The Better Part
(Gen.18:1-10a; Col.1:24-28; Lk.10:38-42)
What are we to make of Martha and Mary? People have argued over these two sisters for centuries.
Martha is bustling about in the kitchen preparing a meal, while Mary sits quietly at Jesus’ feet, revelling in his wisdom and love.
Martha is annoyed, and asks Jesus to get Mary to help her. But Jesus gently replies, ‘Martha, Martha, you fret about so many things, but only one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the better part, and it’s not to be taken from her.’
Many people think that Jesus is scolding Martha, and perhaps even criticising her work. But he’s not. Rather, he’s saying that she needs to refocus. Martha feels so burdened by her chores that she’s missing the most important thing of all – her visitor. And Jesus, as we know, is the source of all life and love.
Jesus wants Martha to see that life isn’t about ceaseless activity. It would be much better for her to spend quality time with her guest, soaking up his wisdom and love, before doing what she had to do.
I remember having guests over for lunch one day, but I spent so much time in the kitchen that I started to realise that I was missing the point. Hospitality isn’t being with the dishes; it’s being with the visitors.
In his book The Naked Now, Richard Rohr talks about the importance of living in the moment. He says that Martha is a good woman, but she’s not present. She is not present to herself, to her own feelings of resentment, and to her own need to be needed. Rohr says this is the kind of goodness that does no good.
If Martha is not present to herself, then she really cannot be present to her guests and spiritually she cannot even be present to God. Presence is of one piece, Rohr says. How you are present to anything is how you can be present to God, loved ones, strangers and those who suffer. How you live in the moment matters.
This is why Jesus affirms Mary. She knows how to live in the moment. She knows how to be present to Jesus, and presumably, to herself. She understands the one thing that makes all other things happen at a deeper and healing level. If you are truly present, Rohr says, you’ll be able to know what you need to know. [i]
Sadly, our noisy and anxious world has little patience for contemplatives like Mary. We can see this in Jane Campion’s hauntingly lyrical movie The Piano.[ii]
Set in the 1800s, it tells the story of Ada, a mute Scottish woman who is sent into an arranged marriage in New Zealand. Ada is a withdrawn, reflective figure with a deep and silent connection to mystery and beauty, rather like Mary. Her inner life centres on one thing: her piano. It’s her sanctuary, her prayer, and how she expresses what she cannot say.
The colonial society she has joined, however, including her husband and the other settlers, are all busy like Martha, doing, expecting and controlling. For them, life is all about work, practicality and obedience.
They don’t understand Ada at all.
There’s one confronting scene where her husband is infuriated by her refusal to conform, and he destroys part of the piano and even chops off one of her fingers. It’s a brutal moment, but it symbolises what can happen when the world tries to silence the inner voice and quiet spirit of the Mary within us.
Many of us are programmed to live like Martha. We are so busy, so distracted and so wedded to our results-driven world that we often miss what really counts.
Today’s Gospel reminds us that there is a better way: a way of life that’s not measured by efficiency and sweat, but by heart-filled presence. Mary teaches us that the truest hospitality is not in the food or the cleaning, but in welcoming Jesus into the silence of our hearts.
And in The Piano, Ada teaches us that the contemplative life is not passive or weak. It’s resilient and even revolutionary because it resists the world’s demands and it treasures what is sacred.
Of course, we must honour the work of the world’s Marthas. But Mary reminds us that we are more than what we do, and perhaps it’s time for us to sit quietly with Jesus for a while.
Today, if your inner life has been silenced, God is inviting you to find your voice again. Not through noise, but through stillness, beauty and prayer – just like Mary.
Mary is well grounded. She knows who she is. She knows what she has to do.
This is the better part.
[i] Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See, Crossroad Publishing, NY. 2009:58-59.
[ii] Jane Campion, The Piano (1993). https://youtu.be/61ooIf1QDZo