In the Gospel of Luke, today’s story of Martha and Mary is bracketed by the parable of the Good Samaritan that we heard last week and the beginning of chapter 11 that we’ll hear next week, which opens with the disciples asking Jesus how to pray and him teaching them the Lord’s prayer.
Keeping those bookends in mind can help us see that in today’s Gospel, Jesus isn’t putting his thumb on the scales in favor of Mary’s contemplation over Martha’s action or making service secondary to devotion. Far from it. Remember, Jesus was clear that he came into our world to serve, not to be served. But he was just as clear that he has the words of everlasting life.
When Jesus set up a Samaritan as the good guy in his parable last week, he was challenging his listeners in a way that would shock them out of their ingrained way of thinking. The Priests and Levites who were regarded as the most attentive listeners to the word of God did nothing, while the Samaritan they all looked down on in their perceived religious superiority was the one who took action and showed mercy. We could see that as a win for Martha’s active approach.
But in next week’s Gospel, Jesus teaches his disciples to pray and immediately reinforces that teaching with a series of parables that emphasize the importance of not simply praying but praying constantly with persistence and perseverance. We could see that as a win for Mary’s contemplative approach.
Of course, it’s not that simple or that binary. It’s often said that the best Christian answer to any question isn’t an either/or, but a both/and. That sets up a beautiful tension we’re called to navigate in fidelity, love, and attentiveness to God and neighbor. That tension is nicely described by Fr. Ron Rolheiser, who asks:
Where is God most easily found, in the church or in the kitchen? In the monastery or in the family? In a celibate monk’s cot or in the marriage bed? At a shrine or in a sports stadium?
Fr. Ron concludes: The God we believe in is both the Holy God of transcendence and the Incarnate God of immanence. God is, in a privileged way, found in both the monastic and the domestic, the church and the world. A healthy spiritual life keeps a robust respect for both.
Before things got really bad in Haiti a few years back, I got to do yearly mission trips to work with the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa’s sisters, in their home for sick children and their clinic in the heart of Port au Prince.
The poverty in the city was jarring, but I always found it to be overshadowed by the human dignity I saw in its residents. Our materialistic society might tell you they have nothing, but the people had a light in their eyes and a way of holding themselves and interacting with others that showed me what it means to be fully human, to recognize that each person in this world is a beloved child of God.
The witness that spoke most powerfully to me, though, was that of the sisters. They were a variety of ages and national origins, but each of them had a similar presence. There’s just something so striking about every one of them – a profound peace and trust and joy that radiates from their faces that you can almost physically feel, a deep sense of calm and hope and love.
In a roomful of crying children or a crowded clinic with scores of people waiting to be seen, there was a serenity about them as they worked that calmed my heart and spurred me to want to be like them as I and others in our group helped them tend to the sick and injured.
It became clear early on that they were drawing from a deep well of devotion to Jesus and communion with him in prayer. They would rise before dawn to pray the Divine Office. We would all have Mass each morning to begin the day. Each evening was concluded with a Holy Hour in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. The hours of hard work in between were punctuated by prayer.
It was abundantly clear that these sisters had chosen to sit at the feet of Jesus to listen to him, and they believed him when he said there was need of only one thing, and they had given their lives entirely to him. They chose the better part and trusted to their core that it will not be taken from them. And they put that trust into action though their voluntary poverty and hard service to the poorest of the poor. And in that, they are among the happiest people I’ve ever met.
Three hundred years before Jesus was born, the high priest Shimon the Righteous taught that the world stands on three pillars: Torah, Avodah, and Gemilut Chesed. The first of these three pillars, Torah, sacred scripture, is God’s instructions for living. Through the word of God, we learn about our Creator and his creation, we gain insight into the ways of God and what our obligations are in this world. Each of us can live Torah listening attentively to the word proclaimed at each Mass and by spending private time with the scriptures in lectio divina or reading our way through the Bible.
Avodah, the second pillar, is service of God through prayer, worship, and devotion to him in everyday life. Our all-powerful, all-perfect God has no needs for us to fulfill, so clearly his desire for our service is for our benefit, not his.
We render God fitting service when we freely offer him our love, our prayer, our worship. One very simple way can live the pillar of avodah is to recognize the autopilot we can often tend to have at Mass and do our best to consciously and actively participate in the liturgy. Praying the Mass with attention and devotion inevitably spills over into how we live our lives and encounter others.
Gemilut chesed, the third pillar, means “bestowing kindness,” especially through selfless acts toward others. God created us out of love, and his will is that we reflect that love not only back to him, but to all those who we encounter. If we’re focused only on our own wants and needs and give little thought to the needs of others, we haven’t been paying attention to the first two pillars.
Living this third pillar of creation is to know that we’re not in it alone, that we are called to touch the lives of others. If we challenge ourselves in even a small way to step outside our daily personal preoccupations, we will see opportunities all around us to practice gemilut chesed.
These concepts embody the fullness of the Martha and Mary “both/and” approach and are meant to be lived. Our Lord said, “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and put it into practice” and “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.”
The same Jesus who praised Mary for choosing the better part is calling each of us to be as blessed and as wise as she was, to build our lives on the foundation of his word. With that foundation, we can work like Martha, but with the heart of Mary.
In a way, every Mass captures the Mary and Martha dynamic we’ve been thinking about. We begin with the Liturgy of the Word, where we sit at the feet of Jesus like Mary, listening to his word. And in the Liturgy of the Eucharist that we’re about to begin, we enter into the saving work of salvation that Jesus came to our world to accomplish through his passion, death, and resurrection.
In this Mass and in all things, may we embrace the both/and of Mary and Martha, and in so doing, draw closer each day to the fullness of our baptismal identity of being one with Jesus Christ.
Image: Mary and Martha. By Adriaen van Utrecht / Erasmus Quellinus II – https://www.cambiaste.com/uk/auction-0458/adriaen-van-utrecht-anversa-15991652-e-erasmo-.asp, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=87808145
Deacon Steve O’Neill was ordained for service to the Archdiocese of Washington in June 2013 and serves at St. Andrew Apostle in suburban Maryland. After four years in the Marine Corps and three years at the University of Maryland (where met Traci, now his wife of 30+ years, and earned a degree in English), he has worked as an analyst with the Federal government. Deacon Steve and Traci have two sons and two daughters and three grandchildren.
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