The Master said, “Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it—it’s the main course, and won’t be taken from her.”
Luke 10:41-42 MSG

Two women: one quite conventional by the cultural norms of the day, the other scandalously radical.

Both set out to serve and honour Jesus. Martha made him feel at home and busied herself providing a meal. Mary, on the other hand, did something completely alien to the status quo and sat listening and learning at the feet of Jesus.

Anyone looking on would have known that for anyone to sit at the feet of a Rabbi like Jesus meant that they considered themselves to be an apprentice (disciple) of that Rabbi (remember Paul talked about being “educated at the feet of Gamaliel” in Acts 22:3)  And in Jewish culture of the day women were never apprentices of a Rabbi.

Apparently her disregard of the status quo didn’t bother Jesus either. When Martha protested about Mary’s abandonment of kitchen duties, Jesus took Mary’s side and praised her for getting her priorities right. He didn’t say Martha was wrong…he pointed out that there’s a time for work and a time for learning. Martha could probably have joined Mary at Jesus feet but she chose another way.

At the time, Jesus words would have been pretty radical, even shocking. Women were meant to serve domestically and not be a Rabbi’s apprentice. Jesus treated women with more honour and respect than the surrounding culture on so many occasions. As Ruth Tucker and Walter Liefeld say in their book “Daughters of the Church”:

“the ministry of Jesus so clearly shows us an equality between men and women that, once you notice it, you see it everywhere.”
(Quoted in “Women and the Kingdom” by Faith and Roger Forster)

It’s hard to reconcile Jesus attitude with the way the people in power minimised the role of women in the church as it developed beyond its early beginnings.