On Being Martha-Prone

Wednesday of Week 17 in Ordinary Time
SAINT MARTHA

There are two choices today for the Gospel text, John 11 has Martha saying "if only you had been here, my brother would not have died" and in Luke 10 Jesus says "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things."  I haven't  met a character in the Gospels who speaks to my weaknesses like Martha does.

Battling the myth of control is certainly a post modern constant. Nowhere is it more evident than in the hospital where there is a pervasive belief that healing is only a pharmacological script away. As a healthy, wealthy, white, American, that myth is ever present. Martha puts it on Jesus...if only. 

It's the Lukan Martha I truly love. Mostly because I think Jesus comes down a little hard on her.  I interpret the story as a caution against the "martyr syndrome."  If I find joy in all the hospitable doing that I do, then I best not complain or draw attention to my doing over against another's being.  AND, in honest self reflection, I admit that it is easier to be about the doing as a way of hiding from the being.

St. Martha (and Mary), pray for me.