Today’s gospel reading from Luke has always held a warm place in the heart of all of us who hate to do the dishes. It’s also one of those readings that is so familiar to us that we can read the first few words and think we know all that it says to us.

I don’t know about you, but all during my life I’ve read this reading and was told it was about the dichotomy between action and contemplation, between work and prayer. In this we are told that while there is nothing wrong on taking on Martha’s role to serve, it’s also critical that we take time to contemplate and pray. The implication was clear: the two balance each other. Prayer, done right, leads us to action and action, done right enriches our prayer. It was perfect for a religion class. The teacher emphasizes to the students that we need to do both and we will spend the rest of our lives honing the balance.

There’s certainly something to this. Service without reflection tends to be like sailing without a rudder and reflection that does not lead to service is glorified naval gazing. But what if there is more to this reading? What if there is another entirely different message?

Many years ago I was listening to a tape by the Franciscan priest, Fr. Richard Rohr. He was speaking on the subject of liberation theology and how this is also a reading about inclusion. He offered the idea that Martha wasn’t angry with Mary because Mary wasn’t “pulling her load” or helping out with the serving, but because Mary was doing something that was not suited to women. He suggested that Martha was holding onto the belief, common at the time, that talking about theology was the domain of men only.

If this is true, that makes Jesus quite the radical, both for his time and beyond. If Jesus is telling Martha that Mary chose the “better part,” he is saying that women have the same right to discussions about faith and belief as men. Perhaps this is a bit of a stretch in that Mary is understood to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen (not necessarily participate), but just by listening she is taking an active role. Just by being in the room and hearing the words of Jesus she is part of the discussion. As with many gospel stories we don’t have answers to questions that would make things clearer. Did Mary participate in the discussion? Who else was there? Were there men who welcomed Mary into the circle or were they upset that she wasn’t serving? Was it just Mary and Jesus would have been talking to himself if Mary had been serving? What was Jesus talking about?

This interpretation would have been difficult in the first few centuries of our church. Tertullian, a theologian of the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, said this about women: “God’s judgement on [women] lives on in our age; the guilt necessarily live on as well. You are the devil’s gateway; you are the unsealer of that tree; you are the first foresaker of the divine law; you are the one who persuaded him whome the Devil was not brave enough to approach; you so lightly crushed the image of God, the man Adam…” It goes on but you get the idea. Perhaps the message I received from this reading happened because the early church would not wrap its mind around Jesus liberating women to be equals to men in understanding theology.

Much of this prejudice is gone from us, but not all. Women, mercifully, are now seen as able to read Scripture and learn theology (though not be ordained, but that’s grist for another sermon). Interestingly I think most of us learned our faith from women when we were children. But there are still instances when we tell people not to strive beyond their station, and I think that’s where this reading speaks to us today.

A few years ago I met a patient who had come onto hospice service. He was a wonderful, joyful man. He was born in the Phillipines and joined the US Navy when he was 18, and he made it his career. When I asked him what job he did in the Navy he laughed and said: “Don’t you know I’m Phillipino? I was a cook of course!” I didn’t realize this, but when he joined the Navy in the 1950s, all Phillipino men became cooks. No other job was available to him. Fortunately he enjoyed cooking, but if he had tried to do something different he would have been told not to shake things up, not to go beyond what was mapped out for him. In other words, the other Martha’s would have told him to stay in his place and serve.

When we do this, when we tell people that they can’t do something, strive for something, or reach beyond what is laid out for them, we do grave harm. We do grave harm, not only to the Navy cooks who may have had the talent to command forces or develop code, we in power also hurt ourselves. We don’t know who or why God has chosen a person for a vocation, we don’t know how far someone can go if we block their way. We can’t see each other as God sees us. And we can’t tell a woman that she has no place discussing belief or that a bright, young Phillipino man can’t step out of the kitchen.

Luke sets up this story to give us a dichotomy and has Jesus choose the better path. We should too.