After a full year of holy anticipation, Lent Madness returns for another season of saintly thrills and spills! Whether this is your tenth year engaging in the annual saintly smackdown or your first, we're delighted you'll be spending a portion of your Lenten journey among us. Along the way there will be debates, ire, angst, rejoicing, laughter, and holy trash talking. Just remember, it’s all in the spirit of this holy season specifically set aside to grow closer to God through our relationship with Jesus Christ.
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Lent Madness 2019, or Lent Madness X as we've been calling it, kicks off with a battle between two Biblical heavyweights as we settle, once and for all, the age old question: Mary vs. Martha. And before you say it, of course it's not fair! It's not called Lent Madness for nothing.
So, hang onto your halos, friends, and prepare yourselves for another wild ride of saintly action. Away we go!
Mary of Bethany
Mary of Bethany lived in first-century Bethany with her sister, Martha, and her brother, Lazarus, as we are told in the Gospel of Luke. Along with her siblings, she was among the very first to believe in Jesus.
Luke recounts the famous story of Jesus having supper at the sisters’ house, where Martha, concerned with getting the food on the table, asks Jesus to scold Mary for her apparent lack of concern. It’s notable that Mary is described as sitting at Jesus’ feet while Martha serves; usually only the male students of rabbis sat at the feet of their teachers. For Mary to do so is highly unusual for an unmarried woman—possibly why Martha gets antsy about it. But Jesus declines to chide Mary for what she has done, declaring that in her discipleship, she has “chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
The Gospel of John also gives us a few more glimpses of Mary of Bethany. John explicitly links Mary with the woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her hair. At Lazarus’s death, both Mary and Martha race out into the street to greet Jesus when he finally comes, and Mary chastises him, echoing her sister’s words, saying “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” At her declaration, Jesus is moved to tears.
It is clear that Jesus is quite close with this family. Through contextual clues, we can tell that the family must have been fairly well-to-do, given the sisters’ independent status and ability to support Jesus’ ministry. They seem to own their house and are able to provide a separate burial site for their brother (somewhat rare—and not cheap.). We also have John’s story of Mary spending more than 300 denarii (equivalent to 300 days of wage for a laborer) on pure spikenard to anoint Jesus.
Later church tradition treated Mary as it treated many of the other women of the gospel; it elided her story into that of an Everywoman who is remarkable mostly in her blandness. The few stories that survive in the West often conflate her with Mary Magdalene. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, her uniqueness survives, and with her sister and Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany is remembered on the third Sunday of Easter as one of the Myrrh-Bearing Women—the first to recognize the risen Christ.
Collect for Mary of Bethany
O God, heavenly Father, your Son Jesus Christ enjoyed rest and refreshment in the home of Mary and Martha of Bethany: Give us the will to love you, open our hearts to hear you, and strengthen our hands to serve you in others for his sake; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Martha of Bethany
The iconic Martha of Bethany is the hero of faithful pragmatics and doers, though she gets a bad rap for being less contemplative than her sister. When Jesus visits her house, Mary sits at his feet, but Martha feels the burdens of her role as hostess and works in the kitchen, resentful that Mary isn’t helping. When she complains, the Lord answers, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted about many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” Because of this anecdote, Martha is seen to symbolize worldly concerns while her sister Mary focuses on the spiritual. When Jesus asks someone to open the tomb of her days-dead brother Lazarus, the heartbroken Martha stays true to her practical nature, responding, “Lord, already there is a stench.”
Although not expressly mentioned in the gospels, the Orthodox tradition honors both Martha and Mary as among the followers of Jesus who stood at Golgotha to witness the crucifixion, and later carried myrrh to his tomb to anoint the body. Thus they are counted among the first witnesses of the resurrection. This tradition also holds that Martha fled persecution in Judea with Lazarus, joining him as a missionary abroad until he became a bishop in Cyprus, where all three siblings eventually died.
According to the Golden Legend, a medieval hagiography (writing about the lives of the saints), the siblings were of noble birth. Martha put her aristocratic hostess skills to use for Jesus because, “She thought that all the world was not sufficient to serve such a guest.” The same legend holds that the family arrived in France miraculously via a ship without oars or sails to preach the gospel. The eminently practical Martha tamed a Galician dragon, “half beast and half fish, greater than an ox, longer than a horse, having teeth sharp as a sword, and horned on either side, head like a lion, tail like a serpent.” Afterward Martha lived a life of daily devotion in France until she died. A tomb in the Collegiate Church of Tarascon purportedly contains her relics.
Martha’s feast day is July 29, and she is patron saint of cooks, dietitians, domestic help, housekeepers, servants, and waitpersons. And of course, she is admired by pragmatics, doers, and practitioners of common sense.
