But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
But one thing is needful. The idea of 'Short work and little of it sufficeth for Me' is not so much the lower sense of these weighty words, as implied in them as the basis of something far loftier than any present on economy. Underneath that idea is couched another, as to the littleness both of elaborate preparation for the present life and of that life itself compared with another.
And Mary hath chosen that (or 'the') good part - not in the general sense of Moses' choice (Hebrews 11:25) and Joshua's (Joshua 24:15), and David's (Psalms 119:30); that is, of good in opposition to bad; but, of two good ways of serving and pleasing the Lord, choosing the better. Wherein, then, was Mary's better than Martha's? What follows supplies the answer:
Which shall not be taken away from her. Martha's choice would be taken from her, for her services would die with her; Mary's never, being spiritual and eternal. Both were true-hearted disciples, but the one was absorbed in the higher, the other in the lower of two ways of honouring their common Lord. Yet neither would deliberately despise, or willingly neglect, the other's occupation. The one represents the contemplative, the other the active style of the Christian character.
Remark: This rebuke of Martha was but for the excess of a valuable quality, which on another occasion appears without that excess. See the note at Mark 14:3, and Remark 1 at the close of that section. The quality which was commended in Mary has its excesses too. It is true that a predominance of the impulsive activity of the one sister is unfavourable to depth of thought and elevation of feeling; but a predominance of the passive docility of the other sister is apt to generate an unhealthy tone, and lead rather to dreamy speculation or sentiment than to sound knowledge and wisdom. A Church full of Mary's would perhaps be as great an evil as a Church full of Martha's. Both are needed, each to be the complement of the other.