Mary or Martha?

I guess a lot of us who follow Christ -- or try to; sometimes I look around and wonder where I am and how I lost the trail -- think about whether we are Mary or Martha. It's a tricky question.

You may know the story, from the tenth chapter of Luke:

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

It's a frustrating story for Martha types -- Martha does all the work while Mary just chills out, and Mary comes out smellin' like a rose. What the heck?

This is another one of those stories in which Jesus reminds us -- not with pride, just with facts -- that he is different from the rest of us. Mary is not just listening to some schlub here, the equivalent of watching some dumb TV show. We can't believe that that would be a "better part." She is listening to Jesus Himself, an incomparable privilege restricted at that moment, among all people on earth, to whatever persons happened to be in that room.

I'm not going to disagree with Jesus; I find that usually doesn't work out too well for me. My point today is, are we the hardworking hostess Martha or the contemplative, loving Mary? I think most of us are both, more one at some times, more the other at other times, and whichever we are we feel a counter-pull to be the other.

Most faithful moms I know love the idea of meditation and seeking communion with God, but they feel like Martha - - pulled seven ways by kids and chores and work and everything. A friend of mine described her prayer life this way: "Hail Mary, full of grace, JACK PUT THAT DOWN!" The psalmist writes "Be still, and know that I am God." And Mom is saying "HOW?"

Do dads feel that way? Of course they do, but these days, where religious faith is scoffed at by men who think of themselves as rugged engineering types, such devotion as Mary shows is considered soft and weak. That would not have been true for Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, the one who was so famously brought back from the dead in chapter 11 of John.

We know Lazarus was a special guy. His sisters loved him. Jesus loved him; the death of Lazarus is the only cause of Jesus's weeping in the Bible; we don't even see him cry for John the Baptist, brutally killed, who was a cousin of Jesus and the man Jesus said was greatest of men born of woman.

Anyway, Lazarus doesn't appear in this story, but that doesn't make him a do-nothing, even though at the time women would be doing all the domestic chores. Martha doesn't come yelling, "Hey! Bub! Do you think Lazarus means Lazyass? Get your butt in here and help!" Maybe Lazarus got a pass on this one because he was the man, or maybe he was out a-choppin' wood and a-killin' the fatted calf. We don't know.

Were I there, I would probably be the second, not so useful brother. Moe. The one who tries to focus on Jesus and falls into a noisy sleep, or tries to help Martha and burns the spelt. My way of thinking goes like this: I want Jesus to take the wheel, and then I want to go take a nap in the backseat. That never seems to work out well for me either.