Martha’s chest feels tight. Each breath seems to be entering and leaving her body through lungs bound by ropes. She tries to focus on the breaths despite the sharp pain. She takes a deep breath in and lets it out long and slow, like her father taught her. It’s not working. The fit of panic came on too suddenly, too strong. It’s carrying her away like a galloping horse disappearing into the horizon.
“They’re coming tonight?” Martha pushes the words out, they sound squeaky.
“Yes, they’re passing through, tonight only.” Mary, her sister, says.
“And you already invited them?” Mary’s face goes blurry as the thoughts race through Martha’s brain. Dinner, food, cleaning, wine. She begins a long list.
“Yes, I did.” Mary says. “I told them they’re welcome to spend the night in our house. I didn’t promise a meal, just a place to stay, but I think we should give them a meal. We have plenty.”
“How many men are there?”
“Ten, I think, but there could be more or less.”
“And the teacher is with them? Jesus of Nazareth?”
“Yes. Oh, Martha. He’s the reason I invited them.” Martha senses Mary scanning her face. “It’ll be ok Martha,” she says. “It doesn’t have to be a big ordeal. Just simple. It’ll be ok.” Martha doesn’t feel Mary’s hand on her back.
“I know it’s ok.” Martha spits back. “But still, you’re asking me to feed and house ten men with no notice.”
“But they don’t care about the food, Martha.”
“I care.”
“But you shouldn’t. It’s about the teacher that’s coming. He’s the important thing. Can you imagine? He’ll be sitting at our table. Abba’s table. If only Abba could be here to see the men sitting around it. That was always his dream before he died. Wasn’t it, Martha? To talk about the Lord and the scriptures at that table.”
Martha remembers the smell of the raw wood when Abba brought it home. It was so strong she felt like she was standing next to the actual trunk of the tree. She remembers her father whittling the legs of the table for hours, his back hunched over his tools, his nose nearly touching the wood as he brought forth vines of leaves and grapes. What had been bare slabs just a moment before, suddenly sang with creation.
The memory fades as the list continues in Martha’s head. Now she’s added oiling the table, to the list to protect it. Ten men around it, anything could happen.
Mary’s lips are moving but Martha misses the words.
“What did you say?” Martha says.
“I said that we can serve them the lentils and beans that we have. I even picked up a few vegetables from the garden and I think we have wine. It’ll be fine. Martha, it’ll be ok.”
Martha still doesn’t hear her.
We need wine, she thinks, new wine and rugs. Lamb takes five hours to roast, she’ll have to start right away. And that rug that’s been sitting near the door needs mending, no better yet, throw it away. She’ll find a new one at the market.
“Let’s go to the market.” Martha takes hold of Mary’s elbow. It goes stiff under her grip, but Martha ignores it. “We need baskets for our purchases. We don’t have them with us, do we?” Her words come with her train of thought. “No, we don’t have them. Should we go grab them from the house? No, we’ll buy new ones, we don’t have time. Mary, can you get oil?” Martha starts to walk but Mary doesn’t move. “Come on, Mary, we have to go now, lamb takes hours.”
“I—” Mary pauses and looks off into the horizon. Martha stares at Mary’s wandering eyes, piercing them with her glare. “I need to go to the synagogue, Martha.” Mary finally continues. “I need to hear Isaiah again so I can ask the teacher some questions about the scriptures. They say he knows them like he wrote them himself. I need to know about the Messiah. It might be him. He’s healing the sick, Martha, and talking about bringing the kingdom of God.”
The kingdom of God? But what about the house? Martha thinks.
“You don’t need to study, Mary.” Martha says. “You know the scriptures plenty well, as well as Abba did. No, you need to help me.”
Martha takes off down the road to the market, not even looking behind her to see if Mary is following her. She’ll come, she knows. She’ll come.
###
Martha is six years old. She sits in the kitchen next to her mother who is stirring dinner in a large clay pot. Martha slowly dices an onion, each layer giving way under her knife, the long thin slices become small crumb-sized pieces. She savors the act, finding satisfaction in transforming the vegetable from the state of wholeness to a scattered state of fragmentation. Her fingertips tingle from joy or from the onion juice, either is fine with her.
“Martha, you will have to take care of yourself when your father and I are gone. You can’t depend on anyone else.” Her mother’s voice is sharp and biting. It cuts into Martha’s pleasure like the knife she is using on the onions.
“Do you hear me, child? I’m telling you now. No one will take care of you but you.”
Martha sets down the knife. Suddenly it feels like a stone instead of a blade. Somehow chopping onions isn’t about the onions anymore. She leaves the kitchen and cries into her blanket, not sure why suddenly the world feels so heavy.
###
Martha hears the knock on the front door and soon voices begin to fill the house. She stays in the kitchen. The lamb needs to cook for another hour. Mary greets the men and settles them around the table. She comes back into the kitchen for the pitcher of wine.
“When you’re done pouring the wine, I need you to start the bread.” Martha says.
“What bread?”
“The naan. Can you also mix the garlic and oil?”
