16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) - Luke 10: 38-42

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Luke 10: 38-42 - 'Martha works; Mary listens.'

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Episode Transcript

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(02:00):
So today we're going to look at quite a well-known passage, Luke
chapter 10 verses 38 to 42. Jesus came to a village and a
woman named Martha welcomed him into her house.
She had a sister called Mary whosat down at the Lord's feet and
listened to him speaking. Now, Martha who was distracted

(02:22):
with all the serving said, Lord,do you not care that?
My sister is leaving me to do all the serving, all by myself.
Please tell her to help me but the Lord answered her Martha.
Martha. You worry and fret about so many
things and yet few are needed. Indeed, only one it is Mary who

(02:44):
has chosen the better part. It is not to be taken from her.
So, most of you would know this passage, you would probably
heard some sermons preached on it and let's see if we can learn
some things by diving into the text.
So what's the context? Jesus Is On The Way From Galilee
to Judea to gdr? So he's gradually moving towards

(03:05):
Jerusalem and he's doing Ministry along the way verse 38.
Now, if you look at most Bibles that actually says here, as they
went on their way, so that givesus a timing indicator that this
occurs on the road from Galilee to Jerusalem.
It says This came to a village now.
Luke's gospel here doesn't tell us what the village is called.

(03:26):
But John's gospel, does the townthat they go to is Bethany?
And we know that because John's gospel says that's where Mary
and Martha live. And in fact, they have another
sibling who lives in the house, which is Lazarus.
So this is the family of Lazarus.
The one that Jesus right causes to rise from the dead.
Bethany is actually a small town, right near Jerusalem.

(03:47):
It's only two miles from Jerusalem.
Now, in The Narrative of Luke, Jesus is not actually close to
Jerusalem yet. So this is one of these stories
that probably isn't. Luke hasn't kept in
chronological order. He's doing it his including this
story here from more of a theological perspective in
reality. This story that we're about to
see in Bethany probably happened, just before he entered

(04:08):
Jerusalem. So just before Palm Sunday.
So Luke has placed it earlier onhere.
For some sort of theological reason, which is not entirely
clear to us. A woman named Martha welcomed
him into her house. So, Martha is probably a
believer in Jesus, if she's welcoming Jesus into her house
and John's, John's gospel tells us that in fact, Jesus does know

(04:33):
this family very well. They are some of his best
friends, so a Mary Martha and Lazarus, very close to Jesus.
And so here, Martha, welcomes, Jesus in.
And the fact that Martha is the one to do with a welcoming
suggests that Mary is probably the oldest sibling or certainly
the oldest sister. Once Jesus is in the house, he

(04:53):
apparently starts teaching. Now something we often miss when
we are visualizing. This scene is probably, there's
a whole lot of people in the house.
Jesus is probably there with hisdisciples and possibly some of
the crowds as well, his teachingin the house which suggests that
there's quite a few people in there with him.
No wonder Master gets stressed later on because there's Be a

(05:14):
lot of people there for her to serve verse 39.
She had a sister called Mary nowthis is not Mary Magdalene as
far as we know and it's not one of the other Mary's at the foot
of the cross. It's a different Mary and Mary
is quite a common name in that culture.
It can get quite confusing, trying to track all the
different, Mary's through the gospels, but this one is called,

(05:35):
Mary of Bethany. Mary sat down at the Lord's feet
and listened to him speaking. Now remember, Mary is probably
there with several other people.They're all sitting at the
Lord's feet while he teaches about the kingdom of God.
So she's in the position of learning from a rabbi.
She's sitting at his feet. In fact, the Greek here,
literally says, she's listening to his word, that's one of the

(05:58):
key, the key themes in Luke and something Jesus is constantly
encouraging his disciples to do,listen to my word, and that's
what she's doing. She's being obedient.
Verse 14 now. Martha, who was distracted with
all the serving? So she's probably preparing and
distributing food for a large amount of people here in her
house. And that indeed is a proper

(06:19):
action. She's not actually doing
anything wrong here in principle.
She's actually following the model of Old Testament.
Women like the Widow of Zarephath and the woman of
schuneman who both gave Hospitality to the prophets.
Elijah and Elisha, you can see that in 1, Kings, 17, and 2
Kings for So certainly, it's a proper thing for the oldest

(06:39):
woman in the house to do in thatculture, you would be in charge
of providing food and Hospitality for all of the
guests, but there is so much forher to do, and she's getting
distracted. She's not able to pay attention
to Jesus. It appears she's getting quite
frustrated. Actually, not a Jesus are not at
the amount of people in the house.
She's probably quite happy to dothat, but what she's frustrated

(07:01):
about is that her sister isn't helping her sister, is just
sitting there listening to Jesus.
Now the actual text here says, at this point, Martha goes to
Jesus, so we're seeing here a private conversation between
mere between Martha and Jesus that Mary and the others
probably can't hear, it's probably a private conversation
here. Now, this is something we often

(07:23):
miss the fact that Martha goes to Jesus to have a private
conversation with him and asks, him for help that shows that she
trusts cheeses with her complaint.
It's actually an indication of her faith.
We shouldn't see Martha. Is sort of the one that lacks
Faith. Yes, she actually does have a
lot of faith in the way that sheapproaches Jesus.
And this is what she says to him.

