The Mary and Martha story won’t leave me alone this week. Someone shared it on Sunday as a simple example of choosing good, better, best. No reprimand for either woman; just a generic use of a tale to remind us to choose Jesus.
Like happens so often for me these days, though, it mattered to me that the main characters in this story are Mary and Martha and not Matthew and Mason. The lives of men and women in Biblical times – and the expectations placed upon them – were vastly different. To imply that Martha even had a real choice, especially if Mary left her duties as well, feels disingenuous and unkind.
My heart aches for Martha, who I imagined performed exactly as she was taught. Dutiful, conscientious, and good, Martha knew practical preparations for Jesus fell to her. It’s easy to sit and learn comfortably when you aren’t worried about all of the preparations and care needed to make that learning possible.
I’m certain Mary knew it too. I’m not certain why she felt justified in ditching the cleaning and cooking in favor of sitting with Jesus. The implication is that the spirit so overcame and moved her toward the Savior, she could not help herself. And that by itself sounds admirable.
So, Martha carried Mary’s burden, now with even less of a chance to follow her own heart to the feet of Jesus. How heavy that must have felt. When I hear her Martha asking,
“Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore that she help me,”
I hear a woman pleading to be a part of Mary’s learning, but unsure how this is possible within the confines of her role as a woman and the unyielding demands placed upon her. It was a lovely sentiment to tell her to drop everything, but not realistic within the systems these women lived in.
Yet, Martha is – lectured? chided? rebuked? – by Jesus for having the wrong priorities. She becomes a simple object lesson written by a man for all. Martha will always stand for how not to act and Mary will be praised at her expense. And I think Martha deserves better – at least until we are willing to change the systems that demand she continually accept the “good” so others can have the “best.”
If Martha learned, as women do today, that her primary role, her duty, her purpose even, was caretaker and homemaker, then what better could she offer her Savior then a beautiful home and meal?
If Martha regularly supported men in their endeavors and made their spiritual learning possible through her homemaking efforts, how could she be expected to know that sitting at the feet of Jesus, instead of preparing her home for him, was even a possibility for her?
Why do we so love a story of an unconventional woman like Mary who pushes against convention to reach for her greatest potential – but not the reality of the life we create and demand from her?
And why is it that Mary reaching for her potential, like so often happens with men, must come at the expense of a woman like Martha?
Who makes it possible for men to sit at the feet of Jesus? The Marthas of the world. And yet they can still be chided for not setting all aside as Mary did. They can still be expected to keep everything running in the background, keep everyone fed, organize, support, and sit on auxiliaries and still not be enough; still not do enough.
If we really want Martha to sit at the feet of Jesus, we need to do more than scoot aside for her. We need to create a place for her, made possible by a system that sustains and supports her in real, concrete ways that make this possible.
So is answer that women are supposed to figure out we’re being tricked and do whatever seems best for us, rather than what we’re assigned to do by the men in charge of us? Eve disobeyed God and partook of the fruit, which was a good thing. Camille Johnson disobeyed the prophets and picked a career and a nanny instead of stay at home motherhood and now she’s the most powerful woman in the church. And Mary ditched all the work assigned to her to hang out and listen to Jesus, so she’s touted as the one who figured out the better part by Sunday School teachers for the rest of all time.
So maybe it’s time to just start listening to ourselves!
Yes!! I’ve been feeling this so hard lately. The women who thrive in the scriptures, (and often modern day), are those that go against, at least to a certain degree, what they’ve been taught. Even as you said, all the way back to Eve. Maybe we should pay more attention to the standard she set.
This was a beautiful article 💗
Amen and Amen!
This was in reply to Abbey’s comment!
I have always thought Jesus’ response here was off. Instead of chiding Martha, he really should have told Mathew, James, John, Peter, to go wash the damn dishes, change the beds, sweep the kitchen, with one of those rules of “who doesn’t cook has to clean up,” because obviously Martha had done all the cooking. Why couldn’t the men who had spent all day listening at Jesus’s feet have taken their lazy ass turn at the chores?
