Two Sacred Responses in the Shadow of Genocide

A Devotional Reflection

Luke 10: 38-42; Colossians 1:15-28

The Story I Thought I Knew

Martha opens her home to Jesus. She busies herself with preparations while her sister Mary sits at Jesus's feet, listening. When Martha complains about doing all the work alone, Jesus gently tells her that Mary has "chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her" (Luke 10:38-42).

I've been told this story is about Jesus breaking boundaries - allowing women, too, to sit at his feet, meaning they can be disciples. I could say more about women as disciples, but I'll leave that for another day. But this breakthrough carries with it a hierarchical framework that elevates contemplation over action, sitting over serving, being over doing.

My Palestinian Reading

As a Palestinian woman who has been witnessing genocide for the last two years, I read scripture alongside Gaza. Genocide dictates my reality and my reading of scripture, and as I search for contemporary meaning, I see two sisters under occupation, both responding to the sacred presence of Christ in their midst—both responses holy, both necessary for survival and resistance.

When I read this story from my Palestinian context, I cannot help but see the echoes of my own people's struggle for survival under occupation. The urgency Martha feels, the contemplative resistance Mary embodies - these are not foreign to me. They speak to the ways Palestinians, especially women, have learned to navigate empire, to maintain dignity and spiritual grounding even when everything around us is falling apart.

This story takes place under Roman occupation. Both Martha and Mary are navigating imperial rule, maintaining their traditions and spiritual practices in a context where their very existence as Jewish women is politicized. Yet here is Jesus—the sacred presence choosing to dwell with those under imperial rule. His very presence sanctifies the space of resistance, showing that God's incarnation happens under empire, in solidarity with the colonized.

Martha's hospitality becomes an act of cultural preservation under colonization - keeping alive the customs that empire seeks to erase. Mary's position at Jesus's feet represents a radical claim to religious education in a context where both her gender and her colonized status make such learning subversive. Both responses serve community survival under occupation. Both are forms of resistance to empire, both are ways of saying "we will not be erased."

When Jesus speaks of "the better part" that "will not be taken away," he may be pointing to spiritual resistance that empire cannot destroy, even when it destroys bodies and buildings. I see this today in Gaza—mosques bombed but worship continues in the rubble, families maintaining traditions of hospitality even in displacement camps, the sacred persisting even under genocide.

Martha embodies what we call sumud—steadfastness. Even in the midst of rubbled homes, multiple displacements, and overcrowded spaces in tents and schools that have become temporary homes, someone still needs to clean, prepare, and attend to others' needs. Martha's work is the work of the unnamed women—those who somehow create meals from aid rations, who wash clothes in contaminated water, who tend to the sick and wounded in bombed hospitals, who maintain human dignity even when stripped of everything. Her hospitality is not about perfect dinner parties but about the fierce love that keeps life going when the world wants you dead.

She maintains the traditions of care that keep Palestinians alive under siege. She ensures that even in the midst of oppression, sacred space exists for encounter. This is the work that makes survival possible, that says "I am still here, I am still human, I still care for others" even when the world seems to have forgotten Palestinians.

Mary represents the other essential response—the contemplative resistance that sits at Jesus's feet to discern truth from empire's lies even in the chaos of displacement and loss. She embodies the visible women—the theologians who have "sat at Jesus's feet" to hear God's word of liberation. Her listening is not passive but prophetic, gathering strength for the struggle ahead, finding God's voice even when the world is screaming.

Both responses speak to the Palestinian context right now. Both are sacred. Both are necessary for survival under genocide.

Between Head and Heart

"Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her" (Luke 10:42).

What if Jesus isn't creating a hierarchy between contemplation and action, but pointing to the necessary integration between thinking and feeling? What if he's addressing the disconnection that happens when I serve without grounding my work in deeper listening, or when I listen without allowing that word to transform my actions?

Western ways of being have created a false separation between thinking and feeling, between reflection and resistance. As Vine Deloria Jr. (Standing Rock Sioux) showed, this dualistic thinking is fundamental to Western epistemology and has shaped Christianity, separating what indigenous ways of knowing understand as inherently connected.

Palestinian Christian theologian Jean Zaru offers a crucial perspective here. In Occupied with Violence, she notes how church elders have long struggled with the tension between contemplation and action in this scripture. Zaru points to Meister Eckhart's radical interpretation: "Jesus wasn't putting Martha in her place, but assuring her that someday, Mary will reach her full potential, by being like Martha" (113). This Palestinian reading flips the traditional hierarchy entirely—suggesting that Martha's integrated action represents the fuller spiritual development that Mary must eventually embrace. For Zaru, this interpretation isn't academic—it's survival. It's the recognition that mature discipleship requires both deep listening and concrete action for justice.

