This text is so familiar to most of us that, unless we make a special effort to allow it to speak to us, we are not challenged by the absolute quality of its demand. Already in antiquity some copyists felt it was too absolute, and altered the word for one to read a few. Apparently this scribe believed that Jesus was referring to the plates served at the meal Martha was preparing, and could not imagine serving but one dish to such a cherished visitor could be a norm for a good Christian. The scribes responsible for another group of manuscripts seemingly could not decide between these variations. In this tradition Jesus tells Martha she is upset over a lot of things, and lets it go at that.
Nothing is said about a few things or one thing alone being necessary.
Exegetes as influential as Origen and St. Basil, among others, comment upon the variants and treat them as authoritative. The early Syriac versions also preserve alternate readings to the one thing necessary. The result was that the faithful who had access to only one or other of these variant texts would not have been in a position to give this passage the spiritual meaning it has so long held for many, and above all, for monks. These faithful never heard that the Lord taught with emphatic insistence that only one is necessary. More recently, the finding of the Bodmer papyrus that preserves a second century text of this passage gives strong support to the reading we are familiar with, the one thing necessary which is the basis for the spiritual meaning.