Last Sunday, we had the reading from the Gospel of John of the story of Mary and Martha (or what is best known as the story of Mary and Martha, although the story of Lazarus really is also a story of Mary and Martha), and I was reminded of a couple thoughts about the whole Mary/Martha relationship and the ways in which it is sometimes understood. There is an enormous amount that could be said about this, of course, but these are just a couple quick things I was thinking about.

This story of Mary and Martha is sometimes viewed as referring to an alleged tension between the contemplative life and the active life, and I think occasionally Mary is even identified explicitly or implicitly with the "religious life," thus identifying Martha more with the life of lay people "in the world." Any identification with particular vocations in this passage is immediately problematic because Mary is said to have chosen the better part, with the an implication that Martha could have chosen that too. In the case of vocations, there is no one vocation that everyone should choose, that represents "the better part" for everyone. It seems clear that it must be possible to sit at the feet of the Lord, as Mary did, in and through every vocation.

An understanding of the relationship between Mary and Martha simply in terms of that which is contemplative and that which is active might be closer to the truth, but it still can present difficulties. The Church obviously has not traditionally rejected activity, nor did Jesus appear to condemn activity elsewhere. Certainly Jesus could hardly have condemned the activity involved in hospitality, since a recurring scene in the Gospels is the welcoming of Jesus into someone's home, and on at least one occasion He actually noted His host's lack of attentiveness to the care of Jesus as guest. Indeed, even in the story of Mary and Martha Jesus does not rebuke Martha for her work. His statements come only after she complains to Him that Mary is not doing that work as well.

At that specific point, in Martha's complaint and Jesus' response, we can see a couple of points. First, it is not just that Martha is working, but that her work seems to be only superficially directed to Jesus. This is not to say that she does not set out with good intentions, but if her concern was truly centered on Christ, why would she complain to Him about Mary? There is a legitimate place for Martha's work, and she may even sincerely think that it is a fulfillment of her duty, but if so this is perhaps an overly voluntaristic sense of duty, not adequately grounded in and conditioned by the prior love given by Christ. Furthermore, Christ then seems to point to the root of the problem, that she has not given a priority to listening to Him, to receiving Him and receiving from Him. Without this one thing that matters, all subsequent activity is not properly rooted.

Of course, one should not be too quick to condemn Martha here, for perhaps a moment of weakness in the context of fundamentally good work, a moment with which we can all identify and sympathize, and which God clearly meant for our instruction. Martha, after all, is also a woman of great faith, as indicated in the scene in John 11 when she goes out to meet Jesus after her brother's death. This context of her deep faith, and her closeness to Jesus as a beloved friend, should be kept in mind in any reflections on this story.

Thus, Martha here does seem to represent an improper "activism," as it were, but it is not directly linked to that which is active as we commonly understand it. Sometimes we may think of our lives in terms of what we are going to do for God, and of course doing things for God is good if it is properly understood, but the first reality in our lives is always receiving from God. Love of God is not about us setting out to accomplish certain things or pursuing a certain path that we see as really proving how much we love God. In this sense, one could pursue anything, even a life as a cloistered contemplative, in a very activist or voluntarist way. From a proper perspective, any Christian activity, and above all any vocation, is a matter or loving in a particular way, always in response to and as a reception of the way in which God has loved us, and the love He has put in our life.