The three scenes in the house at Bethany are not all related in the same Gospel, yet the sisters are true to their character throughout.
Now, if we were to read even a small part of the literature that has been written on Martha and Mary, we should be astonished and perhaps bewildered by the variety of ways in which their characters are contrasted.
1. “Martha,” says an American author, “is the ritualistic Episcopalian, proper, orderly, devout, reading her prayers from a book, and worshipping in silence her acknowledged Lord. But Mary is inclined to be an unconventional Methodist, zealous, impulsive, careless of precedent, praying the prayer that springs to her lips from an overflowing heart, and expressing her gratitude in most unexpected ways.” To complete the picture, Lazarus is offered as “the Presbyterian of the family, solid, sound, silent, philosophical.”
2. By mystical writers Martha has been taken to represent the active and Mary the contemplative life. If, for instance, yon were to turn to Madame Guyon's Commentaries upon the interior sense of the Scriptures, you would find her discoursing something like this:
“Martha receives Jesus into her house; that is as much as the active life can attain to. But Mary, who signifies the contemplative life, was seated. That ‘being seated' expresses the repose of her contemplation; in that sacred rest she does nothing but listen to the voice of her dear Master, who teaches, nourishes, and quickens her with His own word. Oh! Mary, happy Mary, to hear that word! It made itself heard because you put yourself in a state to hear it: you listened for it, and you rested in that silence and that peace without which it is not possible to hear that word which is heard only in heart-silence!”
St. Teresa, however, whom Dr. Rendel Harris calls “the most practical and level-headed of the ascetical school of mystics,” shows an inclination towards Martha and away from Mary, as commonly interpreted; and we can perhaps read between the lines and conclude that she had been a little overdone with those in her convent who practised too exclusively the cult of the younger sister. “Martha,” she says, “was a true saint though she did not achieve Contemplation. What more could one wish than like her to have Christ often in one's house, and to serve Him and to sit at His very table? Had Martha been rapt like Mary, who would have given the Lord to eat? Those of the Active life are the soldiers who fight in the battles; those of the Contemplative are the standard-bearers who carry aloft the banner of humanity, across which lies the Cross. And remember, if the standard-bearer drops the standard, the battle has to be lost.”
Oh, when those mystic barriers
Our Maries pass, we dream
That in some fair Elysian
Their thirst has found the Stream;
But the Marthas are our cottagers
Who make our fireside bliss.
The Beatific Vision-
She never talked of this.
A sudden mist our seeing blurs,
Such sacramental grace
Hath poured its revelation
Into that patient face;
And neighbour-hand toward neighbour stirs,
Her sainthood to confess
By love's own consecration,
Memorial kindliness.
3. A more modern conception, but somewhat akin to the last, is the contrast that is seen in the two sisters between the busy, practical person and the quiet, thoughtful, or sentimental. Martha is clear-headed, practical, serving in many things, never resting so much as when serving. She would work, and keep others working, and nothing pained her so much as dust and grime. Mary, her sister, was quiet, thoughtful, and studious. She was good as gold, and she also could work. She had been busy all the morning helping her sister; but when Jesus came, she would throw up all work and sit and listen to Him, and Martha had to prepare food and serve it.
Martha supplies the business-like prose, Mary the poetry, of religion, which-though some may ask, as did Sir Isaac Newton, when Paradise Lost was read to him, “Very good; but what does it prove?” and others, “What does it do?”-soars into a region too high for evidences, and performs service too refined and subtle for ordinary tests. Martha rears the needful things of life in the garden of the Lord; Mary cultivates its flowers. Martha “serves” the meals of “the household of faith”; Mary brings the costly spikenard. In the Divine ceremonial, Martha gives the sacrifices, Mary the sweet incense; and as “the house was filled with the odour of her ointment,” so the spiritual temple of God is fragrant with her perfumes.
Yea, Lord!-Yet some must serve.
Not all with tranquil heart,
Even at Thy dear feet,
Wrapped in devotion sweet,
May sit apart!
Yea, Lord!-Yet some must bear
The burden of the day,
Its labour and its heat,
While others at Thy feet
May muse and pray!
Yea, Lord!-Yet some must do
Life's daily task-work; some
Who fain would sing must toil
Amid earth's dust and moil,
While lips are dumb!
Yea, Lord!-Yet man must earn
And woman bake the bread!
And some must watch and wake
Early, for others' sake,
Who pray instead!
Yea, Lord!-Yet even Thou
Hast need of earthly care,
I bring the bread and wine
To Thee, O Guest Divine!
Be this my prayer!1 [Note: Julia. C. R. Dorr.]
4. But it must not be forgotten that the difference which our Lord Himself points out is between one who has many things on her mind and one who has few. The words in which He rebuked Martha are, according to the margin of the Revised Version, which probably represents the best manuscripts: “Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things, but few things are needful, or one.” The “few” things would be in contrast with the “many” things with which, as St. Luke tells us, Martha was troubled. Jesus thinks that Martha is preparing a needlessly sumptuous meal, one much more elaborate than is necessary, especially considering the cost of it to the hostess in trouble and temper. Then the few things would be a few dishes. Jesus really does not care to see a great display of viands got together in honour of Himself. Much less would suffice; nay, a single dish would be enough. That was all He had been accustomed to at the frugal table in the carpenter's cottage at Nazareth. He has no inclination to be the object of lavish hospitality. Had He not said on another occasion, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to accomplish his work”? and had He not warned His disciples not to toil for the meat that perisheth? It was another thing when the labour was lovingly bestowed by generous hands for the sake of honouring Him. Still this was not the sort of honour He cared for, and He certainly could not accept it at the cost of a spoilt temper and a family quarrel. Wordsworth's ideal of “plain living and high thinking” is much nearer to the mind of Jesus.
