Have you ever wondered what to make of the story of Mary and Martha?
You can skip the next paragraph if you already know it.
Jesus is at Martha's house. Her sister Mary sits at Jesus' feet, listening to what he has to say. Martha is getting hot and bothered in the kitchen. She marches up to Jesus and says, "Lord, don't you care that I'm doing all the work, while Mary just sits there?" Jesus says, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing matters. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
Luke 10:38-42
Huh? So it's okay for me to do all the work while my sister just sits there? Why is it better for her to sit listening, while I do the serving? Who's going to get all this done if I don't???
Maybe, like me, you feel a little sorry for Martha.
In this brilliant talk by Anna Moss,* she explains that busyness vs. sitting still isn't really the issue. It's that Martha has forgotten who the dinner is all about - who
life is all about:
Martha is distracted. She's so distracted that she's forgotten that the dinner is all about
Jesus.
She's trying to serve
Jesus, but her serving has stopped her even seeing him. It's stopped her
relating to him. It's stopped her listening to him.
He's right there in her living room, and she's not seeing him. She's
not hearing him.
Instead of being amazed that Jesus, the holy one of
God, has come into her home to share a meal with her, she's worried and
distracted by sandwiches and dip.
Doesn't that sound familiar? We can be so busy
serving Jesus, that we don't even stop to
see him:
Maybe you can relate to
Martha. You slog away at church, faithfully and consistently, trying to
serve, and it just seems that no one notices, or even acknowledges what
you're doing. You start feeling resentful, maybe even a bit
self-righteous: "I'm the one who's regular and reliable. I'm the one who
turns up when others pull out."
Or maybe you
persist in your marriage even though it's tough. You work hard with your parents and children. But it feels
thankless. You feel unappreciated and overlooked: "Maybe God doesn't care I'm doing all this." Your serving can end up damaging
and breaking relationships, rather than blessing and building them.
We end up distracted from Jesus when we try to do it all ourselves.
Have
you become distracted? Have you stopped coming to Jesus as the empty,
broken person that you are, in daily need of his help and his grace in
your life? Have you stopped seeing him as your treasure? As the one that
you just can't do without?
It all becomes about me -
my schedule,
my strength,
my achievements - rather than about Jesus:
Sometimes we want to fit Jesus in with our
schedule, into where we're comfortable, and into our need to feel
competent and in control.
We had our third child last year, and recently I went back to work at my
church. I wanted to go back feeling strong and competent, on top of
things, and in control. I wanted people to say, "Wow! How do you do it
all?". I wanted to serve God from a position of strength; but instead, I
felt weak and vulnerable. I didn't want to feel that way.
But
let me say this: there is no other way to serve him. He doesn't want us
bustling around, self-reliant and self-absorbed. He doesn't want us to
give on our terms, in ways that make us look good and feel in control.
When it comes to Jesus, we can't rely on the things we've
achieved. We can't rely on our qualifications, or how well our kids are
going. We need to respond to him on his terms, not our own. We don't
have anything to offer him. We come to him with empty hands.
We don't like to feel needy. But Jesus wants us to receive from him:
It's easy to give people
things we want to give them. We want to give Jesus our competency. We want to give him our agenda. We want to show off our abilities.
But what does Jesus want to receive? How does he want to
be served? What really communicates our love for him?
He
wants to give to us. He wants to determine what's best for our lives.
He wants to redirect our hearts, and for us to treasure him more than
any plan we've ever made. He wants us to be needy for him.
But
being needy doesn't sit comfortably with us most of the time.
Personally, I find it easier to stay busy; easier to keep active, and to
feel useful.
It's easier to feel needed and useful
than to feel needy and broken. It's easier to serve others with our
competence, on our terms, in ways that we feel comfortable, than to
admit how desperately messy, needy, and weak we really are.
In the end, the story of Martha and Mary isn't really about whether we're busy or not, but about our attitude to Jesus:
You
see, at the heart of this story isn't the question, "Are you too
busy?". It's a deeper question about our attitude, not so much a
question about our activity.
So on the days that you're
flat out and really busy; or when you've got time to sit, rest and
read your Bible; what matters is that we depend on Jesus. That we choose
his agenda, whatever the day. That we choose to trust him, and rely
completely on his grace.
When Jesus comes to their
house, who's the host? It's not Martha, is it? It's Jesus. It's always
his party, not ours. He wants to give, and he wants us to receive.
Martha wants to give him food; but he's the only one who can give the
food that really satisfies, the food that will never be taken away. He
wants to give us the good portion, the very best of gifts: eternal life.
He wants to set us free from the
treadmill of having to achieve and needing to please. He's come to
serve.
Our lives
are busy, and sometimes we can't avoid this. But even then we can turn to Jesus and receive from him. I was so encouraged by Anna's story of her friend:
We can choose what is better in the midst of all the things going on in our lives.
One
of my closest friends is a single mum with four young kids. As you can
imagine, there's a whole lot of running around, and not a whole lot of
sitting round for her.
She shared with me recently how hard it is to
keep trusting Jesus when things just seem so wrong. She often feels
overwhelmed, and she wonders how to keep going.
But she said this: "I
have to keep trusting Jesus. I've got no where else to go but to him. I
have to trust that he's big enough for this. It can be a fight to trust,
but I know that he's in control of my life, that he cares for me, and
for my children. I often feel so weak, but I'm in his hands."
Things
can feel like they're unravelling, but with Jesus, I can keep going. He
wants to serve us. He's big enough to give us what we need.
Where else
have we to go, but to the feet of Jesus? Choose what is better. Don't
miss the mark. Listen to him, and let him serve you.
* This is from Anna Moss's talk from
Equip 2013. I highly recommend these talks. I found them very encouraging.
