Written and preached at Hope United Church on July 20th, 2025
Gospel Reading: Luke 10:38-42, NRSVUE
Now, as they went on their way, he entered a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her, then, to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things, but few things are needed - indeed only one. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Self-care… perhaps you have heard this word before.
In the last decade or so, the concept of ‘self-care’ has become increasingly popular and trendy. On Tik Tok the hashtag ‘self-care’ has somewhere around 28.2 billion hits, so clearly the concept is very popular among young people.
But even boomers and Gen Xers are embracing the concept of self-care. In a world that is constantly telling us that we need to be productive and busy in order to add value to society, that promotes a lifestyle of constant stress, anxiety and worry, and in a world that tries to avoid the inevitability of frail bodies and failing health… self-care is a call to look after ourselves, look after out health… offering us permission to slow down… look inward… and show ourselves love.
We are crafted in God’s image, as the bible tells us, after all… We are human beings made by a loving creator, and God abides both in us and around us. So does that not mean that we should take care of ourselves?... We should show ourselves love by caring for our bodies, minds, and souls.
But isn’t this also overly self-indulgent?...
There are many critics of the ‘self-care’ movement. Some will even go as far as to say that ‘self-care’ is hyper-individualistic, irresponsible, and just plain selfish.
And when we think about how consumer culture has latched on to the concept of self-care, packaging it as the latest anti-ageing wellness products, overconsumption, and promoting hyper-individualism at the expense of those who are poor and suffering… then we can see how this idea of self-care might be a little problematic.
But does it have to be one or the other? Do we need to choose between, on one hand, taking care of our neighbours and caring for the world, or, on the other hand, taking care of ourselves, filling our own cup, and focusing on our own joy?
Can we not do both? As Christians, can we not live out our faith in both this internal and external way? And does not filling our own cup mean that we can better serve and help others?
Our scripture reading from the Gospel of Luke, about Mary and Martha, is often read in this kind of dichotomy, this either-or. Either you identify with Mary OR you identify with Martha. Traditionally, Mary was said to represent ‘the way of contemplation’, or what we might call ‘self-care’ in our modern age. Martha represents the ‘way of action’, what we might call selfless service towards others. Perhaps you can see yourself in one of these two women.
In our gospel story, Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening to his teachings. By doing so, she is engaging in a form of self-care, looking after her spiritual and mental health.
But Martha thinks Mary is being too self-indulgent. Martha is left with the burden of taking care of the home by herself. She is performing all the duties of being a host to make sure that Jesus and his companions will be fed and cared for while they are there. And Mary has just left Martha to do this all on her own! I don’t know about you, but I personally feel bad for Martha - this is not a fair situation.
Now, in the earliest interpretations of this gospel story, the early church fathers really did make it seem that Mary’s way of doing things, which represented the ‘contemplative’ or inward way of living the faith, was superior to Martha’s ‘active’ way of living the faith. And that’s understandable because in our story, when Martha confronts Jesus about the fact that Mary is not helping her, Jesus responds by telling Martha that she is worried and distracted by many things… and that Mary has chosen the better part.
So in the early church, this understanding of Mary’s way being superior manifested as this idea that a mystical or contemplative spirituality was the highest point of Christian life. And in the earliest days of the church, when Christians were being persecuted by people in power, this contemplative form of spirituality found its expression through martyrdom, where the most faithful path was to die as Christ died.
And then, when Christianity was legalized in the year 313, and martyrdom was no longer necessary, this way of expressing a contemplative spirituality shifted to asceticism. You may have heard of the desert fathers and mothers, who were solitary Christians. They committed to living reclusive lives as monks or ascetics, living alone in the desert, so that they could commune with Christ’s spirit, letting go of the world and all of its distractions. And later on, we had the monastic communities and orders that were established to help people practice their faith in this inward way by removing all worldly distractions.
But what about the people in the world who are suffering? Does our faith require that we abstain from anything worldly at all, removing all the so-called ‘distractions’? And is it true that in the story of Mary and Martha, Jesus is telling us that the contemplative way is superior to the active way of living our faith? A closer look at this story may tell us otherwise.
Now it’s important to situate this story within its first-century context. Mary, Martha and Jesus were all Jewish, and lived within a Greco-Roman society that was highly patriarchal, which meant that for the most part, men worked and engaged in spiritual leadership and teachings, while women looked after the home. Now, in Judaism, it was not forbidden for women to be instructed in Jewish teachings. They were allowed to participate, but it was still considered highly unusual for women to do so, likely because they were always so busy taking care of the household. Yet we know from many of the stories in the Gospel of Luke that Jesus crossed those traditional gender boundaries and instructed women as he would his male disciples.
