Martha and Mary
Living, loving, and serving from a deeper and simpler place
Finding time for daily meditation can be hard, and many of us rationalize that it’s impractical or even selfish. This often comes up in Bible studies or discussion groups when the topic is the Gospel story of Jesus visiting Martha and Mary.1 Someone usually points out, with nodding agreement from the group, that we NEED Martha, the practical one, the one who serves. Thank God for Martha! Where would we be without her?
Yes, we need Martha. But maybe the story of Martha and Mary is not just a story about two different people, but about two “levels of awareness” in each of us, as Cynthia Bourgeault writes.2 The point is not that Martha is wrong and Mary is right. The point is that these “two levels of awareness” need to be properly prioritized and aligned.
The story is of Jesus being invited to dinner, and Martha, the embodiment of our “ordinary awareness” is doing all those things that characterize ordinary awareness: she’s busy about getting things done, so that everyone can enjoy a meal together, for example. So far, so good.
But Martha is also manifesting other behavior that frequently flows from ordinary awareness: she’s stressed, judgmental, and at least a little self-righteous. And, typical of egoic, ordinary awareness, Martha needs to be noticed. With righteous self-pity, Martha draws attention to herself, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left all the work to me? Tell her to help me.”
Mary, on the other hand, is the embodiment of our “spiritual awareness,” and she is completely still, attentive to the divine, indwelling presence, Jesus. Mary is the perfect picture of prayerful listening and attention, stillness and adoration. Cynthia Bourgealt puts it this way:
“It’s not that Martha is ‘wrong’ and Mary is ‘right.’ Both types of awareness are necessary for functioning in this world. But the idea in spiritual transformation is to integrate and reprioritize these levels so that our ordinary awareness is in alignment with and in service to our spiritual awareness.”
Martha represents our ordinary awareness that is necessary and good. But ordinary awareness without a grounding spiritual awareness becomes self-absorbed, self-righteous, frustrated, and anxious. If our ordinary awareness is not in service to our deeper spiritual awareness, then our Martha will always complain: “There simply isn’t time for sitting in silence like this. There’s too much to do. And what does all this sitting in meditation really accomplish, anyway? Somebody has to get the work done around here, or we’re not going to eat. And by the way, does anybody notice who is actually DOING the work? Does anybody really CARE?!”
But “each of us has a Mary deep within us,” who is in rapt attention to Christ. This is our spiritual awareness. It is not something we need to acquire. It is already within each of us. Spiritual listening is natural to human beings. Martin Laird says pointedly, “We are built for contemplation.”3
“But,” as Cynthia Bourgealt says, “the clarity of our listening is obscured because out on the periphery we also have a Martha who thinks the whole world is riding on her back and drowns out the inner music with her constant barrage of ‘I need,’ “I want,’ ‘Pay attention to me.’”
“If you wish to experience what lies beneath, spiritual tradition teaches, the first step is simply to pull the plug on that constant self-reflexive activity of the mind. And that’s what intentional silence, or meditation, is set up to do. … And so meditation rests on the wager that if you can simply break the tyranny of your ordinary awareness, the rest will begin to unfold itself.”
The difficulty for many of us is that our “Martha” or our ordinary egoic identity is so strong that there are few things that seem more difficult than “simply breaking the tyranny of your ordinary awareness.” In fact, our ordinary awareness or egoic identity is all we really know. Sure, we’ve all found ourselves in a state of rapt wonder or awe now and then, signaling that there is, in fact, something More than our needy, self-reflexive, egoic me.
But to begin living our lives from this “More,” from the inside out, … to allow ourselves to be vitalized and governed more and more by the life of Christ within us, … this will require short-circuiting the self-reflexive loop of our beloved Martha. That’s what our practice is about. And our Martha is not going to give up without a fight.
In other words, our ordinary awareness is simply going to insist that there isn’t time to sit in silence with Christ for five or ten minutes, let alone for 20 minutes, twice a day. And when you try, your own version of Martha-like exasperation will make an appearance, perhaps beginning subtly: “You know that this a waste of time, don’t you?” “Maybe this sort of thing works for some people, but you can plainly see that it’s not for you, right?” “You know there’s important work to be done…let’s make a list.” “For God’s sake, can I get a little help around here?!”
That’s when we “ever so gently” return to our sacred word, “ever so gently” return to our breath, or to whatever is the symbol of our intention to surrender ourselves to the presence and activity of God. It’s a motion of gentle release, each time we find ourselves engaged with a thought, image, feeling, or emotion.
Over time, this motion of “letting go” becomes more natural or habituated, so that we are better able to recognize those thoughts that lead to self-pity, anxiety, or upset. We recognize these thoughts, and we gently release them before they can spin their narrative of indignation or spark a tantrum. And then we perhaps begin to understand something of what Paul meant when he said, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.”4
The irony is that devoting regular times to stillness means that you end up getting more done, not less. Tantrums and stewing in indignation take a lot of time, and of course they are not endearing. Practicing daily meditation might actually be the least selfish and most compassionate thing you can do for others.
Luke 10:38-42
All Bourgeault quotations are from Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, pp. 14-16
Into the Silent Land, p. 1
Galatians 2:20
Good People, serendipitously I offered a short presentation this past Wednesday to the CASC (Charlottesville Area Spiritual Companions) on ways to leverage Meister Eckhart's reading of this story as a tool for reframing the spiritual lives of those caught up in the responsibilities of this world in ways that don't seem to allow for "Mary" contemplative practices - parents of small children, those caring for aging parents, those working multiple jobs, those working multiple jobs and have caregiving responsibilities for younger and/or older family members.
I start by pointing out how readings of the Martha & Mary story all assume an adversarial relationship between the two sisters - Cynthia Bourgeault's. But I find this understanding dualistic and ultimately, unhelpful. At some level, every telling of this story I have ever heard assumes that one sister needs to be more like the other - except one, Meister Eckhart's. Hence the title of my talk, "Martha, Mary, & Meister Eckhart: Moms & Dads as Monks & Mystics."
Depending on which numbering system one follows for his sermons, Meister Eckhart ("from whom God hid nothing") interprets this parable (and I consider it a parable) in sermon 86. Briefly then...and knowing in advance that Meister Eckhart's more poetic and allegorical ways of scriptural reasoning may not tie things up for us as nicely as our modern minds might wish...is his reframing of the interaction between the two sisters.
Martha goes to Jesus out of concern for Mary's spiritual growth, not out of envy or frustration.
Mary is the contemplative, still grasping tightly her contemplative method - silence, stillness, proximity to the perceptible presence of Jesus.
But Martha has left the need for such supports behind and does what love requires in the moment, free from the necessity of special ways or places or times of praying.
Mary clings to her contemplation and at the end of the day her contemplation, her “necessary thing,” is all she has.
Martha rests in God and has that rest no matter where she is or what she is doing - like cooking and caring for a houseful of unexpected guests.
Martha & Mary aren't in different parts of the house, one in the kitchen and one in the living room. Martha & Mary are on the same way, the same path, with the older sister just a little bit further down the road, offering her love, concern, and experience in service to her younger sister.
So, as a spiritual friend and a preacher I try now never to tell folks to "pray more" and "do less." Who am I to make that determination for anyone else? And in the circumstances, that may not be realistic for many people. It might not be possible to do less. And it might not be possible to revisit or change existing priorities. In fact, the key to living a Martha life as envisioned by Meister Eckhart might just lie, not in a new set of priorities, but in leaning more strongly into our existing ones.
In his small book, "Domestic Monastery," Fr. Ron Rolheiser points out that those who get up to the alarm clock's warning to take the 8:15 to the city (now I have the BTO song in my head...) to support a family are responding out of duty and love just like the monks moving from one task to another in response to the monastic bell. Both groups of folks recognize that their time does not belong to them and both answer the call of the bell precisely because their lives and their time don't belong to them. Caregivers and the heavily burdened don't need to take on the artificial constructs created by monastics, constructs designed to get the monastic precisely to the place where child rearing or elder care or financial necessity have led the lay contemplative to inhabit.
As I read Eckhart and Rolheiser, in order to walk down the contemplative road that Martha & Mary both walk together, all we need is to let love rule our day, in every sense of that word.
If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading, and I promise not to bloviate like this on a regular basis!
Peace,
-Dawg