In this Sunday's Gospel we hear the story of Mary and Martha. It is Martha, we are told, that welcomes Jesus into her house, and immediately she sets about doing exactly what is culturally expected of her. She begins to serve the Lord.
We aren't given the details but we can imagine that she is preparing food, drink and welcome for Jesus. And that she would have come to wash his feet. Yet when she does, she finds that her sister Mary is there 'sat at the Lord's feet and listening to Him.'
The Gospel tells us that Martha is frustrated - upset that she is doing all the work while her sister assumes the posture of a disciple. And it tells us that she directs her frustration at Jesus, not Mary. "Don't you care..."
As we have come to expect, Jesus' answer challenges Martha's righteousness. Mary, she is told, has chosen the better part, and it is not to be taken from her.
The story ends abruptly, and we don't get to hear what Martha's response was. I can't imagine that it was quite acquiescence.
As I reflect on this story though, I think that if we read it as a dichotomy between those who sit and listen and those who get up and do, we're missing the point. It is not necessarily Martha's doing that Jesus challenges, it's her demeanour. 'You worry and fret about so many things,' he tells her, 'Yet only one is needed.' That one thing, I would suggest, is mindfulness of why we do what we do.
Martha exemplifies the vocation to work in the service of others, but in Mary we are reminded that, as Christians, our vocation it is centred first and foremost on the person of Christ. Through prayer and contemplation in the way of Mary, our work in the way of Martha becomes more meaningful than menial.
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