Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?
A lot of church culture could be summed up as "there are two sorts of women in the world and both of them are wrong." Apropos of Grace's recent post, would you say Martha is coke theory and Mary is weed theory?
I heard an alternative interpretation of this two Sundays ago that made me think again about my Women's Group Experiences(tm).
It would have been VERY VERY UNUSUAL for a woman to be allowed participation in religious instruction (esp with men). So POTENTIALLY, Martha is trying to say, "Hey Jesus, I see that my sister is being socially inappropriate and am giving you the opportunity to tell her to leave," and POTENTIALLY, Jesus's response is really saying, "Don't worry, she's fine, she's choosing to take part in something that's usually inaccessible and I'm not going to take that away from her."
(The Greek word for 'part,' as in 'the good part' is elsewhere translated as something akin to partaking in an inheritance.)
The older I've gotten, the more firmly I've become #TeamMartha. I would like to pretend this is not almost entirely because I've become decreasingly able to just leave dishes in the sink, "because what if someone saw?"
Also #TeamMartha (baby, I was baptized that way), but it had the opposite effect on me. I spent, like, forty years of my life refusing to do dishes in a timely manner as a form of passive-aggressive protest.
A lot of church culture could be summed up as "there are two sorts of women in the world and both of them are wrong." Apropos of Grace's recent post, would you say Martha is coke theory and Mary is weed theory?
I heard an alternative interpretation of this two Sundays ago that made me think again about my Women's Group Experiences(tm).
It would have been VERY VERY UNUSUAL for a woman to be allowed participation in religious instruction (esp with men). So POTENTIALLY, Martha is trying to say, "Hey Jesus, I see that my sister is being socially inappropriate and am giving you the opportunity to tell her to leave," and POTENTIALLY, Jesus's response is really saying, "Don't worry, she's fine, she's choosing to take part in something that's usually inaccessible and I'm not going to take that away from her."
(The Greek word for 'part,' as in 'the good part' is elsewhere translated as something akin to partaking in an inheritance.)
OH, I like that. It makes all three of them more sympathetic.
The older I've gotten, the more firmly I've become #TeamMartha. I would like to pretend this is not almost entirely because I've become decreasingly able to just leave dishes in the sink, "because what if someone saw?"
Also #TeamMartha (baby, I was baptized that way), but it had the opposite effect on me. I spent, like, forty years of my life refusing to do dishes in a timely manner as a form of passive-aggressive protest.
♥️💨♥️