1. Martha makes a strong appeal to the present generation, especially to comfort-loving men and energetic women. We respond with approval to the words which George Eliot puts into the mouth of one of her characters in Scenes of Clerical Life: “I've nothing to say again' her piety, my dear; but I know very well I shouldn't like her to cook my victual. When a man comes in hungry an' tired, piety won't feed him, I reckon. Hard carrots ull lie heavy on his stomach, piety or no piety. I called in one day when she was dishin' up Mr. Tryan's dinner, an' I could see the potatoes was as watery as watery. It's right enough to be speritial-I'm no enemy to that; but I like my potatoes mealy. I don't see as anybody 'ull go to heaven the sooner for not digestin' their dinner-providin' they don't die sooner, as mayhap Mr. Tryan will, poor dear man.”
But even the comfort-loving husband or bachelor is compelled sometimes to wish for a little neglect. Dr. Rendel Harris asks: Did you ever have your papers put in order, or your books dusted? Was not the person who undertook that arduous task of the opposite sex and of the sisterhood of St. Martha? Is not the sorting of papers and the rehabilitation of the outsides of books as much a matter of feminine diaconate as the peeling of potatoes or the beating of eggs? But I need not labour the point: it has been done for me by Dr. John Watson in his story of Rabbi Saunderson. Rabbi Saunderson had a housekeeper whose name was Mrs. Pitillo (Martha Pitillo was her long name, for certain), and he tells us of her gifts in the following strain:-
“She had the episcopal faculty in quite a conspicuous degree, and was, I have often thought, a woman of sound judgment.
“We were not able at all times to see eye to eye, as she had an unfortunate tendency to meddle with my books and papers, and to arrange them after an artificial fashion. This she called tidying and, in its most extreme form, cleaning. With all her excellences, there was also in her what I have noticed in most women, a flavour of guile, and on one occasion, when I was making a brief journey through Holland and France in search of comely editions of the Fathers, she had the books carried out into the garden and dusted. It was the space of two years before I regained mastery of my library again, and unto this day I cannot lay my hands on the Service-book of King Henry VIII., which I had in the second edition, to say nothing of an original edition of Rutherford's Lex Rex. It does not become me, however, to reflect on the efforts of that worthy woman, and, if any one could be saved by good works, her place is assured. I was with her before she died, and her last words to me were, ‘Tell Jean tae dust yir bukes ance in sax months, and for ony sake keep ae chair for sittin' on.' It was not perhaps the testimony one would have desired in the circumstances, but yet, Mr. Carmichael, I have often thought that there was a spirit of-of unselfishness, in fact, that showed the working of grace.”1 [Note: J. Rendel Harris, Aaron's Breastplate, 67.]
2. It is easy for us all to sympathize with Martha in her desire to entertain Jesus worthily. It must have seemed to her as if she could not do enough in showing Him all hospitality. And, indeed, this festive season was a busy time for the mistress of a wealthy household, especially in the near neighbourhood of Jerusalem, whence her brother might, after the first two festive days, bring with him honoured guests from the city.
But it is evident that Martha got some harm as well as some good out of Jesus' visit; for she seems to have been sadly flustered and flurried, and even somewhat peevish and irritable. She seems indeed to have been out of temper with the Master as well as with her sister, and to have implied some little reproach on Him as well as on Mary. But why all this disturbance and irritation? Surely it all came of this, that she was thinking more of serving Christ than of pleasing Him. If she had paused to reflect, she must have seen that a sharp, half-reproachful word, and the obvious loss of composure and temper, would cause the Master a good deal more pain than the best-served meal in the world could give Him pleasure. She was busy about Christ, but she failed to enter into sympathy with Christ. She waited upon Him outwardly, but she did not understand how to minister to His inmost Spirit; and so, even while inviting and welcoming Christ into her household, she forfeited that peace and calm which it is Christ's joy to bring to His own.
