A mother once told me that she wanted her daughter to be a complete Christian, so she named her Martha Mary. I have often wordered why she put the Martha first.

As we read the Gospel for today I sense an underlying sympathy for Martha in some of the housewives of the congregation. It just doesn’t seem right, somehow, for one sister to be in the kitchen doing all the work of getting the meal while the other just sits and talks with the guest.

This sympathy is not limited to the housewives here today. I have only the initials (M.K.H., quoted in the Salvation Army magazine) of the person who wrote this verse, but I suspect that a lot of other initials could be added to it in spirit:

Lord of all pots and pans, since I’ve no time to be
A saint by doing lovely things, or watching late with Th…