loved

not for what we do and accomplish,

but just because we are God’s.

 

It is enough, sometimes, just to sit and be with Jesus.