Collect for Martha of Bethany
O God, heavenly Father, your Son Jesus Christ enjoyed rest and refreshment in the home of Mary and Martha of Bethany: Give us the will to love you, open our hearts to hear you, and strengthen our hands to serve you in others for his sake; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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537 comments on “Mary of Bethany vs. Martha of Bethany”
Really! Martha has a lot of ‘Church Lady’ fans!
I vote for Martha. I think that she does not get enough credit. The doers allow the meditators the ability to practice.
Voted for Mary. Sometimes it's best to sit and listen.
Team Mary.. wish I could be more like her.
What a hard choice , but decided that I had to sit an listen to my Lord before I had strength to be a Martha , so first things first. Mary gets my vote.
Martha has my vote!
I am often like Martha. But I am older now and less inclined to care about messes. So dinner will be late. Come join me, Martha, at Jesus feet. I have so many questions.
In Mary and Marrtha’s time on earth — and in many cultures even today — women were expected to stay in the kitchen while men were at leisure in another part of the house. Mary broke that barrier, joining the other disciples.
are you my cousin?
I'm a newbie at Lent Madness, having watched from the sidelines the past couple of years, so please be gentle with me.
I voted for Martha because that's the mode in which I often find myself. My heart wants to be a Mary, but too often my day mirrors Mark 1:35-37: "...went to a deserted place, and there he prayed. Simon and his companions hunted for him...everyone is looking for you."
I will say that (at the moment I am posting this) I'm surprised the Martha holds such a commanding lead over Mary, 59% to 41%.
Without the Marthas of our world we would not have community. And to be a dragon slayer! George and Martha, I have heard of them before.
When receiving company I think it prudent for one person to receive the guest and make them feel welcome while another prepares coffee, tea and a snack. Jesus makes it clear that receiving the guest is more important.
Hard choice. Mary was like my mom while met the was like my Aunt. Both dearly loved. I think we need to be a bit of both.
I'm for Martha.... the perpetual unappreciated hard-working underdog! My patron saint.....
Great song. And the madness begins with a strong matchup.
I have three younger brothers and tend to micromanage and be bossy, so I voted for Martha. What I notice in this story is that Lazarus (who has good reason to be grateful) is not doing anything to welcome Jesus. Both Mary and Martha are committed to their Lord. This is probably the only matchup where I don't care who wins, possibly because nobody will vote for Lazarus.
I chose Mary because of her curiosity and courage to defy cultural norms to sit with the men and listen to this fascinating rabbi named Jesus. Some people think Mary shirked her hostess duties. Who knows, maybe she bought the food, did the cooking prep work and washed the dishes later.
My vote is for Martha of Bethany
Since credit she rarely did get any
For loaves and grilled fishes
And countless washed dishes
That hard-working Martha of Bethany.
I love it! So true!
Although my actual first name is Mary, I behave more like a Martha. God uses our hands and feet to do His work in the world, and that leads me to Martha. But it was a TOUGH choice, thank you so much, Tim and Scott. Glad that Lent Madness is X is finally here.
As a budding contemplative and Eckhart Tolle fan... I have to say that Mary embodies (to me) the real act of "being in the now". She gets my vote.
Thank you to all who posted such fine words about Martha. Your words helped me appreciate so much more what she offered. My vote goes to her today!
Sup?...had to look up both elided and spikenard this morning...
Mary gets my vote because she seems to have mastered the idea that there's a time to contemplate, and there's a time to act.
#TeamMartha
For the sake of her kickass confession in John 11. May we all answer so gutsily to the question Christ asks: "Do you believe this?"
As an ordained female I was inclined to vote for Mary. Jesus’ assurance, “and it will not be taken from her” are a consolation to me whenever I hear the old arguments reducing women’s existence to motherhood and housekeeping (and as a mother and homemaker I don’t have issue with either role, just with the limitation to only those roles). But the vision of a homemaker fighting off a dragon was too delicious to pass up! I propose we add Martha to the Marvel universe!
I would totally go see that movie. I'm in.
As someone who loves to serve, but also wants to listen and take part in activities, my vote goes to Martha.
I voted for Martha. I think she’ll win. I like her better. But since Jesus said Mary was better, it would seem that I and everyone else who votes for Martha are not very good disciples.
If I were Jesus, would I rather have a young woman sitting at my feet and looking up adoringly at me or one preparing me some delicious fried chicken and pouring me a glass of beer? The first is nice, but you do get hungry after awhile, if you know what I mean.
So true!!
I definitely relate to Martha! In fact, have been called Martha. I have come to realize serving as a happy hostess is also very spiritual!! Martha needed to work on the Happy part! However, she was fully committed to her calling!
I used to be a Martha, until I became disabled. It still annoys me that I can't help with chores at home and at church. I've always found air difficult to be a Mary, though I know I should be.
So, it's Martha that I can understand most, and so she gets my vote.
Well - just the thought of sitting at Jesus' feet! Thank you Mary!