Luke 10:38-42

 Relating to God – True Priorities 

The following incident may be best understood in relation to the one immediately above. For Luke the issue of practical love still needed to be further nuanced. The story is unique to Luke’s own source.

Luke 10:38-42  -   Jesus Visits Martha and Mary

38 While they were on the way,
Jesus entered a certain village.  
A woman named Martha welcomed him into the home.

They went on the way: the issue to be raised would be an issue of discipleship.

The home was Martha’s, who (apart from Jesus) seems to have been the main protagonist in the story. Mary was presumably a younger sister. Martha’s being in charge of the household may have meant that she was probably of independent means. The absence of a male figure indicated either that she had remained unmarried - highly unlikely in the culture – or that she was widowed.

Jesus may have been travelling alone at the time, since he entered a certain village and Martha welcomed him into her home. There was no mention of companions.

39 She had a sister called Mary
who seated herself down next to the Lord's feet
and was listening to what he was saying.

To sit at the Lord's feet was to assume the role of disciple. Rabbis did not have women among their disciples. Neither Jesus nor Mary had any problems about the relationship. In accepting (and defending) Mary’s stance, Jesus showed an uncommon sensitivity to the dignity of the feminine.

40 Martha was distracted getting everything ready.  
She came up to him and said,
"Lord, is it no concern of yours that my sister has left it to me
to get everything ready?
Tell her to help me."
41 In answer, the Lord said to her,
"Martha, Martha, you are over-anxious and upset about so many details.
42 Yet, few things, or even one, is necessary.  
Mary chose the better option,
and it will not be taken away from her.”

What in Jesus’ mind was the better option? Commentators have given numerous answers. The following one may be likely.

The previous incident occasioning Jesus’ story about the Samaritan had clearly made the point of the absolute necessity of practical love and service of others. By this measure Martha scored well. However, her love may have lacked something essential: graciousness.  Martha had approached her guest, conveyed to him her anger at Mary (even insinuating that Jesus was himself at fault for not caring), and asked him to bring Mary into line. Telling her sister what to do was something she should have done herself. Her request demeaned her guest and revealed real insensitivity. Whatever about the justice of her cause, her interruption was a failure in graciousness. She had allowed her worried busyness, important as it may have been in itself, to cloud her better judgment and warmth.

The better option chosen by Mary may have been her affectionate, personal interest in Jesus - her sense of genuine hospitality. It may also have been her openness to listening. Listening is the key to personal engagement and true intimacy. More significantly, it may have been her recognition of the right of every woman to be as much a true disciple as men might like to regard themselves, to consider her personal dignity equal to that of any male. On her part, Martha’s criticism of Mary may have concealed an unrecognised uneasiness about her sister’s presuming to adopt the role of disciple.

There may be other echoes in the story - a contrast of the two shapes of loving: service and personal engagement.

The problem with service is that it can degenerate into self-assertion. The problem with personal engagement is that it can lack practical care. Luke reminded disciples of the importance to balance both.


Why Martha? Why a Samaritan?

In the incident of Martha and Mary, people’s instinctive reactions often lead them to side with Martha and even to find Jesus’ criticism unwarranted. The same reaction usually does not happen in Jesus’ story about the Samaritan. However, Jesus’ first audience would have instinctively drawn back from any thought of a Samaritan acting compassionately. They would have thought Jesus’ choice of character not only unwarranted but offensive.

Perhaps in Luke’s mind both characterisations were deliberate. For Jesus (and Luke), genuine compassion called for deep conversion, a profound change of perception. Most readers have inevitably been exposed to a domesticated and selective charity. It is too easy for people to give assent to the importance of compassion; and to assume that their behaviour, with the occasional exception, generally measures up.

Jesus wanted people to reflect again, to look at themselves more deeply. He wanted to break through their customary defences. The response of the Samaritan in the story was altogether extraordinary. It was an instance of love of one’s enemy. Jesus was saying that even enemies come under the heading of neighbour. Other love can be cheap love: even sinners love those who love them [6:32].

For people not only to see but be at peace with and unsurprised by the fact that their enemies are the kind of persons who could (not necessarily “do”) love them calls for an enormous change of outlook.

Jewish disciples of Jesus might conceivably bring themselves to act compassionately towards a Samaritan. But they would run the risk of doing so out of a clear sense of superiority and virtue, despising the very ones to whom they were apparently acting compassionately. Jesus’ deliberate reversal of roles challenged them to think the unthinkable.

Through the Martha incident Jesus was also insisting that the essence of love is not behaviour but relationship. Service of others that holds back from sensitive solidarity with the ones served is virtually service of one’s own inner needs. It, too, is less than perfect service.

If the world is to change in line with the vision of Jesus, disciples must go immeasurably further than comfortable, selective compassion. Ultimately Jesus was calling for the conversion where people identify with the ones they reach out to, not from a position of patronising and condescending superiority, but from one of genuine solidarity. 

That is firstly a change, not of behaviour, but of perspective – the recognition that before God all persons share an equal dignity and together stand powerlessly before God, sharing the same non-negotiable need for God’s mercy. From that standpoint compassion most powerfully serves to build the Kingdom.


Next >> Luke 11:1-13