24 Comments

Wow! I just got to listen to your sermon at Wild Goose yesterday. Wow! I admit that I had tears of joy and amazement. It opened up Christianity in a way that really, really, includes women. I am still processing the information, as you must be too. Thank you so much for sharing this and keep us updated on any other developments that come from this. And, for what it's worth, I think in Luke 10, Martha needs to be written out and the Martha, Mary story needs to be a footnote. Let the Gospel be written as it should be. Otherwise the significance could be lost. Blessings!

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Not only has her "gift" of hands/eyes/feet/organizational skills/sweat = service been rejected, it's been belittled and disrespected (Martha, Martha...you just don't get it." is what Jesus meant when he "consoled/counseled clueless Martha) ....as if she were too ignorant/uninformed to sit and soak up Jesuses "teachings." Me, given that Jesus was a regular visitor to MandM's home, I think she already got what Jesus preached -- to clueless Mary, Mary -- long ago. And, BTW, I'm not being a feminist with my posting, I'm being a social historian...someone who understands the tribal (insular) and societal (patriarchal) make-up of Jesus's time. And finally, thanks for the follow-up comment. Sometimes I think I'm seeing things 180 from everyone else.

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founding

So what did Martha do then, after being reprimanded for being distracted. Maybe she should have said something like "Okay, Jesus, I shall sit at your feet also. If anybody is hungry, feel free to go into the kitchen and cook for yourself. If not we can fast and listen to your words. My kitchen is open to you,Dear Jesus, if you would like to take up cooking...Or we can fast so I can choose the better part like Mary.."

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Hello! How wonderful, to have part of one of my poems here in The Cottage. Thank you so much for including me in these Musings. I'm so delighted to be part of this community from my garden in a rather warm England. I'm looking forward to hearing your sermon later.

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Like a couple of others who have responded, I have always disliked the Mary-Martha "homily" or whatever one wants to call it. Martha is literally being God's hands on this earth, God's feet on this earth, God's eyes on this earth, God's server on this earth (this I have gathered from reading Teresa of Avila), while her sister is...well, serving God by basking in God's love at Jesus's feet. That wouldn't ordinarily be concerning to me, however Mary is basking/soaking up love that , given her family/her own a long-standing friendship/relationship with Jesus, she very well knows she "has" while her sister Martha "acts/serves"," and in so doing is burdened by Mary's actions/behavior.

A harsh assessment, I know: but a well-reasoned one, thought not, perhaps a religiously well-reasoned one.

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Thank you so much for this - my first sharing since joining. I am aspiring to be more of a Mary than a Martha, and this was a very timely biblical example for me to alter my occasional Martha choices. Glad to be a recipient. Thank you.

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Jul 17, 2022Liked by Diana Butler Bass

Thank you so much for sharing my poem. Just a note: My last name is spelled Proctor. Again, thank you!

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What I continue to glean from The Cottage is the reminder to open my eyes, ears, and heart to different ways on being present in the world. Sometimes, I'm Mary; sometimes I'm Martha; sometimes I'm not sure of who I am, but always sure of whose I am. The journey continues...

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As a Biblical storyteller, I have committed the sin of harmonizing texts from Luke and John. I'll say more about this another time. There seems to be some interplay between them. Thank you for your brilliant presentation today at The Goose about Mary the Tower ! To be continued...

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This is one of my least favorite stories in the Bible.

A friend of mine decided to preach from this passage on “Jesus giving permission for women to step outside of their prescribed role in those times”. I get it, the Word being the most important thing. But I challenged him to look at it from Martha’s view. I think Jesus defended Mary at the expense of Martha, in my view. Here is Martha, working so hard to prepare the best meal as a gift to Jesus and Mary is not helping. In Martha’s time this was the best gift she could give and wanted it to be worthy of her special guests. Steve asked me what Jesus should have said to Martha. I told him to expand his view.

I told him that if he looked up Martha in the dictionary, he would find a picture of me and a long line of women before me for centuries. Fixing meals and making sure things were nice for men watching football or sitting around and that included some women like Mary too. I think Jesus put down the gift Martha was giving to excuse Mary. Has anyone preached from the perspective of Martha? How many times have women worked in the kitchen and missed the interaction of the family, the stories told, games played, children running around? How many times they have done the work while others ate and left the work behind because they had somewhere to go or something better to do?

I view Jesus as “inviting” others to think in a different way, not giving "permission to women to be in unconventional roles". As a stay-at-home mom, this story feels like a put down of Martha.

I know my view is out of the ordinary and people preach the side of the story of Mary but if you identify with Martha, it is not so uplifting and I think Jesus was wrong, not about the Word being important but about discounting someone’s gift to uplift another, if this indeed is looked upon as a literal story. I know we are looking at this as how one builds a relationship with Christ and the question— what are we doing to keep Christ out of our lives or how do we invite him in. Maybe I have this wrong but it is not a story of equality in my eyes

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After my mother listened to my first sermon, she offered the best sermon advice that even my sermon professor missed. She said, "When you are done preaching, stop talking." Sometimes the noise of thoughts prevents us from listening to Jesus. So, when I sit to listen stop the noise of my own thoughts.

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When this Scripture is spoken and opened for us, I hope that the "Mary and the Martha" are recognized as being both parts of every woman in relationship to Jesus. At different times, I have been both in my search for Christ.

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This story grates on me. If only Jesus and the disciples and Mary had pushed up their sleeves, headed to the kitchen and assisted Martha with chopping and grating and stirring, they all could have experienced the better part in the kitchen temple.

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I look forward to listening to how you tell their story.

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Thank you so much for sharing the poems - especially the one be Emily Rose Procter. It reaffirms that God can be found in the most common settings of our lives if we but look,

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A beautiful poem. Thank you!

Getting caught up in the dutifulness of life instead to choose to let go and to hear the spirit calling me. This is to me, the better part.

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