by Christine Sine
A few weeks ago I read a fascinating article that talked about how chemical sprays – both pesticides and fertilizers – negatively impact pollination by altering the electrical field around flowers, making bumblebees less likely to land on them. What flowers have electrical fields around them? That’s not the way I think about them.
There are other aspects of a flower’s appearance that are not what they seem when it comes to how insects perceive it. When I watched David Attenborough’s fascinating documentary Kingdom of Plants I was particularly intrigued by the very different view that insects have of flowers. Their ultra-violet viewpoint totally transforms what the flower looks like.
Ultraviolet view of flowers
We see the flower on the left, the insect sees the image on the right beckoning it to come and pollinate. Unfortunately a large number of the beautiful hybrid double flowers that we so enjoy don’t have the flashing landing strip lights that say here is the place to come for some yummy pollen. Some of them don’t even have pollen. So as much as I like these flashy hybrids, I always make sure there are plenty of flowers that I know will attract birds and bees and other pollinators.
So what does this have to do with Mary and Martha, with Lent or with Women’s History month which we celebrate in March? Well part of what I love about my changing perspective of God’s world is that it opens me to new perspectives of the scriptures and to new understanding of the historical place of women in the narrative.
A few years ago Mary Stromer Hanson in her book The New Perspective on Mary and Martha – Do Not Preach Mary and Martha Again Until You Read This! questioned our interpretation of the story where Mary is praised for sitting at Jesus feet and Martha is reprimanded for working hard in the kitchen as told in Luke 10:38-42. First we read into the story things that are not really there, like our assumption that Jesus arrives with a hoard of disciples and forces Martha to scurry around getting a meal for them. However, all the text explicitly states is that Jesus entered a village and was welcomed by Martha. Hanson suggests that this was actually a one on one conversation.
Hanson believes that Mary and Martha were both ministry leaders in the church – Martha with a “house church” and ministry in her local village, Mary as a kind of traveling evangelist, spreading the good news of Christ to other villages. She suggests that the King James version of vs 39 is more accurate than others. It says “And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word.”
According to Hanson, since “sitting at the feet” is a figurative description rather than a literal one, Mary is not necessarily physically seated before Jesus’s feet while Martha addresses him. In her presentation, Hanson said that:
“Sitting at the feet,” as in Acts 22:3, is the traditional vocabulary of discipleship. So both Martha and Mary are known as “sitters at the feet” or disciples of Jesus. This is a figurative description, not literal.
Martha addresses Jesus directly in Luke 10:40 because Mary, again according to Hanson, isn’t even there. While Martha is struggling to keep up with the local village ministry, Mary is traveling around ministering abroad. Martha wants Jesus to deliver a message to Mary when he encounters her in his travels, asking her to return and assist Martha in the village ministry.
Hanson also proposes an alternative translation of verse 42. She translates tēn agathēn merida (literally, “the good portion”) not superlatively (as in “the best portion”) but rather positively (as in “a good thing”; cf. The New Perspective, p. 31). In other words, Mary’s choice of ministering abroad isn’t necessarily better than Martha’s choice of ministering to the village; Mary’s choice of itinerant ministry is equally good. Hanson’s contention is that both Mary and Martha were prominent leaders and Mary probably had a very effective evangelistic ministry in drawing others to follow Jesus. (Read Hanson’s entire paper here).
I am increasingly convinced that many of our interpretations of Biblical stories need to be revisited. Just as our perception of the world around us needs to be revisited. Flowers are not what we first perceive them to be and new information continues to be gathered to broaden our understanding and the ways in which we respond to them. Gospel stories like this one are the same. We always need to have our eyes and our ears open to new facts that help us to understand the complete story. Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see (Hebrews 11:1). We do indeed see through a glass darkly. All of God’s creation tells us so.
Preparing for the Garden Walk of Holy Week
In the last few days of his life, Jesus moved from garden to garden from suffering to resurrection.
Join Christine Sine for a Lent retreat that reflects on this journey and prepares for the challenging week that follows Palm Sunday.