Discipleship

The story of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42) is an extraordinary one; not least for the ways that it has been used extraordinarily to suggest that busy people (especially women) are somehow less the servants that they appear to be. In this way, the story has often created a double bind for people who take responsibility for many tasks, only to discover that their sense of responsibility is not really appreciated, and may in fact be denigrated as “less holy” than the activity of another.

But in its context, this story was never meant to be another weapon to bludgeon busy people (especially women) over the head with. Rather, it was a story about the freedom of the service of Christ.

Mary is permitted to sit in the place of a disciple of a rabbi—“at his feet”, i.e. learning in dialogue with him. She is allowed a freedom not normally given to women. She is treated and accepted as a disciple of a rabbi.

Martha is offered the opportunity to try something different—not to be burdened by the responsibilities that fell to her because of her gender and her position in the household; but to accept the new responsibility of the disciple of Jesus.

This story is not a juxtaposition of the active and contemplative life. The responsibility of the disciple of a rabbi was the responsibility of engagement also. Rabbinic teaching and learning occurs in dialogue between teacher and student; and sometimes it may be that the student offers a new thought or insight to the teacher as well as vice versa.

Rather this story is an invitation to everybody to be Jesus’ disciples. Whether it’s a fishing net or the washing up that you have to leave behind to travel as a disciple; whether you are female or male; whether you are the eldest or the youngest; whether you are Jew or Gentile (as Paul reminds us in Colossians 1:15-28), you are called to be a disciple of the one who has reconciled all things in his very life, death and resurrection.