We need not question Martha's love to Christ. What we must question, however, is whether she made her service the fruit of her love. In all the New Testament works are approved and appreciated, but they follow faith and are the outcome of love. Think, for example, of some of the homely truths insisted on by St. Paul. They are the plain, simple duties such as ordinary men and women are called upon to perform in the home and in society, but he puts them on a footing quite different from ordinary standards and ideas. If we read, for example, his Epistle to the Romans we shall see, first of all, the great principles of the faith laid down. The great facts of God's relation to and dealing with man are first of all enumerated; then, as a consequence of this, on no lower ground, duty-plain, simple, everyday duty inspired by God. It is just the same when we read his Epistles to the Ephesians and to the Colossians: the plan and purpose join duty to the highest and greatest of all sources. It is Mary first of all at the feet of Jesus, choosing the better part that shall not be taken away, and presently doing, in the inspiration of it, little acts of duty, which become new things with a new power under its influence, new adornments to her character, new tokens of her love. The love of Christ which constraineth us must be precisely such a power as that-always directing us, always with us, so vast in its greatness that no crisis can come to our lives in which it cannot help us, so fine and penetrating in its power that the simplest little acts rest just as truly upon it as the greatest deeds to which our Master shall ever call us. The glory of a true womanhood is in that tenderness and care which sees that nothing is too small to be performed faithfully, for the consecrating power of love can produce from these little things a rich spiritual harvest.
Unutterably precious to me is the woman, the native of the hills, almost my own age, or a little younger, whose spirit is set upon the finest springs, and her sympathies have an almost masculine depth, and a length of reflection that wins your confidence, and stays your sinking heart. The lady can't do it. This class, of what I suppose you would call peasant women (I won't have the word), seems made for the purpose of rectifying everything, and redressing the balance, inspiring us with that awe which the immediate presence of absolute womanhood creates in us. The plain, practical woman, with the outspoken throat and the eternal eyes. Oh, mince me, madam, mince me your pretty mincings! Deliberate your dainty reticences! Balbutient loveliness, avaunt! Here is a woman that talks like a bugle, and, in everything, sees God.1 [Note: Letters of T. E. Brown.]
3. The dangers of giving the first place to the work itself are many. We may notice these five: Absorption, Fussiness, Worry, Temper, and Fault-finding.
(1) Absorption.-We know that Christian work in itself is intensely interesting; indeed, there is nothing more likely to become engrossing. We all know how absorbed men may become in their own special pursuits. For instance, we have read about Sir Isaac Newton, who used to be so absorbed in his mathematical and astronomical researches that he was scarcely able to give a thought to the common duties and circumstances of life, and used frequently to make the most ridiculous blunders about commonplace place things, because he took so profound an interest in, and was so fully occupied with, his own great discoveries. And so it is with other branches of knowledge. When men devote their attention to a particular branch of knowledge or science, it becomes a sort of passion, and they no longer find it necessary to stimulate themselves to exertion in that particular; rather they have to check or curb themselves, in order to prevent their minds from becoming too deeply absorbed in their favourite studies. And it sometimes happens that when the mind is given over to some special pursuit, interest in their work becomes so keen that men seem to lose all power of checking themselves, and their brains go on working, as it were, automatically, when they do not intend them to be working at all.
I well remember some years ago hearing a touching story of a late Cambridge professor, who was one of the greatest Greek scholars of our time. For some few months before he died he was advised by his friends to shut up his books, give up his studies, and go as much as possible into social life, in order that he might be drawn away from those subjects in which his mind had become so absorbed that his constitution was impaired; indeed, he was threatened with softening of the brain. On one occasion he was in a drawing-room surrounded by cheerful company, when a half-sad smile passed over his countenance as he observed to a friend, “What is the use of you shutting up my books and not allowing me to work? While I have been here I have traced the derivations of three distinct Greek words, and detected their connection with certain Sanscrit roots.” Such was the force of his ruling passion.1 [Note: W. H. M. H. Aitken, The Highway of Holiness, 159.]
