Christians are familiar with the story of Mary and Martha in the Gospel of Luke. If you’re not, the story describes two sisters who have Jesus come into their home. While Jesus was talking, Mary sat at His feet and listened. Martha was trying to make things perfect for Jesus, busying herself with the many preparations. Martha gets frustrated and demands that Jesus tell Mary to help her.
Rather than chastise Mary for not doing work, he tells her, “Martha, you’re distracted by many things. Mary understands what’s truly necessary.”
The Cloud of Unknowing spends several chapters referring to this story, emphasizing how contemplatives are like Mary and “actives” are more like Martha. The anonymous author offers his preference for Mary because her spiritual life has moved beyond the demands of the active life.
After episode 5 in season 4 of The Chosen, director Dallas Jenkins asked the audience, “Are you #TeamMary or #TeamMartha?”
It was a spirited online discussion. People recognized that it’s better to be like Mary, but they often acted like Martha. Our society emphasizes more doing rather than being.
The author of The Cloud of Unknowing doesn’t emphasize this enough, but he does say that few people can truly be like Mary of Bethany while they’re still living.
As much as Thomas Merton wanted to live in his hermitage and hear God’s message, he also knew there was work to be done. If you read some of his journals and chapters from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, you can see his frustration with the state of the world. Merton wasn’t a “pure” contemplative but an active contemplative.
Once we step onto the contemplative path, we still have a little bit of Martha with us. It’s not an either/or. We all have work to do while we’re on this earth.
In another way, the story of Mary and Martha can also be about losing our focus. The Chosen episode depicts it rather nicely. Martha had busied herself so much that she couldn’t hear the words of Jesus. Rather than sit at the feet of Jesus while he was in her midst, she was adding the perfect touches to her pastries.
We all have work to do while we’re on this earth.
What does the busyness of our lives point to? Yes, we might be doing charity work or volunteering at the church (which are necessary), but are we so busy that we lose track of who we are serving? Is it all about outward appearances? What is truly necessary in this situation?
This is a call for simplicity and moderation. We can easily fill our schedules with so much work that we miss what God might be saying to us. We can move so fast that we can’t even see a turn or a bend along our path. We can even resort to extremes that get infused with the stirrings of our ego.
Then we find that we’re serving ourselves more than God.
As much as I’d love to sit all day in contemplation, I know there is work to be done. Yes, there’s work that (barely) pays the bills. Yes, I have to feed the dogs. Yes, I have to clean the bathroom, empty the dishwasher (hi, Toni!) and take out the trash. I can bring a little more mindfulness and prayer into these mundane works.
But there is also some other work to be done—God’s work. That’s work to bring a little taste of heaven to earth. It’s about making the world—or at least my community—better than how I entered it.
God is always at work in creating a more loving world. We can choose to take part in it or we can work against it by serving ourselves.
It’s up to us to keep our eyes fixed on God and let our active lives be an expression of God’s love. Our work on earth doesn’t have to be one big thing. We can breathe kindness into whatever we’re experiencing in this moment.
We don’t have to choose whether we’re #TeamMary or #TeamMartha. We also don’t have to define ourselves that way. We can embody both Mary and Martha, maintaining our active lives while continually listening to God’s voice, and remembering that God is always in our midst.