This theological insight exposes the hollowness of Western Christian approaches that separate spiritual development from material justice—approaches that can celebrate Christianity's contributions to international law while simultaneously excusing violations of that same law when convenient.

I witness this clearly in how Western approaches to hunger spiritualize it, becoming consumed with contemplating what hunger means theologically while people in Gaza are literally starving. They hold summits about food insecurity - all while people are shot dead trying to get food aid and just this morning the Catholic parish is being targeted.

This disconnect manifests in two distinct but related ways among Christians confronting Palestinian suffering. First, those who disregard human rights as inferior because their god is the god of conquest with clear winners and losers, civilized and "barbarians." For them, Palestinian suffering is acceptable because it serves God's plan for his chosen people to reclaim their promised land. The theology of conquest makes Palestinians’ deaths theologically justified. Second, those who see Israel as an extension of their Western values system - democracy, civilization, progress. These Christians believe in human rights and justice, but they cannot reconcile the reality of Israeli apartheid and genocide with their belief that Israel represents an oasis of Western civilization in the Levant. They assume that if Israel is doing something wrong, it must be misunderstood, continuing to wait for Israel to "return" to proper Western values because they cannot accept that this violence IS the Western value system in action.

The contradiction runs even deeper. These same Christians often boast that international law itself emerged from Christian values—that concepts like human dignity, universal rights, and justice represent Christianity's gift to global governance. Yet when faced with Israel's systematic violations of international law—the ICJ's provisional measures on genocide, the ICC's arrest warrants, decades of UN resolutions on illegal settlements—they either dismiss international law as suddenly biased, reinterpret violations as justified by exceptional circumstances, or continue waiting for Israel to "return" to proper behavior. They cannot recognize that this IS the Western system working as designed, that the same power structures that created international law also determine when it applies and to whom.

Both groups remain paralyzed by their positions while people starve - the first because they believe the starvation serves God's plan, the second because they cannot accept that it serves Western interests. This compartmentalization allows some Christians to feel intellectually satisfied with their theological analysis while never actually stopping the killing. They contemplate the meaning of Jesus's words about giving bread to those who ask, but they don't break the siege that prevents bread from reaching Gaza.

What if "the one thing necessary" (Luke 10:42) is this integration - a refusal to separate intellectual engagement with injustice from spiritual grounding in God's liberating love? What if Mary's "better part" is not her position but her integrated response that holds together both careful listening and readiness for action that actually feeds people, that actually breaks sieges, that actually stops genocide?

The Distraction of Empty Contemplation

This reminds me of Martha's later encounter with Jesus when her brother Lazarus dies. She confronts Jesus with raw honesty: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died" (John 11:21). Martha understands that timing matters, that presence matters, that action matters. She doesn't want Jesus's theological explanations about resurrection - she wants her brother alive. In the same way, Palestinians don't need more interfaith dialogue about the meaning of peace while children are being murdered. They need the siege broken. They need the bombing stopped. They need action, not endless contemplation about the theology of peace.

This is exactly what happens when we misread Luke 10:38-42 through Western dualistic thinking. Martha becomes busy work that feels spiritual but avoids real cost - endless conferences and committees that keep our minds occupied while our actions remain disconnected from the suffering. Mary becomes contemplation that never challenges empire - theological reflection that makes us feel spiritually superior while families are erased.

But what if Jesus's response to Martha isn't about ranking contemplation over action, but about calling her back to integrated discipleship? What if "the one thing necessary" isn't choosing between action and contemplation, but ensuring that our action flows from embodied listening to Christ's word of liberation, and where contemplation leads to concrete nonviolent resistance against empire?

Sitting with the Magnitude of Destruction

It feels almost impossible to speak of hospitality's value in Palestinian life when all life in Gaza is being decimated. The Gaza Ministry of Health reports over 58,573 casualties as of yesterday (July 16, 2025), though the Lancet estimated up to 186,000 deaths in July 2024, and the numbers keep shifting—each revised figure representing entire families erased while we debate the precise count. But beyond these numbers lies the erasure of everything that made Palestinian hospitality possible: the rituals of making tea and coffee for every guest, the careful preparation of biscuits and sweets, the daily practice of baking bread and chopping fresh vegetables, the gathering of extended family where each person knows their role in welcoming visitors, and the careful cleaning, especially the Holy Salon, before the arrival of guests. The very essence of Palestinian life—where no one enters a home without being offered something, where the coffee pot is always ready, where hosting is sacred duty—is being systematically destroyed.

This hospitality that Martha embodies in her village home draws from the abundance of Palestinian land itself—the olive oil pressed from ancient groves, the za'atar gathered from hillsides, the vegetables grown in terraced gardens carved into limestone. Her preparations for Jesus and his disciples use these gifts of the earth, transforming them into acts of welcome. Her hospitality is an act of resistance that says "this land is mine, and I will continue to feed my people from its abundance." When she busies herself with serving, she's continuing the ancient Palestinian tradition where the honor of the family depends on how well guests are received, where the best food is brought out, where the whole household mobilizes to ensure no visitor leaves hungry.

