Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. Luke 10:38
She has only herself to blame. “You invited him,” her brother reminds her, leaning against the door frame.
“Yes, and . . . ? Would you rather I didn’t? Should I just take, take, take from him, like almost everybody in this town, and offer nothing in return?”
“Well . . .” her brother glances sideways into the center room where all the people are. “You have a point. Can I do anything? Draw some water, or . . . pluck a chicken?”
“It’s not your job. It’s that sister of ours. You go do your host duties—has everyone had their feet washed? Do we need more rushes on the floor? Oh, and drop a word to her while you’re at it. There’s plenty for her to do.”
An hour passes. The bread is mixed and rising, dates are pitted, olives pressed, coriander seeded. She sends the hired girl out with stuffed grape leaves to hold everyone over until dinner’s ready—late, of course—and keeps on working, with one ear open for appreciative comments from the common room. Instead she hears nothing among the murmuring voices but kingdom talk. Men! Always nattering on about the future or the theoretical, and where would any of that be without the here and now and dinner on the table? The grape leaves were an improvisation when it became clear that the meal was going to be delayed. A few handfuls of leftover barley, some raisins, a touch of lemon and ground clove . . . not too bad, she thought. But from the way they appeared to be shoveling them down with no break in the conversation, her appetizers might as well be grass.
“Is the lamb back from the butcher’s yet? Then go get it! Tell him you’ll wait—hurry him up!” When she tries to start a fire in the outside grill, the flint refuses to spark. Angrier with every scrape. Mary’s the best fire-builder, no question. It takes a certain mindlessness—or patience, to put the best light on it—to coax a flame from dry tinder. Anxiety is not conducive.
The boy is back from the butcher’s with a bleeding haunch of lamb. “Here—” she hurls the flint at him— “You light the fire!”
Brushing off her hands, beating them against her skirt, she stalks into the common room: right—smack—dab—into the center, where Jesus is holding forth among all those clueless men, with cow-eyed Mary as close as she can get, gazing up at him.
She checks herself at the last minute. Rather than grab her sister by the cowl and drag her back to the kitchen, she steps up with a respectful, though exasperated, bow and a sideways nod to the startled assembly.
“Lord–as you see, we have many mouths to feed, and my sister has left me to do it all alone. Please tell her to do her duty.” And then, “Don’t you care?”
Did she say that? Certainly she’s been thinking it. He surely knows she’s been slaving in the kitchen all afternoon, and unlike his gaggle of self-important disciples, he surely knows why. She’s angry with Mary, yes, but as he turns his eyes on her she recognizes the truth: she’s also angry with him. Furious, in fact. He knows everything, doesn’t he? He sees the injustice, he feels the burden, and—
The fact is, he doesn’t care.
Not the way she would like him to.
“Martha!
“Martha . . .”
The first Martha gets her attention; the second beckons her to the inner circle, where Mary is—a circle by invitation only, but everyone is invited. Everyone: not just the gifted or the brilliant, or the knowing ones, or the striving ones. But you can’t come bearing gifts—not even appetizers or condiments or a perfectly roasted rack of lamb. Those are good things, but the Lord doesn’t care how you distinguish yourself. But “Seek ye first . . .” And after the lamb is devoured and forgotten, you’ll live on in the Kingdom.
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