“Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said,
‘Lord, do you not care
that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving?
Tell her to help me.’
The Lord said to her in reply,
‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.
There is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her.’”
In seminary, we had an annual award for the seminarian that showed the greatest effort and initiative taking care of menial tasks. Things like moving chairs from the basement storage room to the dining room (in a seminary, it’s called a refectory) for special events, cleaning up the television lounge, and organizing the outdoor furniture and storage were included. It was called the Martha, Martha Award. Those things needed to get done and they were, perhaps, contrary to most seminarians’ inclinations. We were there to pray, study, grow, serve pastoral needs, participate in sacraments, etc. You know, the better part. An old priestly saying gets at the heart of it, “These hands were made for chalices, not calluses.” Hence the need to reinforce carrying out the mundane with an award. There was no, and no need for, a Mary Award.
Of course, calluses can be good for the soul. To do small things with great love, to care for the mundane needs of others, to be practical in our service, and to find God in it all is a path to holiness. It may be the ordinary path to sainthood. The Gospel reading today, however, isn’t setting up a dichotomy between hard work and easy living. That’s the wrong way to read it. Martha is fulfilling societal expectations for hospitality and the role of women. She is doing her duty and knows her place. Mary, quite contrary, is subverting societal expectations. The evangelist, Luke, emphasizes the reversal of fortune brought about by Jesus, and this story fits his theme. Mary takes the position of a disciple. She sits at the feet of Jesus, a position reserved to men. With Jesus, there is no distinction. Man or woman, there is need of only one thing: to follow Jesus. Everyone is called to be his disciple. The Church names this the universal call to holiness. It applies to everybody equally, no matter who we are.
There is need of only one thing, but there are different roles. Traditionally in the Church, the distinction hasn’t been between men and women, but what are termed the active life and the contemplative life. The active life is a virtuous life of service, work, busyness, full schedules and long days. The contemplative life is a virtuous life of prayer, study, intentionality, meandering attention and paced structure. The active life is considered indispensable, the contemplative life superior. The active life is found in diocesan priests and teaching sisters, the contemplative life in monks and cloistered nuns. The Benedictine tradition is interesting because it sought to bridge the gap between prayer and work: ora et labora. The Dominicans tried hard, too. Yet, you may have noticed, that the laity seemed to be excluded from consideration. The universal call to holiness is something of a corrective. All of us need one thing: relationship with Jesus, to burn with the fire of God’s love.
To be saints (and make no mistake, that is why we’re here), we need contemplation and action. God permeates who we are and all that we do. It does look different for each of us, as it does for every saint, but the core is relationship with Jesus, following him, being his disciple. It wasn’t that Martha was busy, but that she was distracted from focusing on Jesus. She could have been busy and focused on Jesus, if she had let Jesus be the focus of her busyness. None of us are going to be pure contemplatives, nor should we be. All of us, however, need to keep Jesus in focus. In our prayer, there he is. In our work, there he is. In our relationships, there he is. In everything we do, we sit at his feet.