When I was immersed in some foolish cogitations, my father, who was a good angler, would come into my study on a fine breezy day, and ask me to go with him to the banks of the Don or the Deveron, to indulge in a few days' fishing. A reasonable young man and a good son would have jumped at this, but I obeyed with indifference, because that particular excursion did not suit my humour, or rather had not been shaped out in my plans; and instead of being good company to my father, jogged on behind, humming a tune to myself!… Such is the evil growth and the unkindly fruit of every sort of self-absorption, however pious, or poetical, or philosophical. The worst kind of selfishness, no doubt, is that kind of aggressive greed which is never satisfied with its own, and feeds upon appropriating what belongs to others. But it is selfishness also, and of a most unhuman kind, when a man systematically denies himself to his fellows, and does not readily yield himself to the claims which one man, in a thousand shapes, is entitled to make on another.1 [Note: J. S. Blackie, Notes of a Life, 36.]
(2) Fussiness.-Martha is not so much active as fussy; there is no sense of beauty or peace in her work, save that of getting ready for the Master's meal; none of that element of self-forgetfulness which is of so deep a necessity for the religious life of mankind.
Now to correct this noisy fussiness we need to learn to imitate Mary and to sit at Jesus' feet, and in silence and stillness of soul to hear His words. No amount of service will make up for the loss of this inward and secret fellowship of the soul with Christ-this hidden life of love, in which Christ and the consecrated heart are bound together in a certain holy intimacy and familiarity. This it is that sanctifies even the most commonplace toil, and the loss of this robs even the holiest things of their sanctity. At Jesus' feet-that is our place of privilege and of blessing, and here it is that we are to be educated and fitted for the practical duties of life. Here we are to renew our strength while we wait on Him, and to learn how to mount on wings as eagles; and here we are to become possessed of that true knowledge which is power. Here we are to learn how real work is to be done, and to be armed with the true motive-power to do it. Here we are to find solace amidst both the trials of work-and they are not few-and the trials of life in general; and here we are to anticipate something of the blessedness of heaven amidst the days of earth; for to sit at His feet is indeed to be in heavenly places, and to gaze upon His glory is to do what we shall never tire of doing yonder.
In the vocabularies of the early Christians there is a word which is difficult to translate. It is the word σχολάζω-the Christian takes time, or has leisure. It occurs in the First Epistle to the Corinthians (1Co_7:5)-“that ye may have leisure for prayer.” So in Polycarp: “The Christian takes time for prayer” (σχολάζει). And the corresponding Latin word vacat is everywhere in some classes of writers: shall we translate it, “The Christian is free for Christ, is free for prayer”? Well, it is only by the culture and habits of the spiritual life that this blessed leisure and beautiful vacancy and long-expected holiday is obtained. And if we insist on going into all the pleasures, knowing all the people, having everything handsome about us, and the like, we shall never know either the life of the turtledove or the perfume and beauty of the lily. And we may say nearly the same thing over people that insist on going to meetings every night in the week, and are too tired to talk to the Lord either when they lie down or when they rise up. As St. Bernard says, they are a very dusty people; and if they had known better, they might have been covered with another kind of dust, of which the Psalmist speaks when he talks of “wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.”1 [Note: J. R. Harris, Aaron's Breastplate, 75.]
Nothing annoyed Dr. Temple more-though in this he was not singular among bishops-than the fussing of officials, lay or clerical, at Confirmations. The vicar or curate who made himself over-active or prominent in his efforts to marshal the candidates was pretty certain to be beckoned and curtly reprimanded in two words-“Don‘t fidget!”2 [Note: Memoirs of Archbishop Temple, ii. 179.]
One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee,
One lesson which in every wind is blown,
One lesson of two duties kept at one
Though the loud world proclaim their enmity-
Of toil unsever'd from tranquillity;
Of labour, that in lasting fruit outgrows
Far noisier schemes, accomplish'd in repose,
Too great for haste, too high for rivalry.
Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring,
Man's fitful uproar mingling with his toil,
Still do thy sleepless ministers move on,
Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting;
Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil,
Labourers that shall not fail, when man is gone.3 [Note: Matthew Arnold.]
(3) Worry.-Martha was worried. If she had not been worried she would not have burst into Christ's presence with her complaint of Mary. Now worry is never a help in any proper occupation of man or woman. It is a hindrance in any and every line of practical service. Particularly is it true that in housekeeping, where woman is at her best, and where her power is greatest for good to all those who are within the sacred circle of home influence as permanent members or occasional visitors, worry and fretting and trouble of mind are only disturbing elements, tending to the lessening of the matron's power, and to the discomfort of all who are in any way dependent on her for comfort or supply. On the contrary, quietness of mind, restfulness of spirit, and composure of manner, are elements of power in a housekeeper, and of good to all who are affected by her efforts or labours.
To be “cumbered,” as Jesus said Martha was, is, as the Greek word means, to be “distracted,” to be drawn this way and that, instead of being intent on the one thing to be done. Even in getting a dinner, or in doing anything else, Martha, in the exercise of this trait, could not give her whole attention to the one thing she had to do. In this Martha lacked the main essential of a good housekeeper-the ability to give her undivided attention to the one thing she had to do for the time being. This is clearly implied or included in the rebuke of Jesus. Again, to be “anxious,” as the Revision reads, or to be “careful,” as the old version gave it, and “troubled” about many things, is to be perplexed and in a tumult as to pressing duty. That, surely, was not right in Martha, and Jesus plainly pointed out her error. We are distinctly told not to be anxious or to be troubled at any time, and the housekeeper or the business man who fails at this point fails in a vital matter.
The specific faults of worrying and being drawn away from the one duty of the hour, and of being over-anxious, that Jesus pointed out in Martha, are as clearly reprehended and warned against in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere as are theft and murder; yet, strange to say, Martha is often commended by professing Christians, not in spite of her faults, but as if those very faults were admirable. Comfort-loving husbands sometimes think of Mary as a pious do-nothing, who might be fitted for a high place in the future life, but who was not fitted for this life. Martha, on the other hand, is considered by them as the sort of practical housekeeper who would have the dinner ready on time, and the rooms swept, and the beds made. In their opinion, she is the kind of housekeeper for the average home. Some active and efficient wives and housekeepers are even willing to speak of themselves frankly as “busy Marthas,” when they would never want to be called “lively Sapphiras.” This they do, not by way of admitting their unworthiness and incompetence, but in the thought that they are claiming a share of real merit.
At the time of the Boxer Rising in China, when foreigners were being massacred and their property destroyed, the Viceroy wrote in his diary on June 15, 1900:
“My wife declares that I shall become insane over these national troubles. She is wrong, just as she often is. I should go insane if I had nothing to bother me. My normal mental state for half a century has been that of perturbation. Perhaps it is well that the Patriotic Peace Fists are giving me something to worry over, thus keeping my mind in its normal state.”1 [Note: Memoirs of the Viceroy Li Hung Chang, 242.]
I have often occasion to converse with poor people about their little worries, their cares and trials; and from the ingenious way in which they put them, so as to make them look their very worst, it is sometimes easy to see that the poor man or woman has been brooding for long hours over the painful thing, turning it in all different ways, till the thing has been got into that precise point of view in which it looks its very ugliest. It is like one of those gutta-percha heads, squeezed into its most hideous grin. And I have thought, how long this poor soul must have persisted in looking at nothing but this dreary prospect before finding out so accurately the spot whence it looks most dreary.2 [Note: A. K. H. Boyd, Recreations of a Country Parson, ii. 129.]