“We didn’t agree I’d make bread, Martha, I told you, I have questions to ask the teacher. We have bread there that we can use.”
“But we made that days ago, it’s stale.”
“It’s fine, the men will just be happy to have meat and wine, they won’t care if the bread it a little tough.”
“I care, Mary, I care.”
“Why do you care so much, Martha?”
“Because no one else will care if I don’t care.”
“Do you ever think that maybe you’re the only one cares for a reason? That maybe it doesn’t need your level of care?”
Martha feels tears form behind her eyes. Mary doesn’t know what she’s talking about, Martha thinks. Since their mother died after their father, Mary doesn’t realize that Martha has been taking care of her. She doesn’t understand the level of care that Martha needs to have to make sure that everything is done properly.
Done properly.
She hears her mother’s voice and remembers overhearing a conversation between her mother and father when they were both alive. Her mother is saying the same thing. “It needs to be done properly.” She is saying to her father. Her mother is crying tears of frustration. Her father is soothing her, his hands are on her cheeks.
“My love,” he says, “you are worrying about so much. You don’t need to worry.”
“But it won’t be done properly.” Her mother says.
“What if it doesn’t get done properly? What happens then?”
“Then it would be disaster.”
“You are so afraid of this thing you call disaster.” Her father says. “Instead, you need to trust in the Lord, your keeper. He is your great portion and all that you need. He will keep you from this disaster, he will take care of you. You don’t have to work so hard, and you needn’t worry so much.”
“I don’t know how not to.” Her mother says.
Martha dries her eyes, she’s full blown crying now. Could she let go of this? She looks around the kitchen. She sets down her spoon beside the pot of stew and stares at it.
But what if it doesn’t get done? She thinks. No, she must do it. Her father never understood her mother, just like Mary never understands her. Where is Mary? She never came back to the kitchen.
Martha picks up the spoon, stirs the pot, dips the knives in water and begins the bread herself, Martha can’t wait for Mary to do it. She finishes mixing the oil and decides to take it to the table.
There she finds Mary sitting at the feet of the one that must be Jesus. The wine jug is sitting on the floor next to Mary.
Martha rushes over, picks up the jug and begins to fill the empty glasses around the table. She is so angry she can barely steady her hands. She knocks over a full glass of wine with the sleeve of her robe. She lunges toward the growing stain on the wood. She knew this would happen. She dabs at it with her apron but it’s too late, the wine settles into the wood.
“Let us help you.” A man’s voice says and three come around her and dab at the wine. Martha’s shoulders shake in frustration, and she hurries back to the kitchen before she breaks down in front of them.
She is crying into the lamb stew before she realizes that she’s already salted it. She dries her cheeks with a towel and tries to breathe again but her lungs are too tight. Mother, she thinks. I can’t do this alone. I’m not as strong as you think. She clenches her fists and watches herself speed away on the racing horse.
Martha marches out into the dining room and stands next to Jesus. “Teacher, do you care that my sister here has left me to serve you and all of your disciples by myself? Tell her to help me.”
The teacher looks up at Martha and smiles. The noise in the room goes hush. Martha immediately regrets her temper. She wishes her words could float in the air so she could place them back in her mouth. The teacher stands and places his hands on either side of her face like her father did to her mother. He leans in toward her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried about so many things, but you only need one thing, the good portion. That is what Mary has chosen and I will not tell her otherwise.” He sits back down and speaks quietly to Mary again.
The good portion, Martha thinks.
The Lord is our great portion. Martha remembers her father reading the psalm to them when they were younger. She walks back into the kitchen in a trance. She picks up the spoon and lifts a bowl to ladle it full of stew. Jesus doesn’t understand, she thinks. Just like my father, just like my sister.
But what if he does understand? She thinks. What if he is right and I don’t need to worry? What if the Lord will take care of me? She sets the bowl down, then places the spoon in the pot.
“Come fill your bowls.” She says to the room of men. They appear at the kitchen door smiling and jostling one another. They clap Martha on the back as they pass.
“Bowls are sitting there, and bread is over there.” Martha points to the corner of the kitchen. “Help yourself.”
She walks over to Mary and sits down next to her.
###
In the Biblical account, Martha’s anxiety causes her to lash out at Jesus regarding her sister, but Jesus replies gently and kindly, reminding her that her she doesn’t need to be worried, the Lord will take care of her.
Personally, I feel like Martha. I am often consumed by worry and anxiety about who will take care of me. I forget that the Lord takes care of me. I forget to set down my burdens in front of him, trusting him instead.
As always, thank you for reading this far.
I especially like this sentence: “She wishes her words could float in the air so she could place them back in her mouth.” And I liked your words at the end and thinking about laying our burden’s at Jesus’ feet. I’ve found it helpful to visualize this at different times I’m my life, especially in relation to my children.
I wonder how many women can relate to Martha? Many, I would guess. Her layers of expectations put on her by her Mother’s example and herself we’re in such contrast to the invitation to set them down by Jesus. I loved how Martha sat at his feet near the end. Beautifully done.