It is true that many resent the emphasis which is in this way put upon simplicity of life and occupation. They dislike the new reading, “a few things, Martha, or one.” They dislike the abandonment of an old interpretation, which has certainly had gracious results attaching to it. “You have spoiled my best sermon,” said one of the Revisers when the change was agreed on. And certainly it does sound much higher to say that the one thing needful was to choose Christ and attach oneself to Him; and it looks like a bathos to make Christ peep into the kitchen and say to Martha not merely that three courses are as good as ten, but that one course is as good as three! Why should our Lord trouble to simplify life and our ideas of what life consists in? The answer is that both our happiness and our usefulness depend upon the simplifications which we introduce into life, or which He introduces for us. And the limitation works out in this way: it relieves us from distraction, and it finds us the leisure which is necessary for the cultivation of the spiritual life.
But, whether the “many” and the “one” refer to dishes at the table or not, Martha was wrong in being anxiously worried over many things that might be done, instead of attending faithfully to her single duty of the hour. This Jesus recognized, and therefore He reproved her. Mary was right in doing the one thing that was to be done, when her Divine Master and Guest wanted just that duty done, and for this Jesus commended her.
(1) One danger of giving attention to many things is to neglect the distinction between things that are important and things that are unimportant. The secret of the highest and purest success in life lies in the ability first to choose and then to make effort after those things which are of really greatest worth. Of course, together with this choice, there must be a ceasing to strive after things of no intrinsic or permanent value. This is what Jesus meant when He said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.”
Much time, and thought, and means are expended on the merest framework of life; on house and dress; on excursions and evening gatherings; on useless accomplishments, and the acquirement of artificial manners and movements; while what should gladly be our great subjects of thought, if we are honest in claiming to be immortals, are too often relegated to a narrow corner of the week.1 [Note: G. Morrison, The House of God, 169.]
(2) Another danger is restlessness, fuss, and discontent. How clearly, how vividly we see Martha, the good-hearted, bustling, over-anxious mistress and very-much-manager of the household! She is so very busy about so very many things; and all the time she is firmly convinced in her own mind that all she does and all she would provide is absolutely necessary. Not one of all this multitude of things must be wanting. Custom, and her own reputation in her own eyes and among her neighbours, demand them all. The amount of mental and physical energy which she consumed in providing and preparing and arranging the “many things” which she deemed necessary, she probably never computed, nor did she stay for a moment to consider whether she had forgotten one or two things which in intrinsic worth might be of far greater value than the sum total of all the other things about which she was busying herself. Her mind was too divided to think clearly: part of it was running on this thing and part on that, and yet another part on something else; and her bodily movements were a reflection of her mental ones. As we say, she was all the time in a bustle, running here and there, anxious, distracted, worried; and because she was so she was much inclined to blame others, even the Lord Jesus, who were really guiltless of the cause of her unhappiness.
Each to his own: yet surely I have read
How of two sisters (each to Him was dear),
One listened but to what the Saviour said,-
Thought to be near
The Lord Himself were best:-the other ran
Laid plates, clashed dishes, filled and set the can;
And all to serve Him. Yet the Lord preferred
A quiet face, and that turned up to read
The reason of His silence or His word;
And said indeed
Somewhat, I fancy, of a better part
Near to His Feet, but nearer to His Heart.
Choose thou, then, Martha, if thou wilt; perchance
The joy of serving is enough for thee.
Let me choose Mary; yea, love's arrogance
Is all for me:
Nay, more than Mary-let me seek His side
And sit by Him in penitential pride.1 [Note: R. H. Benson, Poems, 67.]
5. Is it not possible to combine them? May there not be a Martha and a Mary in one person? At least may we not desire to have both in the happy home? It is a grateful thought, says Dr. John Watson, that Jesus, who was homeless and a wanderer, who was often hungry and thirsty, who was soon to be shamefully used and tortured, had Bethany with its two hostesses. One of them cared for His body, and this is woman's work, so that Martha is the patron saint of all good housewives and careful mothers and skilful nurses; and the other entered into His thoughts and plans, so that Mary is the chief type of the women who see visions and understand deep things, and show us the example of saintship. Within this haunt of Jesus were found the two people who make the complement of religion-Martha, the type of action; and Mary, of meditation. They stand together in the great affairs of the Church: St. Peter and St. John, St. Francis and St. Dominic, Erasmus and Luther; they are in our homes: the eager, strenuous, industrious people on whom the work falls, and the gentle, gracious, thoughtful souls, who are the consolation and quietness of life. Between the two kinds no comparison must be made, upon neither must any judgment be passed; both are the friends of Jesus, and the helpers of the world.
Do not let us forget amidst the sweet perfume of the unguent that the Lord Jesus Christ sat at meat. I am right glad that Mary brought the alabaster box to anoint her Lord. But I am glad, too, that busy Martha had taken the trouble, as I am sure she would, to get for Him just that which she thought He would relish most. That He should sit at meat was quite as important as the anointing, and even more necessary.1 [Note: M. G. Pearse, In the Banqueting House, 111.]
I cannot choose; I should have liked so much
To sit at Jesus' feet,-to feel the touch
Of His kind, gentle hand upon my head
While drinking in the gracious words He said.
And yet to serve Him!-Oh, divine employ,-
To minister and give the Master joy,
To bathe in coolest springs His weary feet,
And wait upon Him while He sat at meat!
Worship or service,-which? Ah, that is best
To which He calls us, be it toil or rest,-
To labour for Him in life's busy stir,
Or seek His feet, a silent worshipper.2 [Note: Caroline Atherton Mason.]
