Welcome back to Between Two Pews with Stephen Caine! Much like Trinity Sunday, Stephen has some bones to pick with this passage (Luke 10:38-42). We bring in historian and scholar Dr. Marita von Weissenberg to chat with us about the famed sisters Martha and Mary whom Jesus often took shelter with on his journeys. Frustration with Jesus playing favorites abounds, but we also get to hear several delightful stories that our medieval ancestors told about Jesus– the veracity of which is…dubious, but hey, the stories are REALLY entertaining.
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’s 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.”
Luke 10:38-42