THE evangelist Luke tells us that Jesus on one of his journeys arrived in a certain village, and there was received in the house of Martha, the sister of Mary and Lazarus. Mary sat at his feet and listened to him, while Martha was "cumbered about much serving." After a while Martha began to feel unjustly treated, because she was doing all the work and Mary did not help her. Turning to the Master, she said (Luke 10:40), "Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me."
What was the difference between these two women? Generally Mary is seen as the spiritually-minded and Martha as the more earthly personality. Some might regard Martha as the loving, conscientious hostess and Mary as the one who thought first of herself and her own needs. But from the answer which Jesus gave to Martha's complaining question, it is clear that he saw their different attitudes in another light. "Martha, Martha," he said, "thou art careful and troubled about many things: but one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her."
The "good part" which Mary had chosen was the answer to humanity's questions regarding life itself. To voice this spiritual truth was the purpose for which Jesus came into the world. It was the very essence of his being. His life motive was not to be served, to exist merely as a human person, but to give the answer to all the unsolved questions of mankind. Of the inability of a finite sense of God to satisfy, Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 258): "A mortal, corporeal, or finite conception of God cannot embrace the glories of limitless, incorporeal Life and Love. Hence the unsatisfied human craving for something better, higher, holier, than is afforded by a material belief in a physical God and man." Jesus brought to Mary fulfillment of her craving for deeper spiritual knowledge, and also answered, out of his great love, which knew no smugness of superiority, the questions of burdened, self-pitying humanity—the Martha questions.