Yet even in today's magnitude of destruction, Martha's work continues. In the rubble, in the displacement camps, someone still shares their last piece of bread, still offers water to a neighbor, still tends to the smallest acts of care. The images of displaced Gazans growing grape vines, fava beans, mint and sage in the sand dunes are a testament to that unbreakable connection to land—this fierce love that refuses to let empire have the final word.

Christ Under the Rubble

Palestinian Christians remind us that Christ is found among the suffering, not among the powerful. In Gaza, Christ is still under the rubble. In the West Bank, Christ is still at the checkpoints with families separated from their land. In diaspora, Christ is still with refugees longing for return.

When I read Colossians 1:15-28 alongside this story, I see that Christ—"the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation" (Colossians 1:15)—in whom "all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers" (Colossians 1:16)—has come to "reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross" (Colossians 1:20). But this reconciliation comes through confronting the powers that crucify the innocent, not through the empty spirituality that contemplates reconciliation while leaving injustice intact.

A Land-Based Reading

Both Martha's hospitality and Mary's listening are grounded in place and connection to the land. My Palestinian attachment to ancestral soil mirrors indigenous relationships to place—both understand that spirituality cannot be separated from the earth that holds our ancestors' bones, the olive trees my great-grandfather planted, the stones that remember my people's prayers. This integrated understanding challenges Western dualistic thinking that separates spiritual from material, sacred from ordinary.

Mary's contemplation happens in this same sacred geography. She sits at Jesus's feet on Palestinian soil, listening for God's voice in the place where Christ himself walked. Her prophetic listening is rooted in the land's memory of liberation, connected to the earth that cries out for justice. This is embodied listening that cannot be separated from the material reality of land, of home, of belonging.

Two Sacred Responses for My Time

So what does this mean for us today? Both Martha and Mary show us how to respond to Christ's presence during genocide with integrated thinking and feeling, spiritual and material action:

Like Martha, we must maintain the practical work of solidarity—BDS campaigns, the Apartheid-Free communities initiative, Freedom Flotillas with Hanthala on its way, the March to Gaza, writing letters to MPs, joining protests, supporting individual families to seek refuge, elevating Palestinian voices in your communities—but grounded in spiritual listening that keeps us connected to why we serve, that prevents our activism from becoming hollow busy work.

Like Mary, we must sit at Jesus's feet to hear his word of liberation clearly, to distinguish between the gospel of empire and the gospel of the cross—but listening that leads to prophetic action across interconnected struggles. We must understand that injustices are interconnected—whether it's the protests in LA, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, or the genocide in Gaza, they are all rooted in empire, not gospel. We must listen deeply enough to act prophetically across all these struggles, refusing the empty spirituality that contemplates injustice without confronting it.

The tragedy is not Martha's service but her anxiety—the worry that disconnects her soul from her work, that makes her forget why she serves. The tragedy is not Mary's contemplation but when contemplation becomes an excuse for inaction, when listening to Jesus doesn't lead to following Jesus into solidarity with the crucified.

I write this knowing that many of us are mourning the gap between the gospel they love and the Christianity they witness. To those who feel isolated by your commitment to justice, who struggle to find your faith reflected in your faith community's response to genocide - your grief is holy, and your embodied listening becomes a form of prophetic witness within Christianity itself.

The Better Part

Perhaps "the better part" that will not be taken away is not contemplation over action, but the integration of head and heart in service of liberation. Perhaps it's the recognition that in times of genocide, neither hollow busy work nor disconnected spirituality serves the gospel. Perhaps it's the courage to sit at Jesus's feet long enough to hear his prophetic word about the importance of justice work, and then to rise and act on that word with Martha's fierce hospitality—action grounded in embodied listening, contemplation that refuses to separate spiritual from material liberation.

Western ways of being right now offer empty spirituality that contemplates while people starve. Christ offers integrated discipleship that feeds the hungry and breaks the siege. Palestinian women, both named and unnamed, visible and invisible, are choosing the better part. The question for other Christians is whether they will continue in hollow spirituality or embrace this integrated discipleship.

Let us Pray

God of justice, help us to be both Martha and Mary with integrated thinking and feeling. Grant us Martha's courage to maintain sacred space in the midst of empire, grounded in your liberating word. Grant us Mary's wisdom to hear that word clearly, leading to concrete action for justice. When others offer me the empty spirituality that separates thinking from acting, give me the discernment to choose the better part—your way of integrated discipleship that leads to true liberation. Amen.