No, what has been hidden by all this controversy over how much women should or should not work is a much more revolutionary event – Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and listens to his teaching. The passage is not about working too much, is it? If work is the issue at all, then only in the context of finding a right balance between serving others and spending time with Jesus. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. You’ll find this in the biography of Jesus written by Luke, Chapter 10, verses 38 – 42:Īs Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. That is not really the point of the story. When really domestic work was all that women were allowed to do in the first place. Mary spends all her time sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to him talk, and leaves Martha to run around to care for all the guests on her own.įor years, in another spectacular own goal by the church on all things gender-related, this story has been used to make women feel guilty about doing too much domestic work. They also feature in the first meeting of the family with Jesus, when Martha invites Jesus to their home. Mary soon after this will anoint Jesus’ feet with oil and dry them with her hair, in what is one of the most powerful expressions of love and devotion to Jesus in the whole of the New Testament. Mary and Martha are rather more famous, incidentally. Not much to go on, is there, aside from the fact that he got ill, he died, and Jesus loved him. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick." This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. At the beginning of the chapter, we’re told: We don’t know much about Lazarus, other than what the passage tells us. The passage is long, so I won’t read all of it. You’ll find the story described in the story of Jesus’ life written by John, in Chapter 11 of that book. The story will be very familiar to many of you, so I will try to tell it in an interesting way. In order to tell you the story of Lazarus’ meeting with Jesus, I will have to tell you the story of his two sisters’ meeting with Jesus, too. I get to talk about another meeting Jesus had, when Jesus met Lazarus. This morning, Andrew Lingham talked about “When Jesus met Bartimaeus”. That’s not meant as a description of my talk, by the way. Hello and welcome to the Gathering, like weekly worship only darker and louder.
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