FOR MARTHA

What she said was, Lord, tell her to help me – but what she meant was, God, could you just look at me once? Not at her, adoring, draped in her hair and a reckless perfume that expunges, with one tilt of her hand, the redolent tang of salt herring with soft roes, that I soaked overnight, skinned and filleted; the fat smell of the lamb I roasted with sweet paprika, juniper berries and dill; the sharp note of spring onions, that I trimmed and finely chopped; the pressed out aromas of garlic, olive oil and freshly ground pepper; cabbage leaves that I blanched; radishes, that I peeled and grated; cracked wheat, that I washed and soaked overnight; cinnamon quills; honey; cloves; pomegranate syrup; lemon rind, that I grated; almonds, pistachios, hazelnuts, that I roasted, broke, crushed for you.

Tell her to tie up her hair. Come tell me all the things that you are telling her now – here, where I am standing, where you should expect to find me in my mother’s house. Here where I’ll be long hours after you’re gone, caressing the pot in my hand. Not your flesh, but a bowl of clay made to be filled and emptied and washed for you. Jesus, we are not all unbridled. Don’t you see that what I now do, I do for you? Pouring out costly oil where there is no witness, here, in the kitchen – washing your plate, not your feet. Catching at words through the doorway as they fall from your lips to the floor where she sits. Come, Lord Jesus. Come. Put your hands in the warm, soapy water next to mine and make my sacrifice holy.

ON THE MERITS OF CLEAN FLOORS

Every once in a while someone will refer to me as a Mary. I’m never entirely sure, but I do suspect it has more to do with the state of my house than with the condition of my heart. The conversation usually goes something like this:

You’re such a Mary. I wish I could be more like that, sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening for what He has to say. I’m always just so busy. I have to be serving. I love doing for others. I wash my floors every day, do you? I just need to have a clean house. I don’t ever seem to have enough hours for just sitting and spending time with Jesus.

Something like that – with the special emphasis on the sitting. Generally, when people say things like this to me I think, I would like to see inside your medicine cabinet.

But it’s true that I do spend a lot of time thinking. It is also true that I don’t get terribly worked up about dirty laundry. I like a little advance notice before people come to my door. I need a lot of closets. I feel a lot of empathy for Martha.  

I am sure that if Jesus, and maybe some of his friends, dropped in at my house unexpectedly for coffee and conversation, I would look a lot like I was worried. I would make myself very busy shoving things behind doors, and muttering words like, Where is my broom?, and There is toilet paper on my stairs!, and Who shoved Christmas oranges into the air vent? I know I would. I would probably think frantically about how I should clear a spot on the counter, and quickly wash my big, green Tupperware bowl, and maybe try to mix up a box of Duncan Hines brownies. I would probably say rude, completely unnecessary words inside my head like, CRAP. Jesus is in my living room, and I am out of oil – OF ALL THINGS. I might wish I had washed my hair and that I had done all of this before. I might go a little Martha.

Perhaps – and I don’t know this for sure – but perhaps Mary was just a little more organized. Maybe she didn’t get so easily distracted in her day to day with things like finding great quotes about forgiveness, and observing how changing light affects the colour on a paint chip, and looking for a sharp pencil. It is possible that she just wasn’t the type to shove things into closets for later. Maybe she got up early every morning and washed her hair and her floors, made her bed, emptied her trash, glossed her lips and drove to Safeway – so that when Jesus came to her house she was the ready virgin with oil and brownies, and something hearty and nutritious to pack along with him for the road.

It is possible. I think the important thing to remember is that Jesus loved them both. Also, that clean floors really do make for less distraction if you plan on sitting at His feet.