16th Sunday of the Year - Martha and Mary

Martha and Mary. It is quite easy to set the question of thought for this week – am I a “Martha” or am I a “Mary”, with the explanation that Martha is wrong and Mary is right.

Martha is the ‘busy-bee’, hurrying and scurrying around the place, too busy to make note and take time to pay attention to Jesus.

Mary is more-focused: her attention is on the Lord; her gaze and her listening are centred on him and on what he has to say.

We could say that it is obvious, as the Lord says, that Martha has her priorities wrong and Mary has them right. And we would be right - without being unfair to Martha.

She was right in what she was doing, at the time and at the place and in the general circumstance of receiving a guest into your house – she was right. The Jews were very hot on hospitality; to them it was the height of good manners to ensure that your guest was looked after, taken care of, washed, anointed, fed and watered, with great care and attention to their every need. This was good manners. This showed your guest how much you valued them. It would be an insult to anything less, especially for Jesus, who was so highly thought of.

And generally speaking, Martha was right: but Mary was more so. Jesus had come to visit and to speak to them. What was more important – to prepare the table and the food or to sit and listen to him. What would be the point in saying “I have looked after you and fed you but not heard a word that you said?”

It would be about meeting your needs and not his: it would be about addressing your norms and your rules of hospitality rather than taking the opportunity to sit, to listen, to learn and to love.

And so I come back to my starter question, “Am I a “Martha” or am I a “Mary”? We use both as examples of how to be, of how to live good Christian lives. We are for ever asking for volunteers to help with this or with that; to help run or take part in one team or other: and we do need them. We do need people who are natural organisers, natural arrangers, natural achievers: people who we can rely on to get things done. We need them as we have never needed them before.  We need our Marthas. But – But

But we do not need them instead of our Marys, our pray-ers. We do not need them instead of our listeners. We do not need them instead of our askers or our thankers. No – we need to be both Mary and Martha – but we need to know that we are bothand know when to change priority with what we are doing.

When we need to be busy – be busy: when we need to be active and even a bit frenetic – then be exactly that – and offer this up as a prayerful activity to the Lord. But – But

But when we need to be paying our full attention to the Lord then this is what we must do. When we need to listen to the Lord and try and hear and understand what it is that he wants us to hear – then that is what we must do – with our whole heart, our whole mind, our whole spirit and our whole understanding. When we need to be there in the moment with Jesus, then we must switch everything – everything else – off.

When we are here at mass, then this is our time to be in the presence of the Lord: to listen to him, to hear him, to understand him and to take him into our very centres – as Mary did – with every essence of our being. This isn’t the time to rattle off and through a myriad of other prayers and to complete a host of prayerful tasks. We are focused on the Lord. We are centred on the Lord. We are prioritised on the Lord.

Let us consider both Martha and Mary and the excellent examples they both give us for what they both did exceedingly well. But let us also remember Jesus’ message to Martha, “Martha, Martha, you worry and fret about so many things, yet few are needed, indeed only one.” Let us ask our Lord to give us the sight to see when to use our talents to the best for us and for our church-community: to know when to hustle and bustle and to know when to sit and listen; to hear and to understand; when to act and when to attend to the Lord.