In actual fact, the English phrase deacon is derived straight from the Greek for “one who serves.” But, one way or the other and for some motive, in this passage about Martha, diakonian is translated: “duties” (NRSVUE), “preparations” (NASB, NIV), “all that needed to be executed” (CEV), and “prepared for his or her meal…to arrange the desk” (CEB).
The Dwelling Bible even goes as far as to explain her thusly: “Martha was the jittery sort and was worrying over the large dinner she was getting ready.” And The Message interprets it as “all she needed to do within the kitchen.”
Why is it completely different right here? What’s so completely different about Martha that her “ministry” turns into “duties” and “meal prep”? It’s curious, certainly. Let these with eyes and ears ponder accordingly.
We’re starting to see a distinct picture of Martha rising, no? Certainly one of a lady, a disciple of Jesus, not distracted by a to-do checklist however overwhelmed by ministry wants. So, Luke continues,
“She εἶπεν (eipen) – “set upon” or “confronted” or “commanded” – Jesus, saying, ‘Lord! Does it not make you anxious that my sister has μόνην με κατέλειπεν (monēn me kateleipen) – left me alone – to διακονεῖν (diakonein) – minister?”
This Greek phrase, “kateleipen,” means “to go away” – to go away, to bodily abandon or desert one place and go to a different.
Once more: Mary is so not within the house proper now. Sister is gone. And he or she has left Martha alone (monēn) to diakonein. This diakonein, the verbed cognate of the basis phrase diakonos, describes the abnormal, sensible issues we do in relational ministry. It’s not simply the patriarchally-defined and -diminished “ladies’s work” of cooking and cleansing. No, that is all of the work that defines ministry. That means, whereas Mary is gone, out among the many 72, Martha is making meals for the neighborhood, gathering groceries for the hungry, praying with grieving neighbors, visiting incarcerated and incapacitated people, preaching and instructing and taking good care of youngsters, and doing all the opposite each day labor of a minister.
She is drained.
So she tells Jesus,
“εἰπὲ (eipe) – carry phrase and command – her to assist me.” (10:40)
(…right here is the place her story takes its essential flip…)
“Answering (Ἀποκριθεὶς / apokritheis) her, the Lord mentioned, “Martha, Martha. You’re
μεριμνᾷς (merimnas) and θορυβάζῃ (thorybazē) about πολλά (polla).” (10:41)
Jesus names Martha–twice–calling her out of the Mary narrative, again into her personal physique. And he names what’s really happening for her.
See, up thus far all we’re instructed is that she’s overburdened by the each day work of ministry. However Jesus peels again that layer and names the True Reality:
Martha is merimnas
– anxious, to the purpose of being divided into items
and thorybazē
– agitated to the purpose of panic
about polla
– many issues.
This final phrase, polla – this one actually is wholly unrelated to ministry and is simply (as my pricey pal Sara likes to say) “all of the alls.”
Martha confronts Jesus, commanding him to carry Mary house, and as a substitute of elevating his vitality to match hers, he does one thing else altogether.
That is the place that previous fantasy of Mary turns into so overtly problematic: She’s not even on the town, by no means thoughts sitting at Jesus’ toes. She is a lady out doing disciples’ work in a world that isn’t made for or form to ladies, having left Martha at house to do the identical alone.
It’s her absence, not laziness, that so agitates Martha.
And it’s into her agitation that Jesus speaks calm. He acknowledges the reality of the nervousness tearing her aside, the panic she will’t bury in busyness, and calls her again to her personal physique. He bolsters her with the promise that her fear is unneeded as a result of Mary has chosen the portion that’s good for her–not “the solely good portion,” as some translations indicate; Simply her good portion, one for which she is especially well-suited–and it’ll not be taken from her.
She is alone and anxious, and when all of it comes out sideways, wanting like resentment and rage, Jesus solutions Mary’s absence and Martha’s panic with Presence: His presence in her house; Hers in her physique.
He names her, sees her, hears her, validates her, and frees her –
To not be like Mary, as we’ve endlessly been taught, however to let Mary be Mary.
And so be herself.
This second–the second when Christ meets Martha’s humanity together with his personal, changing that picture of a Martha who resents her sister with one who really loves her sister deeply and is deeply anxious over her absence–It’s all the things. And it adjustments all the things.
The good factor about Mary and Martha, I feel, is that removed from being a swooning sitter and her busybody sister, they’re trailblazers of the religion, apostles with and to and of the apostles, who turned so well-known, beloved, and revered that, along with others like Mary Magdalene, they’re remembered as matriarchs of the church.
