The story of Mary and Martha is often used to beat up on busy, fast-paced, achievement-oriented, multi-tasking people. However, those adjectives pretty well describe someone the writer of this post lives with, so I’m going in a different direction!
As we’ve seen, Jesus was staying in the home of Martha and her sister, Mary. Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet, just like a disciple would sit with a rabbi. Martha was busily working in the kitchen, complaining about having to do everything herself; she was in the same house with Jesus, but they might as well have been on other planets. Proximity does not always equal intimacy.
Jesus said to her, “Martha, you’re all tied up in knots about so many things. Only one thing is necessary. Your sister has chosen the best thing, and that will never be taken away from her.”
What exactly is Jesus saying here? Is He saying that Mary’s personality is better suited for discipleship than Martha’s?
That’s the lesson that some have taught from Jesus’ words. Teachers use this story to say, “See, the quiet, introspective types have an advantage over those busy-bee, type-A folks with their constant activity. If only they would learn to sit quietly, then they would know the joy of true discipleship.”
It’s easy to say that when it’s your job to study the Bible. But what about folks who actually work for a living? What about the mother with three kids under the age of five? What about the guy who just got his first big promotion and is trying to overcome a huge learning curve at work while continuing to keep his commitment to coaching his son’s football team?
Does spending time with Jesus mean we have to stop everything and sit really still? Because if so, it may just have to wait for a lot of us. Maybe when the kids are out of the house and we’re retired from our jobs, living on a beach in Torquay — maybe then we’ll be able to sit still long enough to have a relationship with Jesus.
Now is when it’s important to remember that one of the names Jesus bore is “Immanuel,” which means God with us. Not “God with us when we stop doing things and sit quietly.” He’s God with us while we prepare the meal. God with us while we do the dishes. God with us while we drive. God with us at work. God with us at rest. God with us once and for all.
The obstacle to intimacy may not be our busyness, it may be our unwillingness to believe that He wants to be with us while we do the things we do every day.
Prayer
Lord, I want to echo the words of Your servant George Herbert when he prayed, “Teach me, my God and King, in all things Thee to see, and what I do in anything, to do it as for Thee.” You are intimately involved in our lives, and everything we do matters when it is done in Your Name and for Your good pleasure. Grant me the biblical perspective that reveals the importance of everything, so that I will grow in the realisation that all things should be done to the glory of God. May I come to see my work as part of my ministry and that when I do it with excellence in the service of others, it becomes a form of worship. I want to offer all the areas of my life to You and seek to be pleasing to You in all respects. May I grow in the wisdom of practicing Your presence in the most mundane and ordinary activities, knowing that is of value because it is done in Your Name.
In Jesus’s name, Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment