Pershore Times - 19 July 2025

The Gospel reading in both the Anglican and Catholic Churches for the forthcoming Sunday Service is the story told in Luke’s Gospel of a short vignette in the life of Jesus. He’s welcomed into the house of two sisters and a brother by Martha. In this story there is no mention of the sister’s brother, Lazarus. Having welcomed Jesus, as a good Jewish girl, and Jesus of course was a Jew, Martha then goes off into the kitchen presumably to prepare something to eat. Meanwhile, the other sister, Mary, is sitting listening to Jesus as he talks. Martha seems to think this is unfair; and she goes out of the kitchen and confronts Jesus and asks him to get Mary to come help her prepare the meal. Jesus takes the wind out of her sails by saying that Mary is doing the best thing.

It is impossible to get into the minds of people living over 400 years ago, let alone back to New Testament Biblical times. But in 1618 a 19-year-old Spanish painter, Diego Velasquez painted a striking reworking of the Biblical story of May, Martha and Jesus, that is in the National Gallery in London. You can go see it! It’s not a huge painting, only 60 cm. by 103.5 cm. And as paintings at that time and place were, overall, it’s rather dark. This Spanish 19-year-old, with all the confidence that we often have at that age, paints a drab and rather petulant servant girl on the right with an old hag, her mistress presumably behind her. The then contemporary “Martha” is pounding garlic in a pestle and mortar; the remains of the garlic and other cloves are on the table in the foreground along with 4 very lifelike dead fish and two amazingly realistic eggs. Velasquez paints a window through which we see Jesus seated, Mary at his feet and Martha standing over Mary with a pointed finger.

Is this story just about what women should do? Be contemplatives if they can, like Martha if they are in a different socioeconomic bracket? Or, was Jesus saying, there’s a time and a place for listening and working? Or that women don’t need to be drudges? Perhaps Velasquez with his 19-year-old enthusiasm think that whether you are a man or a woman, there’s a time and place for everything?

What do you think?

Susan Oliver, Holy Redeemer Catholic Church