In today’s Gospel, Jesus visits his friends Mary and Martha who we know are the sisters of Lazarus – the man that Jesus would raise from the dead after 4 days. During this particular visit, Martha is doing all that she can to be a good host for Jesus and any of the disciples who may have followed him there. We can assume this was not an easy task. Despite this, Mary opts not to help her sister. Instead she sits at Jesus’ feet, listening to Him teach.
Martha is perturbed by this. And we, who love justice, can understand her concern. It does not seem fair that Mary gets to sit while Martha goes above and beyond to serve. Martha appeals to Jesus to reprimand her sister, but Jesus comes back with a surprising answer. He seemingly admonishes Martha who has been working hard to serve Him, and praises Mary who has done nothing but be in Jesus’ presence.
This does not make sense to us in modern America. A country that is run on consumerism and measures its worth by how much it produces, values Martha in this situation. But Jesus says that Mary has chosen the better part. Why?
First, God has everything. He tells the Israelites this in the Psalms:
“Listen, my people, I will speak;
Israel, I will testify against you;
God, your God, am I.
Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you,
your burnt offerings are always before me.
I will not take a bullock from your house,
or he-goats from your folds.
For every animal of the forest is mine,
beasts by the thousands on my mountains.
I know every bird in the heights;
whatever moves in the wild is mine.
Were I hungry, I would not tell you,
for mine is the world and all that fills it.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of he-goats?
Offer praise as your sacrifice to God;
fulfill your vows to the Most High.
Then call on me on the day of distress;
I will rescue you, and you shall honor me – Psalm 50: 7-15
God does not need our service, He only desires it. And He desires it not for His good (He has everything), but because service orients us correctly to love, namely Himself. But service can also be done without love. We can do service out of a sense of duty, an egotism, or simply to trick someone else into thinking we are someone better than who we really are. And because we are sinful, we need God’s help to make sure we do not slip into these vices. So by its very nature, service should not be an end in itself, but should flow from a love of God and neighbor.
While Martha is undoubtedly serving out of love for Jesus, her reaction to Mary shows that she seems more focused on the work, than on Jesus. She feels like she has been wronged due to Mary’s lack of help. We can surmise that she places value in the work getting done, and getting done well. But for what purpose? In the end, Martha used her serving as a weapon to elevate herself over Mary. What may have started as an act of love, was twisted by jealousy.
We cannot blame Martha. The world formed Martha to believe she needed to serve to bring value to Jesus. And in that culture, women took ownership, excelled, and thrived in creating a pleasant domestic atmosphere. But Jesus cuts right through all of that. He is the God of the Universe that has everything. He has no needs that need to be served. Rather, He wants to serve us. He wants to give us His love. But He can only do that if we allow Him to, which requires us to humbly sit at His feet, just as Mary did.
So when it comes to loving God, the greatest place that we can be is humbly in His presence. Here He gives us His love. We have to be weak, so that He can be strong. And once we are open to being filled with His love, that love He will give in abundance overflows into service. In this way, the service is just a side effect of great love. And if the work does not get done as fast or as well as it could be, this matters little to Jesus. Because the important thing is the interior disposition of being in His presence.
