On Saint Martha and Weaponizing Busyness
Hi friends,
I hope the summer is treating you well. I spent June wrapping up school for my kids, hitting a book-writing milestone I’d been reaching for, and organizing and managing the long to-do list for our move to Austin in a few weeks. Things are busy around here, but it’s the good kind of busy, and we’re excited to get settled back in the place that feels like home for us. With the move in mind, I’ll say now that there may or may not be an email for August! July is going to be a whirlwind, and I can’t guarantee I’ll have time to sit down and write, but of course I’ll do my best. :)
There are so many wonderful saints to celebrate in July, and this month I want to talk about Saint Martha of Bethany. Martha is a New Testament figure, the sister of Mary of Bethany and Lazarus. She is most familiar in the popular imagination as the central character of one particular story which occurs in the Gospel of Luke. In the story, Jesus is travelling and comes to the village where Martha and Mary live. They open their home to him because that’s what one does. Mary sits “at the Lord’s feet,” listening to all Jesus had to say. And while Mary does this, Martha bustles around, managing all the little tasks necessary for good hospitality. It upsets Martha to be left with all the work, and she asks Jesus, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” Jesus doesn’t tell Mary to help Martha. Instead, he reprimands Martha gently, saying, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
This story has always bothered me. Many of the women I know feel the same about it. Personally, I bristle at it for two reasons. One, it has always felt to me that Martha’s feelings of frustration are justified. Someone has to be the hostess! Good hospitality takes real forethought and work, and someone has to manage that forethought and work! Martha welcomes Jesus into her home and immediately goes to work to serve him because that’s what you do! It is all too easy for me to imagine Martha’s frustration when her sister doesn’t help her. Two, keeping a welcoming home means a lot to me, and it does not always mean a lot to the world at large, and so I find myself in a hyper-defensive state about it. Martha is the patron saint of homemakers and, well, that’s a lot of what I do. I identify with Martha because her work is my work. And when Jesus gently reprimands Martha for worrying too much about the work of hospitality, I feel like I am being reprimanded too, and I want to rush to my own defense. I am also ready to cop an attitude with Jesus because it seems so much like he doesn’t get it.
I become so easily irritated by this story, wanting to roll my eyes at Jesus. But I also think it’s evident in this story that Jesus loves Martha very much. Jesus sees Martha in a way she cannot see herself. Martha is worried about her work and she takes it out on Mary. Personally, I think Martha sees that Mary has chosen the more peaceful place, and Martha is jealous because Martha cannot seem to get herself to that peaceful place, and that jealousy manifests as anger. Jesus sees that worry for what it is, and his response to her is not unkind. When he addresses her, he says her name twice. “Martha, Martha.” This is a sign of affection. It’s the same thing I do with my children when they’re frustrated and I’m trying to call them out of their frustration. Jesus responds to Martha in love, and what he tells her is that she is worried about too many things. What he reminds her of is that there is an alternative to frenzied worry. What he suggests is that she take a break from the worry and rest with him. Jesus does not call Martha away from her work as much as he calls her away from worrying about it.
What I like about domestic work is that it leads me to God if I do it with the right frame of heart. That being said, the right frame of heart is essential, and I think that this is what the story of Mary and Martha is about. The story of Mary and Martha is not about the work itself but about the posture with which the work is done. The point of the story is not that Martha worked and Mary didn’t. The point of the story is that Mary had an interior peace that Martha did not have. It’s possible to hold onto that peace in the midst of one’s daily work. Martha just wasn’t very good at it, and neither am I. I have a million little worries every day, and it’s very easy for me to let them take over. I always think of Martha when I’m sitting in mass, in the presence of what I believe to be Christ Himself, and instead of sitting in awe and reverence, I am mentally running through my to-do list for the day. Obviously I don’t do this on purpose! But it is very difficult for me to, spiritually speaking, put my worry at the feet of Jesus when there are so many other places to put it. I can sympathize with Martha’s struggle.
I have such a soft spot for Martha because I see myself in her, but also because Martha does learn from this story. There is another, later, story about her, and it’s a story that shows how much she has learned. The story is an exchange that Jesus and Martha have after the death of Martha’s brother, Lazarus. Jesus comes to Mary and Martha, and Martha rushes out to meet him (always busy!). She says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” She recognizes Jesus for who he is. Jesus tells her that her brother will rise, and she almost sarcastically retorts that she knows that Lazarus will rise when all the other dead people do at the Last Judgement. Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" Martha says, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world." In one line, she gives us the entirety of the Christian faith. Lord, I believe you are the Son of God. Look how far she’s come! The Martha of earlier days would have been panicked. This should be a moment of deep worry for Martha. Her brother has died, right? Jesus came too late to save him, right? Everything should be lost, right? But it’s not. We see, in Martha’s reponses, not anxiety but a complete confidence in God even in the face of the impossible. Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, and Martha believes that he will. I love Martha because, in the end, she chose as well as her sister. She took a little longer to get there, but she got there all the same.