Mary and Martha

Tonight our pastoral associate did a first-person narrative of the Martha and Mary story from Luke 10:38-42. Most of us are familiar with the story. Martha works. Mary sits and listens to Jesus. Martha complains. Jesus chides her saying that Mary has chosen the one important thing.

I get it. I think I've done a sermon or two on the story. Relationship is more important than task. Time with Jesus is the most important thing we can invest in.

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41-42, NIV).

When I was young, I thought that Martha got the shaft. Honestly, I still do. After all Jesus shows up at her house with at least twelve other men (the passage just says "and His disciples." We don't know if it's just the twelve. The beginning of chapter 10 starts out with Jesus sending out 72 of them. It could be men and women). It seems like it was possibly and unexpected, unplanned visit: Jesus and the disciples show up in town, Martha offers the hospitality of her home.

And Martha knows that hospitality means having the house orderly, preparing food for everyone, possibly having a place for everyone to sleep. There was a lot of work to do. After all, she couldn't just let everyone go hungry.

And then there's Mary. Slacking off, just sitting there at Jesus' feet when clearly things need to get done in order for all these people to be comfortable in their home. If Martha joined her, nothing would get done.

So I don't like it that Jesus just blows of Martha's need for help from Mary. It's a valid request. It's a fair request.

So maybe it just shows that I still struggle with relationships--especially with an unseen and invisible God. Maybe it's my task vs. relationship part of my personality. Maybe it's because I still struggle to find that balance in life sometimes between work and relationship and faith and everything else.

But when I look at it closer, I'm not sure that Jesus is so concerned about Martha's activity. The trouble isn't that she's too busy or working too much. "You are worried and upset about so many things, but only one thing is necessary" (CEV). Other versions say "anxious and troubled" instead of worried and upset. The issue is her heart.

And the issue is knowing what is most important in life. As Steven Covey once said, "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." I remember hearing that quote from people at Covenant Bible College, capitalizing the second Main Thing. 

In the story of the Good Samaritan last week the lawyer who was testing Jesus knew that the most important commandment is to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. The main thing. 

I want to know the rest of the story--if Martha sits with Jesus, and if so, how the food and other preparations get finished. I think that Martha comes to understand who Jesus is better. We know that when Lazarus dies, Martha is the one who says that Lazarus wouldn't have died if Jesus was there. She comes to understand that Jesus has authority.

But I guess the more important thing is not what happens in the Mary and Martha story next, it's what happens with me. Will I choose the one important thing? Will I sit at Jesus' feet instead of letting my heart get worried and upset? 

I'd like to say yes.

Day by day  (as we are encouraged from Godspell) I hope to make St. Richard of Chichester's prayer my own: 

May I know Thee more clearly, Love Thee more dearly, Follow Thee more nearly.

Oh, dear Lord, these three things I pray.

Sunday Night Musings: The Cost of Following

In Luke 9:57-62, we get the following interaction between Jesus and three potential disciples:

As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

He said to another man, “Follow me.”
But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”
Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” (NIV)

Now we don't know the whole story. We don't know who these men were, if Jesus had just encountered them or if they knew each other, and we don't even know how the stories play out. We just know two or three sentences in each conversation. The stories aren't so much about what happens, but about Jesus' views of discipleship.

 With some insight from my friend Tonya who preached tonight, I think Jesus is telling us three things:

1. Following Jesus wont meet our presuppositions and assumptions. We may say we're willing to follow Him wherever, but are we truly? Are we even if it means we don't have a permanent place to call our home? Even if it means we are not accepted by others? Discipleship won't follow a manual. It won't be what we assume it will be; much of it will be unexpected.
2. Following Jesus will change our priorities. Now we don't know if the second man's father had just died immediately before the scene takes place, or if he wasn't even dead yet, but the burial of one's father was the important duty of a Jewish son. Jesus tells him that it's not his main priority any longer. Now he is to go and proclaim the Kingdom of God. Priorities have shifted.
3. Following Jesus is future-oriented. Yes, the past is important, but once we commit, we keep moving forward. We don't look back wondering what our old life would be like. We move forward, knowing the best is yet to come.

Having grown up in a Christian home, following Jesus just happened. I made decisions and all, but it happened gradually over time; I don't know if I really understood the ramifications fully.

And it's not that I wouldn't have made the same decision to follow Jesus if I had known what following Him really meant. I think I would have followed Him better, though. Sometimes I can take too much for granted. Sometimes I get off on my own path, rather than staying on His.

In my teenage years I did a better job of following the crowd than following Jesus. In my twenties I did a better job of following the culture. In my thirties I did a better job of following my own desires. And I'm not saying that I wasn't a follower of Jesus during those times or that my life is a failure, but I didn't follow fully. And in not following fully I was missing out.

So know what you're getting into...but if you're going to get into it--do it with gusto!