But we wrong Martha, of course, in thinking of her as always in the kitchen. Certainly when there waas a meal to be prepared you would find her there, and well that was for the household and the servants. But nobody is always eating or thinking about eating; and often of an evening, doubtless, when the labours of the day were over, Martha would join her sister at the feet of the Master whom she loved as much as Mary did.
The incident which has given rise to the popular misconception of Martha’s character occurred during a visit which Jesus paid in the days before Lazarus fell sick. Something went wrong in Martha’s department that day. Perhaps it was a mistake of a servant that irritated the usually self-controlled Martha, or maybe some oversight of her own. At anyrate, it set up a condition of worry which straightway began to add to itself, as its habit is, seven other devils. And as Martha went out and in the dining chamber getting things ready, the sight of Mary sitting there at the Master’s feet doing nothing, struck her, perhaps for the first time, as rather out of place. Things began to go further wrong. Just when Martha wanted to do special honour to Jesus, the ordinarily smooth-running wheels of that home began to creak and grind. Each time she entered the room where Christ and Mary were, Martha’s steps grew brisker and more emphatic; and then the last straw was laid on, and the outburst came! Martha asked Jesus if He really did not care that Mary was leaving her to do everything. Bid her come and help me, she said.
Of course, Jesus knew that it was for His sake that Martha was giving herself all this trouble. He saw, as even we can see, that this kindhearted, worried woman was speaking crossly, as the very best will do at times, because she was tired and a bit overdriven. And with a perfect and gentle chivalry and tact He made His reply. As the Authorised Version puts it, it jars on one, somehow. But King James’ translators have misread their text. What Jesus said was: “Martha, Martha, you are unduly anxious and troubled. Only a few things are necessary, or even one. Mary has chosen a good part, and I cannot allow you to take it from her.”
Martha, remember, was making a feast worthy of the Master, and Jesus, looking upon the various dishes being got ready, said, in effect, I do not really need so many as that. One would do quite well. And I must not let you think that Mary is doing nothing. She, too, is ministering to me by her sympathy and her willing ear, and you must not take away the good part she has chosen.
Jesus was not speaking about the personal salvation of either Mary or her sister. He was only dealing gently with a good and true friend of His who had not served Him as she had wished to do. When He spoke of what was needful, He meant needful for Himself, the Guest whom both the sisters were seeking to honour.
He made no comparison between Martha’s service and Mary’s. He did not say, as we have read it so often, that Mary had chosen the better part. He said, in her defence, that Mary’s was also a good part. He is not blaming Martha, but only expostulating with her in the gentlest fashion, and defending Mary from the charge which Martha in her heat had made against her, the charge of being useless, and doing nothing to help to entertain the Master. Jesus said, She is helping to entertain Me in her own way, and, He added, it is a good way.
When Jesus having said that only a few things were necessary, dropped His voice, as we may imagine, and added “or indeed one,” He may have meant more than He seemed to say. For there was one thing that was more than meat to our Lord, and that was to find a soul with heart and sympathy open to His message. And it may be that He felt, as He said the words, that Mary’s ministry met a need of His deeper than that for which Martha was catering. At anyrate, the oldest and best versions of this Gospel give Christ’s words as we have rendered them, and they stand here, not to be used as a peg on which to hang doctrines, but rather as a proof of the gentle courtesy of our Lord, of His insight into character and motive, and of His gracious recognition of the worth of any and every kind of service that has love at its heart.
Martha went back to her kitchen, and Mary remained where she was. Mary was not asked to go and help. Martha would have protested if she had come. Martha was not called upon to go and sit beside Mary. Each continued the service for which she was best fitted. But each, I think, had learned something that day. And you and I must not leave this page of our New Testament till we have learned it too—that we serve best when we do gladly that for which we are best qualified; that it belongs to our Christian service to recognise in all loyalty that, though others find different ways of expressing it,