(07:44):
Lord, do you not care? My sister is leaving me to do
all the serving all by myself. So she knows that Jesus is a
prophet of God. In fact, she probably realizes
he's the Messiah as well. John's gospel indicates that she
has a fair idea of his identity.So she figures.
Well, Jesus understands these things surely he can see how

(08:07):
busy I am and surely he's going to tell Mary that.
The appropriate thing to do is to help me to help Martha that
would make sense. According to her reasoning, now
many scholars have pointed out. Notice the language that Martha
uses Here with Jesus, do you notcare?
Lord. And that mirrors, many of our
prayers of complained to God as well.
So we can probably see ourselveshere in Martha and certainly for

(08:30):
Luke's original Is they might have seen themselves in Martha
as well as they went through, persecution in the early years.
So he's she says, to Jesus, notice how bold she is, here,
please tell her to help me. So she actually gives Jesus a
command here. This is Martha's request.
She knows that Jesus has Authority, and she wants Jesus

(08:51):
to use it to help to tell Mary to help.
So she's basically asking Jesus to command her sister to help.
That's her request. Verse 41, but the Lord answered
her Martha Martha. And that's there's a great
affection there from Jesus, isn't it?
Her Martha Martha. You worry and fret about so many

(09:13):
things now I better translation.There would be you are anxious
and troubled about many things. There's a few things to say
here, Martha, does have a legitimate right to complain
here. Her sister really should be
helping at least in most situations like this, but Jesus
here knows, Martha's heart and he can see that Martha is over
worrying about the situation. In fact, he says that she's

(09:36):
worried about many things, theseare tender words of Jesus, and
the probably applies to many of us today.
Many of us in our 21st century, Western Society, we're anxious
and troubled about many things. Now, we know that, Jesus doesn't
want people to be anxious and worried in fact, in The Sermon
on the Mount, he actually says do not worry about tomorrow.

(09:57):
Each day has enough trouble of its own.
That's actually one of my favorite Bible verses, so we
know that Jesus doesn't want hisdisciples to be anxious.
In fact, one of the categories in the parable of the sower,
remember those that category of those who are choked by the
anxieties of life, that's in Luke chapter 8 and this is a key

(10:17):
theme in Luke, Jesus wants us tohave peace.
Peace. So again, in chapter 12 and then
in chapter 21 of Luke, Jesus hassimilar words about not being
anxious. He goes on, he says to Martha
yet. Few things are needed.
Indeed, only one so Jesus here says, that only one thing is
really worth worrying about. Jesus, doesn't actually identify

(10:38):
what that one thing is, but I think we can work out what it
is. It's basically the kingdom of
God, the kingdom of God, is the one thing that's worth worrying
about Verse 42. Jesus goes on it is Mary who has
chosen the better part or a better translation.
There might be the good portion the image.
Here, the Jesus is setting up isthat for Mary, there's like two

(11:01):
options she could have chosen, she could have helped Martha,
serve or listen to Jesus. Both of, those are probably
decent options, but Jesus, he says that she chose the better
option which was listening to Jesus another way of phrasing.
This would be Mary's two optionsout of focus on Hospitality or

(11:22):
focus on the guest himself. That's an interesting way of
looking at it. Mary chooses to listen to Jesus,
there's nothing more important than listening to Jesus, while
he is on Earth. So you could say here that Mary
is a model of in the parable of the sower, she's a model of the
seed which fell on good soil. She really takes in the word and

(11:43):
let it sink in. Now, when we're interpreting
this passage, we need to firstly, say this is not a
principle for all time. It's just that in this context,
Jesus himself is right there in the house who has come to
reveal, God's will God himself in?
The flesh, is in their house. So, therefore, in that
situation, the most important thing for both, Mary and Martha

(12:06):
to do is to stop and listen to him.
That is the number one priority in that moment and Jesus, he
says, to Martha, it is not to betaken from Her.
So Jesus basically says to Martha here.
No, I won't tell Mary. I won't tell Mary to stop
listening. She has made the right choice,
so it will not be taken from her.

(12:28):
Now you've probably heard lots of sermons that are preached
along the lines of we need to have a balance of both Mary and
Martha in our life. Now that's clearly.
Not right. That's the opposite of what the
text says. Good sermons about this text
need to take account of the factthat Jesus clearly says that
Mary chose the better option. One of the two options was

(12:48):
better and Mary chose the betteroption.
So you can tell if your priest or whoever is giving the sermon
has really understood the text, if they as part of the sermon,
bring out that married. Clearly chose the better option.
It's not two equally good options here.
Now they're both good options certainly but they're not

(13:08):
equally good options. One option is better than the
other According To Jesus. Now Church fathers in the early
days who commented on this passage, they typically make the
same point that one option is better than the other even if
Are giving it a spiritual or mystical interpretation.
For example, Gregory the Great who commented on this text, he
said that a spiritual interpretation of this would be

(13:30):
that the two women could signifythe two dimensions of the
spiritual life. Now, obviously, this is not a
literal interpretation, which iswhat we do in this podcast.
But sometimes it's worth lookingat perhaps legitimate, spiritual
interpretations here. So Saint Gregory says the two
women could represent honoring Jesus Through active life.

(13:50):
And the contemplative life. So Martha would represent the
active life Mary would representthe contemplative life and
saying Gregory here, says the both of those aspects are
important in serving Jesus. However he says that the
contemplatively life is more important and he says because in
heaven the contemplatively life will continue whereas the active

(14:12):
life doesn't really continue in that same sense.
So that's an interesting way of looking at this text and
perhaps, that is there on the spiritual sense?
Stu. So that's all we have today.
There's actually no catechism references to this.
You would think that there wouldbe because there's some
interesting lessons to learn butthe catechism does not comment
on the story of Mary and Martha,although they do get mentioned

(14:34):
in connection with the other stories about them in the Gospel
of John. So we'll leave it there for
today. Thanks once again for listening.
Hopefully you'll join us again tomorrow.