Mary and Martha Choices

 The story of Mary and Martha is such a short story and brief episode in Jesus’ life, but yet it contains so very much.  

 In order to better understand this story we need to understand a few things about hospitality in biblical times.  In biblical times hospitality was of paramount importance.  If travelers or guests arrived in your village and on your doorstep it was a cultural obligation to provide hospitality.  Martha was performing the cultural obligations of hospitality that were expected of her.

 Refusing hospitality to the traveler was serious business and could alienate you from your neighbors.  I think if I were Martha, I too would have been irritated that Mary was not helping with the obligations of hospitality but rather sitting, all starry eyed, at Jesus’ feet.  It seems like Jesus was a little hard on Martha.  But let’s push a little deeper into the story. 

 As a biblical student, one thing that fascinates me is why the gospel writers chose the stories they did?  For sure, there were many more stories about Jesus, his life and ministry, than what appear in the gospels.  Why did Luke choose to remember this story, for only Luke includes this story in his gospel?  Matthew, Mark and John do not. 

 For a clue into that we must look at the story beyond the literal, beyond merely the surface facts of the story.  Martha and Mary represent two distinct religious mind-sets and they come into conflict in this story.  Martha represents the mind-set of the Pharisees, who judged themselves and others on how well they observed the rules, customs and laws of their religious tradition.  Theirs was a religion of law and their ability to align their lives with the law and fulfill the demands of the law.  

 We see some of that attitude in ourselves when we invite guests over for dinner and get so obsessed with preparation: dusting the furniture, vacuuming the carpet, knocking down the cobwebs, cutting the grass, sweeping the driveway, setting the table, preparing hors d’oeurvres, and cooking the food that we are too exhausted to really enjoy the guests when they finally do arrive.   That kind of hospitality ends up having more to do with, “How well am I doing?” rather than really engaging and focusing on the guest.  The focus is still on me, not the guest.

The context for this Gospel story is a dinner party. As far as Martha was concerned, the success of the dinner party depended on her. She saw herself as the giver and Jesus as the receiver in their relationship. She related to Jesus by attending to the countless details that custom demanded; things that she had control over.  She was in control and wanted to stay in control.  In the process, Jesus became secondary and her obsession with the details of her performance became primary.  

For Mary it was a whole different thing.  For Mary the success of the dinner party depended on Jesus. Mary saw Jesus as the giver and saw herself as the receiver.  Mary showed hospitality to Jesus by being totally focused on him and on what he had to give. For Mary, going against tradition and the accepted religious mind-set was the most authentic response to Jesus.

 One of the most common scenes in the New Testament is when the disciples gather around Jesus. Repeatedly we see the disciples as the inner circle of followers gathered around Jesus and the crowds standing beyond them.  Jesus was the teacher and they were the disciples sitting at his feet.  Sitting at Jesus’ feet was a symbol of discipleship. Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet indicates she chose discipleship over the expected role of providing hospitality. Jesus affirmed Mary’s stepping out of her expected gender role of performing acts of hospitality and stepping into (or should I say “sitting into”)  the posture of discipleship.  “Mary has chosen the better part…” said Jesus.

 There are three thoughts I leave with you about this story.

 First:   Even the best and most noble things of life can “distract” us from the Lord. Martha was so locked into her prescribed role she couldn’t conceive of things any other way.  She couldn’t conceive of laying aside her cooking pots and baking pans to sit at the feet of the Lord Jesus.  She had become a slave to her expected role. I believe this is a huge temptation for us. 

 We too, can allow most anything to distract us from our relationship with God.  We are so busy and, are presented with so many choices.  We too get locked in and become slaves to roles, schedules, and expectations – so much so we cannot conceive of life being any other way. Jesus may be knocking on your door or even sitting your family room right now, but you may be so enslaved to something you simply cannot spend time with him. 

 For the Christian before anything else the Lord Jesus desires for you to take the posture of discipleship which first means just sitting before him; listening, conversing, learning, inter-acting, receiving what he has to give you.  But will you?  Are you free enough, or are you so enslaved to roles, schedules, expectations and agendas that the Lord Jesus will end up sitting all alone in your spiritual house while you attend to other things?

 Second:  We live very much at the surface of things.  Like water skiers we skim along the surface of life often never seeing the wondrous and teeming life that exists at a deeper level.  We seldom take time to see past below the surface, to see and experience the deeper things.  In fact, we buy into our fast paced life-style so much, we are offended by anybody who does otherwise, intrudes, tries to slow us down or suggests we might do otherwise with our lives - people like Jesus.

The third thing: Is your Christian walk and witness more about how well you are doing; how well you are coming off compared to others?   The most unbearable Christians are those who set themselves up as the norm for everyone else and others are evaluated, not based on grace and love, but on a strict set of rules and expectations.  Grace ends up taking a back set to judgment and condescension.

  Jesus said, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the better part which will not be taken away from her.”

 Everyday we are faced with Mary and Martha choices. A Mary and Martha choice is a choice between:    

*Discipleship or busy work.   

*Living as a slave of your hectic life or setting more of it aside to spend time at the feet of Jesus.

*Living at the surface or probing the deeper things of life that really matter.

*Living by grace or rigid religious law.

 This story finally gets down to discipleship.  Discipleship is not a matter of fitting the Lord into your busy life as if he was merely another thing to do; another item on the list to check off. 

 Discipleship begins at the feet of the Lord Jesus – feet that were nailed to a cross for your sake and mine. . 

 With open arms, he willingly let himself be nailed to a cross in order to welcome the whole blessed world unto himself  through the forgiveness of sins; through grace and not good performance.

 It’s there at his wounded feet at the foot of the cross we can begin to see life at its deeper level.  It’s there at his wounded feet we can begin to discern what is really important and what deserves our attention and commitment and what is so much meaningless busy work.  It is there, at his wounded feet, hearing words spoken to each one of us, “Father, forgive them” that we begin to die to our pretense and rise to new life to live more like Mary in a Martha world.