Skip to main content

Martha and Mary

"But Martha was distracted by all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, 'Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.' But the Lord answered and said to her, 'Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things' but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.' Lk. 10.40-42

Interpretation- Jesus is lovingly directing Martha away from her distracted way of life, and is guiding her to focus on the 'one thing' that is necessary (exemplified in Mary's way of being). Martha can easily be seen as a prototypical 'every-person', in today's post-modern world of information. In this world people are fantasy images of their true nature...they're 'thought people', lost in their own shadowy fantasy worlds. Post-modern people believe they control their lives (think about what guides your daily life), and determine from 'what they do', their identity and value. In the Christian tradition this is a life dominated by 'works'.

Martha is clearly troubled in her image of herself (how she feels about who she is and what she needs to do), and is missing life in God's kingdom. Jesus' teaching directs her to Mary, who was 'seated at the Lords feet, listening to His word.' We only have a fragmented image of who Mary is, but she's obviously attentive to Jesus' wisdom teachings, and isn't troubled by 'works'.

Matthew

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Can you be certain?

. When something happens in your life, how often have you lost your sense of peace? I see this happen to people often; usually peace is relinquished by negative emotions or thoughts. Who in their 'right mind' would relinquish peace for irritation/anger (suffering)? It's obvious that what happens to us isn't unique. No matter what you experience you can always imagine others (or actually know someone) who experience similar things and some could be said to be 'better' or 'worse' off than you are. No one is alone and this is a clue to 'escape' from the judging mind. To judge/label an event as 'GOOD' or 'BAD' can't be completely certain; since either choice presupposes a 'correct' way to decide. There is no way to know which one is correct, and the choice is usually biased by desire, that is, "what do I WANT". When you choose sides you've trapped yourself in a fantasy prison (in your mind). There is no ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A story

A young man told me a story about a very strange dream he had. His dream came after he read a sci-fi book about the future, in which everyone has been given the power to create whatever they desire. In his dream he found he COULD control things and events with his thoughts, just as described in the book! He also discovered something unexpected...everything was interconnected. So no matter what you did or created it couldn't be isolated and protected from other things; everything was subject to change. Nothing existed on it's own. No problem, he thought to himself, he'd use his power to make a world where things could be protected. But he couldn't. The underlying reality allowed things to be created, but it couldn't be controlled in it's basic nature. Skirmishes broke out between people; then terrible, all-out war. Everyone was trying to get what THEY wanted...at the expense of everything else! Since there was no way to dis-connect, there was no way to a...
2 comments
Read more