Martha, Martha

[dreamer_easy]

I was looking up Martha in the Bible and found Luke 10:38-42. As a spiritual person, I totally get this. (There's a similar Buddhist story, about the herder who's in a panic over his lost sheep - the Buddha quips to his disciples, "Aren't you lucky you don't have any sheep?). As a feminist I'm like WAAGH! If Martha also sits at Jesus' feet, who's going to make his dinner?

ETA: Aha! I can post to LJ if I keep it short!

ETA: Have a look at this very readable essay on Interpretations of Luke 10:38-42.

Comments

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I think this is the best face that can be put on it - that Jesus is saying "Never mind the housework, there are more important things." If so, that's a liberating message. (I'm curious now how the passage has been interpreted, traditionally and more recently.)

[wiliqueen.livejournal.com]

(I'm curious now how the passage has been interpreted, traditionally and more recently.)

Me too! As an American Catholic kid in the 70s and early 80s, "there are more important things" was definitely pointed out to me as the message we were supposed to be taking away from it. I'm pretty sure I remember it being connected to the passages of calling disciples away from their practical pursuits -- "Come with me and be fishers of men," etc. Sort of in a similar vein to what murasaki_1966 says above.

IIRC, it still didn't sit well at the time, because the lessons were never very good at addressing the disconnect between "this is CCD, which they used to call catechism, which is where you learn the rules" and "Jesus keeps saying there are more important things than the rules, but we're not defining them all that well."

I actually went back to it long after leaving the Church. Lately it reminds me of one good friend in particular who used knock herself out making tons of food, or even try to clean my house, in order to feel that she "deserved" to be there, when I would have been perfectly happy to have her just sit and talk. It took her years and years to move past that. I should ask her thoughts on that passage; she was raised in a very conservative Church of Christ environment, and has some very strong opinions and interesting insights about what was useful and what was damaging in the way things were taught there.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

That's how I've always taken it. He speaks to her by name, in a soothing and entreating (but not, I think, patronizing) way; he identifies and acknowledges her feelings of stress and worry; and then he offers to lift that burden from her, by encouraging her to sit and rest and focus on the spiritual instead of wearing herself to a frazzle over her social obligations.

We also know from other passages that Mary, Martha and their brother Lazarus were close friends of Jesus -- he wasn't saying these words to a stranger, but to a woman he knew well and with whom he had a positive relationship.

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

Good point.