In “Other” Words: Do You Identify With and Relate to Martha or Mary? (Part One)

“What used to make us stum­ble, God can use to make us stand.
What once made us bow our heads in shame,
He can use for His glory.“
~ Joanna Weaver~
Hav­ing a Mary Spirit

As they con­tin­ued their travel, Jesus entered a vil­lage. A woman by the name of Martha wel­comed him and made him feel quite at home. She had a sis­ter, Mary, who sat before the Mas­ter, hang­ing on every word he said. But Martha was pulled away by all she had to do in the kitchen. Later, she stepped in, inter­rupt­ing them. “Mas­ter, don’t you care that my sis­ter has aban­doned the kitchen to me? Tell her to lend me a hand.“The Mas­ter said, “Martha, dear Martha, you’re fuss­ing far too much and get­ting your­self worked up over noth­ing. One thing only is essen­tial, and Mary has cho­sen it—it’s the main course, and won’t be taken from her.”

Luke 10:38–42

Two sis­ters. Com­plete opposites.

One a Type A per­son­al­ity, obsess­ing over all the minor details related to hav­ing a house guest. Can’t you pic­ture her in the kitchen get­ting all of the food ready, chang­ing the per­fectly matched linens and putting fresh flow­ers in the guest room, scrub­bing the bath­rooms and mak­ing sure there are plenty of lovely scented can­dles and clean towels?

The other sis­ter sort of “lets it all hang out.” She makes sure the house is clean enough, but orders trays of sand­wiches and veg­gies with ranch dip from the local deli, and makes sure the sheets on the bed in the guest room are clean, but doesn’t care if they match exactly or have a cou­ple of small holes in the seams. The bath­room is clean, but a bit clut­tered and a few freshly washed tow­els are stacked on the shelf for the guest’s use, but they, like the linens, are nei­ther per­fectly matched nor entirely free of flaws.

The Type A sis­ter misses out on all the juicy con­ver­sa­tions going on in var­i­ous parts of the house … the sports talk among the men in the fam­ily room, the jok­ing and ban­ter­ing among the teenagers gath­ered in the din­ing room, the women sit­ting out­side by the spot­lessly glis­ten­ing pool in which the host­ess really never swims because she claims to always be too busy.

The other sis­ter moves between the var­i­ous groups clus­tered about the house, leav­ing the fam­ily room when the large-screen tele­vi­sion set is turned on so that the sports fans in the group can watch the foot­ball game in favor of hang­ing with the kids for awhile in the din­ing room. She has to know what is so funny after she hears their laugh­ter rever­ber­at­ing down the hall­way. Finally, when their con­ver­sa­tion turns to rock bands she has never heard of, she ambles out­side to join the other women who are dan­gling their feet in the pool while sip­ping wine and com­par­ing notes about their lat­est diets, kids’ activ­i­ties or hus­bands’ quirks.

One sis­ter throws a lovely party, but never gets time to enjoy it her­self, even though her guests have a great time. She com­plains that there are no pic­tures of her in the fam­ily photo albums. That’s because when pho­tos are being snapped, she is always fuss­ing in the kitchen, refill­ing guests’ drinks or check­ing the bath­rooms to make sure that there are still clean fin­ger­tip tow­els on the counter.

The other sis­ter will never be com­pared to Martha Stew­art but has a great time when friends come over. Her photo album is filled with can­did shots of her in the midst of her guests, laugh­ing, propos­ing toasts, blow­ing out birth­day candles.

Which sis­ter do you relate to?

I used to bow my head in shame at my inabil­ity to match my sister’s prowess as a home­maker and host­ess. Her house is always per­fect: Clean, tidy, every­thing in its place. She is prac­ti­cally a gourmet cook, wraps pack­ages seam­lessly in per­fectly coor­di­nated paper, bows and acces­sories, arranges flow­ers, is an expert-level calligrapher.

My house always looks decid­edly lived in. While her Christ­mas trees look like they came from a Fifth Avenue dis­play, ours always looks like we bor­rowed it from Char­lie Brown. I’m usu­ally lucky to have any pack­ages to wrap due to my sched­ule and ten­dency to pro­cras­ti­nate, not to men­tion utter lack of cre­ativ­ity. I am lucky to get some paper and one of those stick-on bows on each pack­age and have been known to give gift cer­tifi­cates — or even worse, cash — because I sim­ply can­not think of any­thing else to buy.

In recent years, given that all of our par­ents are gone and the youngest kid in the fam­ily is 15, my sis­ter has mel­lowed and I have quit feel­ing so guilty about my nonex­is­tent domes­tic prowess. We have found com­pro­mise on hol­i­days, going out to restau­rants more and, when we do cel­e­brate at home, for­sak­ing the China and crys­tal in favor of eat­ing buf­fet style using paper or plas­tic plates that can be thrown away. I have become more insis­tent about con­tribut­ing to the meal and refuse to show up if she cooks for hours and hours on end … I’m always will­ing to pick up sal­ads, meat and cheese or sand­wich and veg­gie trays from the deli. The kids pre­fer infor­mal din­ing and none of us needs to con­sume a heavy, calo­rie– and fat-laden meal, anyway.

As we get older, she is giv­ing up some of her Martha traits and becom­ing more like Mary, will­ing to linger at the din­ing room table to enjoy the ban­ter of the four boys and my old­est nephew’s girl­friend. I am more likely to help in the kitchen if it is a sim­ple mat­ter of putting away left­overs, as opposed to stand­ing there for an eter­nity dry­ing China and crys­tal that she is unwill­ing to put in the dishwasher.

My sis­ter is show­ing up in more and more pho­tos … I am tak­ing more pic­tures. God has helped us ease out of our young adult roles of “Obses­sive, Dri­ven Host­ess” and her “Slacker Sis­ter” into the more mature and evenly matched “Great Host­ess” and “Mediocre and Not Apol­o­giz­ing for it Host­ess.” I used to stum­ble over my own inad­e­qua­cies, but in time came to accept what our mother knew all along: The best seam­stress would inherit her sewing machine, the best musi­cian would own the piano. She always knew that her Singer would end up in my sister’s house and the piano would remain right here in the house where we both learned to play it, but only one of us pounded those keys as though her soul depended upon the melodies ema­nat­ing from it (because it did).

There is a lit­tle of both Martha and Mary in all of us. What’s impor­tant is how you rec­on­cile that real­ity and learn to be com­fort­able with your iden­tity. When you do, you will quit stum­bling and find your­self empow­ered to glo­rify God by using the gifts and tal­ents he gave you with­out guilt or shame about lack­ing those that he saw fit to bestow upon others.

Martha or Mary? Or are you a lit­tle of each?

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• Case Dis­missed
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