calling all those left to do the work

Third Sunday in Lent ● March 30, 2025

Aurora Celestin, Guest Preacher © 2025

Readings: Luke 10:38-42 (Inclusive Bible)

The texts of the readings are in the worship bulletin linked here.

Watch the worship video recording on the Church of the Village YouTube channel here.

“Rabbi, don’t you care that my sister has left me all alone to do the household tasks? Tell her to help me!”

I have always struggled with this story about Martha and Mary, probably because I identify with Martha, who isn’t portrayed in the best light. I always felt for Martha: the image of a dutiful woman being the perfect hostess, working hard in the background to provide for her guests; a woman missing out on the fun because someone has to do the cooking, serving, and cleaning. I always saw Martha’s side, the overworked woman who finally had had enough being left to pick up others’ slack; always doing more than her fair share of a group project.

This story makes my stomach clench and my chest tighten; it makes me uncomfortable and my breath catches. Part of that is because it feels like, in a split second, Martha, the paragon of womanly hospitality and domesticity, stops being perfect. She is so right and yet so wrong at the same time. She becomes anything but perfect: she becomes disruptive, angry, loud. Not only does Martha complain, but she does so publicly making a scene. Not only does she complain publicly, but she embarrasses her sister, highlighting her faults before an audience. Not only does she publicly shame her sister, but she does it directly to the guest of honor, Jesus of all people.

Martha’s outburst bucks everything I was ever taught about respectability. What makes me so physically uncomfortable with this story is that Martha lets out so much of what I hold in. Martha names the unfairness of her treatment at a time when, if I were in her position, I would have been stewing in my juices: I wouldn’t have said anything. At least, not the way Martha does. I may have griped and grumbled to myself, but in my head, where no one else would hear. I may have frowned or wrinkled my brow over my work, fighting to keep down the frustration bubbling up inside of me. I may have given my guests eager smiles and bubbly greetings, only to secretly resent the obligation to perform a joy I didn’t feel. And if I got the chance, I may have hissed at my sister (for I have a younger sister, too) if she waltzed back into the kitchen where I could get at her in some privacy. But, mostly, I would have held my anger in. I would’ve burned on the inside while telling myself I was better than all the rest of them because I was doing the job that needed to be done, the job that made it possible for everyone else to sit around and listen to the famous rabbi.

The cherry on top of this painfully awkward scene is that, after all of that, Jesus doesn’t even take Martha’s side. While I was preparing for this Sunday with Jorge and Katie, Jorge pointed out something in the way Jesus addressed Martha that helped me feel less upset by the passage. Jorge shared that Luke 10:41 is one of three places in the gospels where Jesus calls someone’s name twice. Each time, the move as tenderness to the address, a way of reaching out that is full of grace instead of rebuke. I had always heard Jesus’ words to Martha as a rebuke, but Jorge changed my mind. I can now hear Jesus calling, “Martha, Martha” as a gentle way to snap her out of it, as a way to call her out of the turmoil of her hurt feelings and into focus with him. I had missed it so many times before, but Jesus does see Martha for who she is and what she is struggling through. After calling her name he says, “‘You’re anxious and upset about so many things, 42 but only a few things are necessary—really only one.’” My mind usually skips over that first bit to the part where Jesus says that Mary is the one who has “chosen the better part, and she won’t be deprived of it.” I had often missed the part where Jesus names and understands Martha’s anxiety because I was so focused on him telling her that she was wrong.

What can be hard for us Type A personalities to hear is that we are unnecessarily anxious and making the wrong choices. Being told that your priorities are askew when you’re a chronically responsible people-pleaser—especially when you’re juggling everything everyone’s ever expected of you—that hurts. It’s confounding and destabilizing. But Martha, like so many of us, needed to hear Jesus say that Mary had chosen the better part. Martha needed to hear Jesus say that there was another way, another choice that a woman could make. Martha needed to hear Jesus say that the burdens that had been placed on her shoulders, the tasks and chores that she was relegated to, the lot in life that she had been made to believe was her only fair, wasn’t all she deserved. She, like Mary, could step out of the role of feminine domesticity. She, too, could answer the call to something other than labor.