So with all of this in mind, we come to realize that Jesus is not rebuking Martha because her actions were ‘inferior’, but rather points to the rare opportunity offered for a woman to be instructed by an enlightened Jewish teacher. Mary recognized this rare opportunity and thus felt the most hospitable thing she could do was sit at Jesus’ feet and take in his spiritual wisdom. It was a small window of opportunity for self-care, amidst a life devoted to serving others. Martha, on the other hand, had become too preoccupied and distracted with her traditional role to notice this opportunity. So by Jesus saying that Mary had ‘chosen the better part’, Jesus was permitting Martha to do the same as Mary, to seize the rare opportunity of being taught by a spiritual master, allowing Martha who was always busy taking care of others, to finally engage in a form of self-care for her own soul. Dinner could wait.
Now the German medieval mystic Meister Eckhart takes this interpretation further to the point of a complete reversal, suggesting that Martha is in fact ‘more advanced’ in her spiritual knowledge, while Mary is at an earlier stage of her journey. Mary is said to have ‘chosen the better part’ not because her actions are superior to Martha’s, but because it is what Mary needs in that moment for her spiritual growth. Thus, Jesus’ dialogue with Martha invites her to be patient with her sister, who is not yet able to integrate the contemplative and active in her life.
So, as modern-day Christians who are doing our best to walk the path of Jesus in 2025, what can we learn from these two sisters?
Well, in my opinion, while tradition dictates that each sister represents a different way of living out our faith, I believe that we need to embody both. The sisters need each other.
If we are only focused on an inward, individual way of living our faith, we run the risk of becoming self-indulgent and indifferent to the suffering of others. We miss out on the ways that Christ manifests in our relationships with others, and fall under the false illusion that other people's pain and what happens in the world have no bearing on us.
On the other hand, an active service-oriented way of living our faith without any form of self-care or inward reflection can lead one to be bitter, burnt out, stressed out, even falling into a state of despair when our health fails us and we can no longer do the things that we used to, or when we watch the news and see all the injustices in the world.
So my invitation to you is to think about how you can integrate more of both Mary and Martha in your lives. And this goes beyond gender. You may not identify as a woman, but you may identify with a propensity for busyness. Perhaps you are someone who was always a ‘doer’. You always need to be busy doing something or helping someone. Perhaps you get your sense of self-worth and your sense of value from doing things for others…
This is not a bad thing. This is a wonderful thing. But if we only value ourselves for what we do for others, if we only love ourselves based on how much others love us… Then, do we really love ourselves? What happens when the people we love don’t need us like they used to? What happens when our health falters and we need time to rest, or become dependent on others? Do we still feel loved…valuable… worthy of being taken care of? If not… then it may be time to focus on a more inward faith: cultivating that inner relationship with God and engaging in honest self-reflection, because I promise you, God seeks to abide ever more fully within you. But we have to slow down enough to notice God’s seeking presence there, to hear the Spirit when it is calling and seeking to flow through us.
Or maybe you identify more as someone who is a thinker. You love to read, to pray, to reflect, to be in your own space. Your faith is more of a contemplative faith, one where you feel a personal relationship with the Divine. You feel God’s presence in your life, and you feel the privilege and the gratitude for that presence. Maybe you even try to shut off distractions, like the news and all the noise around you, because it’s just too much.
Again, this is not a bad thing. Many psychologists and therapists today recommend that we limit the amount of news media and social media that we take in, because it can have such a negative impact on our mental health.
But we don’t need to cut ourselves off from the world completely. In fact, by doing so, we might miss out on how God is active in the world. We won't notice how Christ is present even in the brokenness and suffering of our world. Being made in the image of a loving Creator means that Christ also exists in the other, in those different to us. Jesus told us to love God and love our neighbour. And sometimes loving our neighbour requires that we act. That we stand up for others. That we lend a helping hand to the best of our ability to others around us who need support. That we treat others with love and kindness and respect, even people we don’t like or disagree with or have different views or beliefs.
But we can even just start with the people in our lives. Perhaps there is someone you’ve been meaning to call, check in on and see how they’re doing. But you’ve been putting it off. Or there is clutter in your home that you’ve been meaning to get rid of. Or perhaps it’s time to carve out some sacred space just for you. Whether it’s taking that walk in the morning that you always say you’re going to take, or trying a new hobby that you’ve always wanted to try. Perhaps it’s carving out more time on a daily basis for prayer and self-reflection. Maybe you have items in your home or your wardrobe that need replacing… and taking care of you means allowing yourself to replace those items without feeling guilty about it. Perhaps there are additional ways in which you can care for you, and honour yourself as God’s loved creation.
Whatever you choose to do, just know that there are a lot of ways that we can embody more of both Mary and Martha in our lives. We just need to take the time and space to decide that we’re worth it, that we’re going to say yes to practising our faith boldly, both inwardly and outwardly, no matter what stage of life we’re in. And that we are not going to give from an empty cup, but instead permit ourselves to live out our faith from a place of fullness. What do you think?
Amen.
This is wonderful sermon Hannah. Thank you. 🙏🏼❤️