Martha was the oldest daughter, because she was the one who felt responsible. I know, because as an oldest daughter, I was the one getting punished when siblings didn’t do their chores.
That’s what I have always thought. The “Christ like” thing would have been for everyone else to get off their butts and help her so they could ALL listen.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels like being a woman is a damned if you do, damned if you don’t experience. There’s got to be a lesson in womanhood as a whole because it feels too cruel to even exist otherwise.
Yes! Like Abby this immediately made me think of how everyone speaks so highly of Camille Johnson now, while ignoring the fact she did exactly what the brethren -many of whom are the exact same men sitting in the red chairs today that were there when she decided to go to law school- told her not to do. She disobeyed and is put in charge. While other women were just as likely to be excommunicated for speaking out. (Sylvia Johnson in particular comes to mind.). And now we are supposed to be like Camille Johnson decades too late if we “followed the prophet” and stayed home and failed to pursue a career or meaningful education.
I’m reading a book that started with a lengthy chapter about Martha. The overall takeaway: the patriarchy has worked hard to put Martha in her place. (Anyone surprised? Yeah, that’s what I thought.) The author compared Martha’s story in Luke, in which she complains to Jesus about doing housework, and Martha’s story in John, when she runs to greet Jesus after Lazarus’ death and confesses to Jesus that he is the Christ, putting her testimony on par with Peter. Even in Luke, however, she notes that Martha is portrayed as a competent householder, even while Luke makes her out to be nagging and missing the bigger picture.
And then the author says this: “Our Christian tradition has followed Luke. We have kept on telling Luke’s version and forgotten that of John. And we have rediscovered ourselves in Martha, the one who is useful, the one who serves, but is clearly of secondary importance” (emphasis mine). And that just sums up women in Mormonism. We are needed–but our necessity isn’t recognized or valued in any real way or given status. We are useful–but in behind-the-scenes ways and only in ways that are sanctioned by the patriarchy.
I also look at the story of Mary and Martha and think is why we need more women in the room. The story is so often told as “Mary or Martha”–as if they are in competition with each other. If women had all the role models, all the voices in the room and in the scriptures–a dozen apostolic examples of the different ways to follow Jesus–we would be able to more whole and so would Mary and Martha.
Rereading this, it’s not really in response to Mindy’s excellent essay and the points she raises about how we look at Mary and Martha and when women break the rules vs. when they don’t, and how arbitrary it seems to be. (Because in any other situation, the same scripture writer would have praised Martha and condemned Mary.) I just have been thinking about Martha this week. There is simply no winning for women in a patriarchy. There can’t be. Definitionally, there is no space for us as anything but silent and supporting characters.
Book: “The Women Around Jesus,” Elisabeth Mortmann-Wendel
Thank you for sharing, Heidi. It’s nice to have multiple interpretive options for this commonly told story.
I am a Martha and I’ve always hated that story in Luke, recognizing the feeling of being the one who is holding everything together for everyone else. Standing in the kitchen feeling alone and uncared for, hearing everyone else gathered in the other room.
But I hold to Martha’s confession in John–SHE is the one who RUNS to Jesus and asks for the miracle while Mary is at home grieving. Clearly, Jesus and Martha had a deeper conversation between the kitchen and Lazarus’ grave that no one else was privvy to. He saw her troubled and careworn heart, and He loved her.
Upon further reflection, perhaps the most painful part of the way this account is written, is how it is just one more example of men making comparisons between and judgements about women. This pits women against each other and feels so grossly similar to the dark stain of polygamy and women placed in competition to gain male favor in an effort to earn a place in patriarchal heaven. As long as women are threatened by each other they will be too distracted and insecure to truly direct their efforts towards dismantling patriarchy. It is truly heart breaking.
