Dr. David Moessner was one of the seminary professors who taught me the New Testament. Though he had the kind heart of a pastor, Dr. Moessner was nonetheless an intimating figure – not only because his scholarship was so rich but also because he read Scripture in its original Greek with the same ease that you and I read English.
His teaching style always invited seminarians to read aloud the particular Bible passage of the day’s study. My classmates and I shared various English translations, and Dr. Moessner followed along in his beloved biblical Greek. Occasionally, he would interrupt the reading with a bracing judgment: “That’s a horrible translation” – faulting not the talent of the reciting student but the choices of the Bible’s English translators.
As I last week began revisiting our Scripture lesson for this morning – Luke’s account of Jesus’s visit to the home of Mary and Martha, I got to the last verse and wanted to join Dr. Moessner in throwing a red flag: “That’s a horrible translation.” So I’m reading to you what for me anyway is a better, more helpful translation of this story from the English Standard Version. For our nourishment, may the Holy Spirit release the infallible Word of the Lord veiled within the fallible language of women and men.
Now as they went on their way, Jesus [and his disciples] entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed [Jesus] into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42)
“Mary has chosen the good portion” – that’s the more helpful translation that unlocks some deeper understanding of this classic parable. In many translations, Jesus proclaims that “Mary has chosen the better part, which creates a dividing crisis of faith: Martha is wrong for doing, and Mary is right for being. But in its original text, Mary chooses “the good portion,” and Martha’s tasks are labeled “ministry.”
Maybe then Mary stands in our sted of faith-filled desire to know God intimately – up close and personal. And maybe then Martha mirrors our good works: Our hands and feet, minds and hearts, serving as gracious responses to desperate prayers for “thy will to be done and thy Kingdom to come.” Both are needed, and both are good. On the bottom line, faith is seasonal: Times for doing and times for listening, times for practicing and times for learning.
Hearing Jesus proclaim Mary’s choice as “better” makes a value judgment – one being more valued or important than another. Dripping with condescension, “better” forces the black-and-white worldview of either/or, this or that, them or us. Thus arises overly simplistic discernment: One choice is better, one worse, so choose the better. Yet the whole of the Gospel proclaims Jesus blessing both doing something and sitting there: Carry out the work – the ministry – that God calls you to do, and find direction and nourishment for that work – that ministry – in staying joined at the hip with Jesus.
Perhaps in this particular visit, Jesus is encouraging Martha to slow down, to be present, to shed distraction and worry. Perhaps in this moment in his ministry, Jesus needs disciples who can truly hear him and learn, so that when it’s time to take action, they will know what to do. Steve Hartman of “CBS Sunday Morning” shares a poignant tale of what that looks like.
Disciples who truly hear Jesus, and who eagerly learn from Jesus, know precisely the faithful response, when times are tough, and it’s time for fruitful action and ministry.
More often than not, we never seem to know what we are doing, and sometimes we think the Bible, like a rulebook, is going to end our confusion – as if a story like Jesus’s visit with Martha and Mary is going to provide a crystal-clear moral lesson that points us in the right direction. Thanks be to God, we’ll finally know what we’re supposed to be doing.
But then, once you and I start thinking that we’ve nailed it, we begin to judge the actions of others, and the moment you starting doing that is when you’ve once again lost your way. Because once again you’ve lost the plot and missed the point.
So maybe choosing the good portion isn’t about choosing between action and contemplation. Maybe it isn’t about working in Jesus’s name versus sitting at Jesus’s feet, since discipleship has always been a combination of the two. Maybe, as another observes, choosing the good portion is not judging the actions of others through the lens of your own personality. Because when you do, your judgment distracts you from the main thing: the Gospel in Christ Jesus around which we live, move, and have our being.
That is the Good News of grace and mercy, listening and learning, loving and serving around which we gather – the main thing that can never be taken away, because the Holy Spirit is always forming who you are, and as flowing water smooths the rough, jagged edges of a rock, the Spirit slowly and sometimes imperceptibly shapes us into the glory of God.
That is why we gather here: Not merely to spend time sipping coffee with friends and neighbors and savoring some tasty breakfast treats. We come to remember our story – our story of redemption and transformation, and the story of God and God’s people will stand. And unlike so much else in earthly life, it will not be taken away. So, hear Jesus calling your name, and take it from there. As with Jesus, turn your face toward Jerusalem, set your sights on the Cross, and abide in Easter’s promise of resurrection.
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on the Second Sunday in Lent, March 16, 2025, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Nadia Bolz-Weber, Karoline Lewis, Lauren Wright Pittman, and Mindy McGarrah Sharp inform the message. It is part of his Lenten series, “Everything in Between: Meeting God in the Midst of Extremes.”