(4) Temper.-It seems clear that poor Martha had lost her temper. Instead of quietly calling Mary to her assistance she complained to her Guest of her sister's conduct, actually seeking His interference to secure the aid that was not forthcoming voluntarily. Will anyone say that this act of Martha's was courteous or considerate toward her Guest? Would it be polite or kindly or proper toward a guest in your house, whom you were entertaining, or preparing to entertain, to burst in upon him when he was talking with another member of the family, and to suggest to him bluntly that he ought to know better than to keep away from her proper work in the household a needed member of the family with whom he was conversing? Can a woman be called a good housekeeper who would conduct herself in this way as a hostess?
Martha is quite indignant, and does not care to conceal it. And there are people of her class who, while they are very useful in a church, and do a great deal of work, are very frequently indeed, like Martha, somewhat short-tempered. They have a great deal of energy, and a great deal of enthusiasm; but when things do not go exactly as they wish, the hasty word soon slips out, and the unpleasant thought is harboured, and that soon takes all the joy and all the blessing out of Christian work. How often is the work of the Church marred by this hasty spirit, and the Master grieved in our very attempts to honour Him!
I heard somewhere an old legend which spake of Martha, who was preparing to entertain the Lord Christ at the evening meal. The room was ready, and the table was spread. All was peaceful and comfortable within. Outside a storm was raging, the wind was howling, and the rain beating. Suddenly Martha heard a knock at the door, and hastened to open it, expecting to see Jesus. But there stood instead a weary, ragged, desolate beggar, who murmured, “I am hungry. Give me bread. Give me bread.” “No,” cried Martha, “I have no time for beggars. I am going to entertain the Lord Christ.” And she slammed the door in the beggar's face. Shortly after, there came another knock, and again Martha opened the door. This time there stood a halffamished, white-faced little child, who moaned, “Give me bread. Give me bread.” “No,” cried Martha, “I have no time for children. I am going to entertain the Lord Christ.” And as the angry woman was about to slam the door, the child vanished, and there stood the sublime figure of Jesus, who said, “Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these, my brethren, even these least, ye did it not unto me.”1 [Note: C. E. Walters, The Deserted Christ, 133.]
(5) Fault-finding.-Jesus was pleased with the activity of Martha so far as it was driven by affection. The loving care in it allured Him and won His regard. No reproof could well be kinder than His. What jarred Him was the blame she gave to Mary, and the claim she made to have her work and anxiety extolled; for, indeed, that piece of selfish claim lies hid beneath her words.
It seems at first sight that finding fault with others is rather a noble and conscientious thing to do; if you are quite sure that you are right, and have a strong belief in the virtuous and high quality of your own principles, you begin to practise what is called dealing faithfully with other people, pulling them up, checking them, drenching them with good advice, improving the tone. Such people often say that of course they do not like doing it, but that they must bear witness to what they believe to be right. Of course, it is sometimes necessary in this world to protest; but the worst of the censorious habit of mind is this, that it begins with principles and then extends to preferences.… One of the things which it is absolutely necessary to do in life is to distinguish between principles and preferences; and even if one holds principles very strongly, it is generally better to act up to them, and to trust to the effect of example, than to bump other people, as Dickens said, into paths of peace.1 [Note: A. C. Benson, Along the Road, 92.]
There are a good many Marthas in our Universities, and they belong to both sexes. How common it is to hear grudging praise given, and the student complaining of the better luck which has given undue advantage to his neighbour. Now, there may be undue advantage in circumstances, and there often is. But according to my experience it makes far less difference in the long run than is popularly supposed. What does make the difference is tenacity of purpose. A man succeeds in four cases out of five, because of what is in him, by unflagging adhesion to his plan of life, and not by reason of outside help or luck. It is rarely that he need be afraid of shouldering an extra burden to help either himself or a neighbour. The strain it imposes on him is compensated by the strength that effort and self-discipline bring. And therefore the complaints of our Marthas are mainly beside the point. They arise from the old failing of self-centredness-the failing which has many forms, ranging from a mild selfishness up to ego-mania. And in whatever form the failing may clothe itself it produces weakness.2 [Note: Lord Haldane, The Conduct of Life, 17.]