My grandfather used to say that behind every successful Mormon was a Martha in the background. For every SAHM who spends 20 hours a week doing churchy service, is someone working full time, often in a dog-eat-dog world enabling it. For every GA in the red velvet chairs, is a Marjorie Hinckley or Frances Monson who stayed behind to take care of the family as their husbands were gone all the time. They will tell you that the church came first in their marriage and lives. Ask a bishop’s wife how she feels and what she does for the family while hubby is completely occupied.
We give a hat-tip to the security, A/V, healthcare and other personnel who work each general conference, but these people rarely climb the leadership ladder themselves. And what of all the countless teachers and nurses who birthed our babies, held the hands of the dying, patched us up, taught us to read and function, all while receiving over a hundred years of condemnation from the pulpit? Serving in the chinch, spending time in the temple, being able to pay tithing, etc. is all a privilege, often enabled by someone else’s sacrifice.
If you don’t believe it happens in your particular family, then we can step back and look at the macro picture- systemic racism that enables classism and disparate wealth opportunities. As much as we taut the self-made American dreamer, we overlook the disadvantages of mutli-generational haves and have nots, red-lining, etc. While we as Mormons don’t drink coffee or tea- even such a simple act has for centuries entrapped entire populations, caused wars, and at times enslaved people in equatorial countries.The concept of “fair trade” is today still relatively small percentage of coffee, tea, chocolate, exotic woods, rubber, açaí berries, and mass produced goods. Is that engagement ring a blood diamond? The smartphone in my hands- do I really know about the conditions at the factory? What I’ve read is horrifying. My artificial Christmas tree, my car and its fuel, and most of the briefly used items in my Walmart shopping cart all come from disadvantaged individuals (sometimes even children) whose health, environment, liberty, education, and other opportunities are abused if not completely deprived.
If we look at Martha as the archetypical worker taken advantage of, maybe we aren’t the only ones as women for whom the violin strums.
What I believe is that Jesus of Nazareth was the champion of the disadvantaged, and his death came about as he fought the powerful Roman institution on behalf of his oppressed and occupied people. Yes, he atoned for us, but specifically, he was executed for revolting against the establishment. The beatitudes were his platform, his purpose-his thesis- as he blessed the oppressed and cursed those who accrued wealth on their backs.
The story of Martha and Mary is a spiritual and symbolic one which welcomes all of us to a state of receiving and rest, NOT a literal one. In the larger context- it is not a condemnation of the worker, but if anything- call to release from this entrapment, as refreshing and sweet as the thought of water in the desert.
That being said- 99% of scriptures are traumatic for women to read. Women rarely make an appearance, and when they do- they are either whores, symbols of evil, complainers/quitters, sinners. baby-makers, property, held to impossible examples of virginal mothers, or enigmas like Mary and Martha. My heroine, Carol Lynn Pearson, has raised the issue of the violent portrayal of women in all the scriptures and asked why it needs to be that way- and whether it could be edited (ie JST style) to be loving towards God’s daughters. The degrading language of the scriptures regarding women is yet another reason for women to be entrusted with ecclesiastical duties- including the sacred task of recording and prophesying. Maybe if women could tell the story too…they wouldn’t always be villainized.
Oh, I love the idea of thinking of the Marthas we are inflicting damage on while we go about our thoughtless consumptive lives. I think that might help me be more mindful.
Mortimer, this comment has so many good thoughts. Care to expand it to a guest post?
https://exponentii.org/submit-a-guest-post/
Hello Kylee!
I would be honored to do so. My apologies for a lengthy comment- and appreciate the opportunity to better communicate.
No need to apologize for a thoughtful comment. We love those here!
Oh goodness! Spellcheck changed your name! I meant to say thank you, “Kaylee”!
A few years ago I read Beth Allison Barr’s book The Making of Biblical Womanhood. In one part of the book she talks about this story and how the way we (church people over the last few hundred years) talk about Martha isn’t an accurate depiction of what is happening in the text. She expands on the context of the text and, not to give it away, but I was on a walk listening to the audiobook and I think my mouth was literally hanging open listening to the part about Martha. She was a bad*** (not sure if I can say the whole thing here). The obscuring of her story is another way Martha deserved better.