Mary and Martha : Choosing the Better Part

How many of you have ever been asked to consider if you are ” a Mary or a Martha”? What was the context? Did it involve “women’s roles” in the church? I wonder if men get asked this question? I wonder if the question would be asked like this if the story was about James and John rather than Mary and Martha?

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at Jesus’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her, then, to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things, but few things are needed– indeed only one. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:38-42 NRSVue

Often this story is cited as proof that women were disciples of Jesus in the same way men were. That’s a legitimate reading of this text.¹

But we also need to check our assumptions when we read this. Just as antisemitism slips into the Good Samaritan parable², sexism sometimes slips into our interpretation of the story of Mary and Martha.³ For example, the normally trustworthy New Oxford Annotated Bible has this to say. “With delicate ambiguity Jesus rebuked Martha’s choice of values; a simple meal (one dish) is sufficient for hospitality. Jesus approved Mary’s preference for listening to his teaching (thereby accepting a woman as a disciple) as contrasted with Martha’s unneeded acts of hospitality (the more usual woman’s role).”⁴ Nowhere does the text say that Martha’s task was a meal, simple or otherwise. Notice they have reduced the robust Biblical view hospitality to the “woman’s role” and “unneeded acts”!

A common interpretation of the story is that Jesus is setting up a choice, action versus learning. Or, as some would have it, discipleship is about teaching and learning. Discipleship is about scholarship, a traditionally male vocation where occasionally an exceptional women was allowed. Action, tasks, work, doing are lesser endeavors . Martha is sometimes reduced to a fussy busybody, more concerned with appearances and social niceties than “real” discipleship. The problem is that the story of Mary and Martha immediately follows the story of the lawyer and the parable of the Good Samaritan. That story emphasized action, “go and do likewise.” As does the story that precedes the parable, the sending of the 72 disciples, who go and “do” things. Directly following the story of Mary and Martha, Luke places the story of Jesus teaching the disciples to pray. That these two stories bookend the Mary and Martha story are a big clue that we should not prioritize one over the other. It’s not learning versus doing. It’s both.

Jesus went to the village and Martha welcomed Jesus into her home. This implies that Martha had some financial resources. It was “her home” and she had the capacity and the means to host Jesus and the disciples- at least 13 people, perhaps more.

We read in translation and the word translated at “tasks” and “work” in verse 40 is a form of the Greek word, diakonia. Diakonia contains the meaning of service, ministry and the office of deacon.⁵ If we include this expanded definition of our understanding of “task” and “work”, how does this change our understanding of this story?

Presenting this story as either work or learning, action or hearing misses the point. I don’t think he was dismissing the worth of any meal Martha may have served, Jesus fed people. All throughout the gospels, Jesus both taught and acted. He instructed his disciples to act and teach. This story isn’t about choosing or prioritizing listening and learning over service.

I think this is a story about how we practice our discipleship. It is about how we practice our hospitality. It is about how we do what we do. Martha is distracted, anxious and troubled.⁶ Jesus isn’t concerned about Martha’s hospitality. He was concerned about Martha’s state of mind and the state of her soul. I wonder if Martha was so agitated about her “tasks” that she couldn’t settle and truly listen to Jesus?

Sometimes we reduce the idea of hospitality to inviting someone into our home for a meal. But hospitality is more than that. Hospitality is the creation of a space where people can freely and fully be themselves. Henri Nouwen describes a “friendly empty space where we can reach out to our fellow human beings and invite them to a new relationship.This conversion is an inner event that cannot be manipulated but must develop from within.”⁷

Mary was able to listen to Jesus, to let him be who he is. She could stop and sit and listen. This doesn’t mean that Mary only sat and listened. None of Jesus’ disciples only sat and listened. Jesus didn’t only teach. They all had tasks to do. People needed to be fed and healed. People needed to know God’s love. Martha was too stressed to enter that friendly empty space of hospitality, even in her own home. Her discipleship had lost its focus, its centerpoint.

We live in a time where we are, rightfully, worried and distracted and troubled by many things. We are anxious. We can’t do all the work ourselves. We want others to do something. The plea for someone to “help me” is real.

Jesus reply to Martha is in more modern terms, “focus”. Martha, Martha, focus. Focus on me. Don’t be anxious, don’t be troubled, don’t be afraid. Keep yourself centered and grounded in me and my peace.

We need to hear this also. Focus. Focus on Jesus. Be intentional about keeping yourself centered and grounded in Jesus. No one can take the peace of Christ away from us- that is the better part.

And then we go about our tasks, as disciples of Jesus do.

1. This is, of course, not the only place women are described in the Bible as being disciples. See the entire book, by Holly J. Carey, Women Who Do: Female Disciples in the Gospels. Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2023 ↩︎
2. see last week’s post, https://conversationinfaith.com/2025/07/11/the-limits-of-love/ ↩︎
3. “Google” Mary and Martha art” and there are some “interesting” depictions of this story. Many with Mary literally seated at Jesus feet and staring up adoringly at him. The disciples are often missing from the picture- just Jesus, adoring Mary, and disgruntled Martha. ↩︎
4. New Oxford Annotated Bible NRSV, Bruce Metzger and Roland E Murphy eds. Oxford Univeristy Press 1991. page 98 NT ↩︎
5. Parker, Julie Faith, Eve Isn’t Evil: Feminist Readings of the Bible to Upend Our Assumptions, Baker Academic, 2023, pg122 ↩︎
6. verse 40 periespato, distracted, verse 41 merimnas, anxious, worried; thorybaze, troubled, disturbed, in a tumult. ↩︎
7. Nouwen, Henri Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life Image Books, 1975, page 61. ↩︎