A Sermon for The Sixth Sunday After Pentecost, year C
A Sermon on Mary and Martha preached on July 20th, 2025 at St George's Anglican Church, Place du Canada.
Amos 8:1-12, Psalm 52, Colossians 1:15-28, Luke 10:38-42
Let us pray: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Jesus says that only one thing is needed. This world is so good, so remarkably skilled, at telling us that we need everything. We need products to look a certain way; we need status, degrees, prestigious positions, certain kinds of food, brands, and experiences.
The world tells us that we need to do everything, and that we need to do it all at once. We are already behind by the time we reach preschool and the only way to catch up is to buy more and more products and to move at a break-neck speed that is not sustainable and that makes us, ourselves, into products rather than people.
Am I wrong?
Today’s Gospel is one that comes up a lot in Church life, probably because the kind of worries that Martha seems to be experiencing are so relatable. It is a highly relatable scene. A domestic scene.
It connects us across cultures and generations. Who among us has not been madly getting ready for something important, only to see a loved one relaxing or chatting when there are still preparations to be made? The guest room isn’t ready; the fruit plate is still nothing more than unsliced apples and pears lurking in the refrigerator.
Or - inversely - do you remember a time, or a dozen times, when you were minding your own business, reading a book you loved, having a fabulous conversation, or being neck-deep in some other worthwhile occupation when you’ve been told off for not doing what someone else thought you should be doing?
This very human moment seems to highlight the fact that being human has within it a dichotomy.1 We have been given these large and beautiful brains, full of clever dreams and expansive ideas, with the capacity to listen and learn, to recognize beauty and evaluate truth, to delight and question, to see, hear, interpret, and enjoy.
But, we are also finite creatures with finite bodies. We have to eat. We must take care of ourselves and our environments. Our time is limited and our kitchens need to get cleaned. Someone has to prepare beds and wash the clothes, food does not prepare itself, wine does not pour itself.
I think this is why when we read about Mary and Martha - and this domestic scene where Mary is listening at Jesus’ feet and Martha is consumed with worries and rushing around the house - we always seem to focus our attention on the question of what is better: spending time with God, reading our bibles, or doing practical things?
However, in doing so, in focusing on which is better between those two options we are engaging in another extremely human act, and we are only half listening.
Martha asks Jesus: "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her, then, to help me."
And with Martha, we add our own frustrations and disappointed hopes. We pour into this question every time something hasn’t felt fair. From that Christmas when your siblings left you to do the chores all by yourself, to the student who didn’t pull their weight in a group project, to the co-worker who let you down, or the spouse who is off golfing or out getting their nails done when your in-laws are arriving any minute. Our divorces, our break-ups, our shattered dreams, that missed promotion, the dissolution of a promising business partnership, when our Mentors lie and let us down, it all joins in this lament. This demand that Jesus do something. The cry that things ought to be fair on our terms.
But, we know those feelings are ugly. We know expressing them is messy and costly so with Martha we couch it in self righteousness - and we ask Jesus to make things fair. To make the other person do what we think they ought to do.
But that isn’t what Jesus does. That is not what Jesus says.
He does not shame Martha and He does not rebuke Mary. He points out that Martha isn’t asking for what she thinks she is asking. He points out that she is worried and distracted by many things, and then He calls her home. “Few things are needed--indeed, only one [says Jesus]. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."
This is Jesus doing the same thing we have seen him do so many times in every single Gospel - he is flipping the script.
He isn’t answering the question Martha asked with her lips, but the longing and the fears that Martha carries in her heart.
Jesus is telling her that it will be okay.
That she will be okay.
Ultimately, the weight of whether her family lives well, whether people eat and sleep in safety, is not on her shoulders. That weight is on His.
If what I am saying is uncomfortably pushing back against years of moralistic Sunday School versions of this story, where Martha is painted as a bossy boots who is trying to pull Mary away from the noble path of her faith and therefore not worth listening to.2 Or against the moralistic readings of the 1700s that focused on personal, individual responsibilities, and minding your own business.3 Or the bold feminist theology of the 60s and 70s, which focused - validly - on the unfair gendered household expectations and how Jesus seems to flout them in this passage. Rejecting Martha’s attempt to enforce the patriarchy on Mary.4 Bear with me - I am not discrediting other ways of reading this well beloved passage. They are all - most of them anyways - interesting and edifying.
One of the most beautiful things about studying scripture as Anglicans is that we can hold together multiple interpretations in humility, pondering them in our hearts and watching how they bear fruit in our lives.
For instance, I love John Newton’s Poem on Mary and Martha5. It was a favourite of my Great Aunts, who had a sister very like Martha and saw herself - and was seen by the rest of us - very much as a Mary.
Martha her love and joy expressed
By care to entertain her guest;
While Mary sat to hear her Lord,
And could not bear to lose a word.
The principle in both the same,
Produced in each a different aim;
The one to feast the Lord was led,
The other waited to be fed.
But Mary chose the better part,
Her Saviour's words refreshed her heart;
While busy Martha angry grew,
And lost her time and temper too.
With warmth she to her sister spoke,
But brought upon herself rebuke;
One thing is needful, and but one,
Why do thy thoughts on many run?
How oft are we like Martha vexed,
Encumbered, hurried, and perplexed!
While trifles so engross our thought,
The one thing needful is forgot.
Lord teach us this one thing to choose,
Which they who gain can never lose;
Sufficient in itself alone,
And needful, were the world our own.
Let groveling hearts the world admire,
Thy love is all that I require!
Gladly I may the rest resign,
If the one needful thing be mine!
Regardless of how you interpret this pericope in Luke, it is important for us to pay attention to what Jesus actually did in this passage. He was put in the middle of a fight between two strong-willed sisters. And He responded not to the question being asked but to the questions - to the worries - of Martha’s heart.
Only one thing is needed. This world is so good at telling us that we must do everything and be everything. But, when it comes down to it, one thing is needed.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength, with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.
How you do that is going to look different for each of you. But, when we do it - if one were to zoom out - the whole world changes.
Amen.
Yes, I am badly paraphrasing Ernest Becker, but honestly when am I not?
I feel like there is a Veggie Tales to this effect but I wasn’t a big Veggie Tales girlie and preferred to stay in church when the Sunday School wheeled out a thick bodied ancient TV so I’m very open to correction here. I do remember a very telling colouring sheet with a harsh and sharp looking Martha yelling and a beautiful, beatific Mary looking up at Jesus basically shining with light. Something like this one:
Think Adam Smith inspired Children’s Bibles and sermons by Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield or even/most accurately the Wesley bros and the holiness movement.
Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, etc.
Mary and Martha by John Newton, https://allpoetry.com/Martha-And-Mary Unless my memory is conflating things, I first encountered this poem in a book of collected verses with a tan cloth cover with navy blue lettering on the cover, but I will probably never see that book again. It was in my Great Aunts basement for YEARS but who knows where it ended up.