Reflecting on this scriptural passage and what it can teach us as we explore together this theme of “living well,” a modern day womanist came to mind. In 2016, Tricia Hershey founded the Nap Ministry. Her motivation was to encourage Black women to reclaim their right to rest, resisting against the stigmatization and deprivation of rest encouraged by white supremacy, capitalism, and grind culture. Hershey’s work is rooted in Black liberation theology and womanism. On her website, she references womanist Layli Phillips and her definition of rest as “a meticulous love practice.” In 2022, Hershey published the book Rest is Resistance.

Even as the self-titled Nap Bishop, Hershey insists that her work on rest and destigmatizing napping is about how rest requires so much more than just sleep. Her battle cry is “This is about more than naps. This is about more than naps. This is about more than naps.” That is why she came to mind for me when I was grappling with this story about Martha and Mary and what it means to strive to live well when marginalized and overworked. In a post on the Nap Ministry website entitled “Rest is anything that connects your mind and body” Hershey writes,

My rest as a Black woman in America suffering from generational exhaustion and racial trauma always was a political refusal and social justice uprising within my body. I took to rest and naps and slowing down as a way to save my life, resist the systems telling me to do more and most importantly as a remembrance to my Ancestors who had their DreamSpace stolen from them. This is about more than naps.

She goes on to say, It is not about fluffy pillows, expensive sheets, silk sleep masks or any other external, frivolous, consumerist gimmick. It is about a deep unraveling from white supremacy and capitalism. These two systems are violent and evil. History tells us this and our present living shows this. Rest pushes back and disrupts a system that views human bodies as a tool for production and labor. It is a counter narrative. We know that we are not machines. We are divine.

Hershey’s message is so important, particularly for Black women and other historically marginalized people. If your labor is less compensated, like for POC and women in the United States, then it makes it even harder to afford to rest, and it becomes more tempting to keep grinding in order to survive with the hopes of eventually thriving. However, we resist this death-dealing structure by insisting on taking care of ourselves however we can and shaking the monkey mind of shame we are taught to feel over resting.

I hadn’t previously thought of Mary listening closely at Jesus’ side as a form of life-saving rest. Following Jesus and receiving his teachings in my life and in the stories of the gospels always felt like work. After all, Jesus was a Rabbi, a teacher and healer, and to follow him as a disciple meant seemingly constant learning, testing, sacrificing, and working in service of the needs of the unending masses of suffering people. Following Jesus seems like labor—a labor of love, perhaps, but labor nonetheless.

But, the image of Mary from Luke 10 feels different. Mary always reads to me as relaxed, doting, and transfixed. Funny enough, I often pictured this scene in a somewhat modern living room: Jesus is sitting on a couch (I don’t know why it comes to my mind’s eye as blue steel-colored upholstery, denim-ish in texture). Mary sits on the floor, feet swept to the side. She leans against the sturdy leg, elbow on the couch, gazing lovingly up at Jesus. She is the image of repose, reclining into Jesus’ warmth, thirsting after his every word.

Picturing Mary this way, pausing to listen to Jesus can feel like restful restoration instead of laborious restoration. Luke doesn’t tell us what Jesus was saying that so enraptured Mary. But the very opportunity to sit and listen to Jesus was an opportunity for self-investment: Where Mary seized the moment to answer her heart’s call and receive nurturing from Jesus, Martha needed an invitation. As a Martha, I am learning to hear Jesus’ call less as a rebuke and more as a gracious invitation to rest. Like Martha, I often need permission to put aside my labors and put myself first; I need reminding that I am not a machine, but a precious child of God deserving of wellness. May we all remember this for ourselves and in the turmoil of our work and anxiety hear Jesus calling our names twice, calling us tenderly to his side.

Benediction

I want to send you off with these words from Tricia Hershey about the love practice that is rest:

This work is saving the lives of so many and saved my life. This work should be respected as a balm for all of humanity. Find ways to connect back to your body and mind. Find ways to intentionally slow down. Find ways to re-imagine and snatch rest right now. It is your divine and human right to do so. WE WILL REST!

Go now, and be about the practice of wellness. Remember those who our society traps in endless labor and service. Invite them along with you. Rest at the feet of Christ, knowing you are holy and deserving of replenishment. Go in peace.