“HELP ME! I’M A MARTHA!”
Luke 10: 38 – 42 (NRSV)
July 5, 2009/Third in a series, “Your Questions Please”
Focus: Jesus offers us the better thing in life.
PRAYER OF ILLLUMINATION
Gracious God, we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from your mouth. Make us hungry for this heavenly food, that it may nourish us today in the ways of Jesus and in His eternal life.
ALL YOU MARTHAS
The writer of today’s question did not sign her name when she asked, “Why is Martha at fault in the story of Martha and Mary? Why does she get such a bad rap?” When asked why this question has been a struggle, the author wrote, “I’m a Martha.”
I couldn’t but wondering: Who wrote this? So I started going through the names and faces of women in our congregation. It could be her or it could be her. I was a surprised when I discovered who submitted this question because I hadn’t thought of her. It could have been any one of 20 women I thought of. Be honest: how many women today could have written that question? Raise your hand.
Let’s revisit this story. Our Scripture Lesson today is found in Luke 10: 38 – 42.
MARY VS MARTHA
Ever since Jesus spent the afternoon and evening in the home of two sisters, Martha and Mary, women had been bedeviled by this passage. Women have a way of reading themselves into this story and most identify with Martha, the sister who was slaving away in the kitchen more than they do with Mary, who was sitting by Jesus doing nothing and not lending a hand to her sister who needed one in the worst way. My mother was a Martha, and she always argued with the Lord when He said, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.” My mom’s answer to the Lord was always the same. “Well Jesus, who’s going to make dinner if we’re all sitting around listening to you!”
JESUS COMES TO DINNER
Step in the home of these two sisters for a moment. Jesus is traveling with His disciples. They come to Bethany, a small town two miles from Jerusalem. Martha, Mary, and their brother Lazarus, who isn’t mentioned here, were among the closest friends of Jesus outside of the 12 disciples. Anytime Jesus was in the vicinity of Jerusalem, He would stay with His friends. Jesus was so comfortable with Martha and Mary that He could walk right into their home with knocking.
On this day, the 12 disciples would have been right on Jesus’ heels and probably a half a dozen guys who were arguing them came along, and most likely a couple of tax collectors and a few prostitutes walked into Mary and Martha’s living room too.
In the ancient Near East, when guests arrived, no matter how many, you fed them. A meal would require bread to be made, various sauces and meats to be prepared and some fruits to be set out on the table. If there were 20 people in the house, there was a lot of work to be done because there were no Genardi’s to send Lazarus to pick up some extra chicken.
Martha rushes to the kitchen and starts working. She is talking to herself, creating a list of what she had to do over the next few hours to have dinner ready. It takes her a few minutes to realize that her sister Mary isn’t there with her. Where is Mary? Martha walks out into the living and there is Mary sitting on the floor by Jesus’ feet. Mary is soaking up every word that Jesus is saying.
Martha, who is slaving away in the kitchen, making dinner for 20 people by herself, finds her sister sitting by Jesus feet. She interrupts the lesson. “Hey, Mary, can you get off your duff and get in here? I’m glad you’re having such a nice religious experience but dinner isn’t going to make itself!” And then, turning to Jesus, she begs, “Jesus, would you tell Mary to come in here and help?”
A FIRM BUT GENTLE NO
Many people read this story as a kind of personality test. Some of us are Marthas and some of us are Marys. But you must hear and understand the loving but firm rebuke of Jesus to Martha. Martha had it wrong. She was missing what was the best for concern for what was only good.
“The one thing necessary for hospitality,” writes New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson, “is attention to the guest rather than a domestic performance.” On this day, in Martha and Mary’s home, the guest was a prophet, the Lord, so drop your mixer and pull up a piece of carpet and listen to Jesus. There was more than a rebuke from Jesus at that moment. He offered Martha an invitation to come and sit too.
A heart filled with worry will make one thing, the object of worry, the one thing in life. An encumbered heart, like Martha’s, makes everything the one thing. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, watched Martha and observes: "Martha was encumbered - The Greek word properly signifies to be drawn different ways at the same time, and admirably expresses the situation of a mind, surrounded (as Martha's then was) with so many objects of care, that it hardly knows which to attend to first."
We are also encumbered with a load of cares. It is the reason why most of us start running the moment our feet touch the floor and we don’t stop until we fall exhausted in bed at day’s end. We have so much going on in our lives and with our families that we can’t stop. Martha would easily fit into our culture. Jesus, with a firm but loving rebuke to His friend He loved so much, offers her a seat at His feet too. Mary snuck away from the kitchen and assumed the role of a disciple of Jesus. She sat at His feet, ready to learn, and ready to soak up whatever He had to give.
Martha’s main mistake is to think that her activity can replace His attention. I love what Don Postema wrote years ago. The quote is found at the top of the bulletin today. “The world really doesn’t need more busy people, maybe not even more intelligent people. It needs ‘deep people,’ people who know that they need solitude if they are going to find out who they are . . . The world needs people who want their lives not only to be filled, but to be full and fulfilled.”
You will never become a person of depth through activity alone. A person of depth is created by sitting at the feet of Jesus. He invites you to sit with Him today too.
COME AND SIT
Someone said, “Jesus praises a woman for acting as though she were a man. God didn't make you to fill a role. God made you for love -- to be loved by God, and to express with your life how you see God loving the world.”
This past week I was privileged to spend a week in Camden, New Jersey, with our Camden Mission Team. Camden, as you may have heard, is the poorest city, per capita, in the nation. Forty percent of the population of the city of Camden is under the age of 25. The poverty rate hangs around 50% of the population.
Camden is a grim place and not very pretty—there’s no way around that truth. One day as we took a tour of the city and drove through one burned out neighborhood after another, I thought to myself: there’s no hope for Camden. It’s a dead-end, drug infested town with terrible housing, lousy schools and no jobs. If there was ever a city in need of an army of Marthas, Camden is the place.
One morning our group met Josh, a young man who oversees the many children’s programs run by Urban Promise. Josh is a great-looking, smart young man. He has a BS in Biology from a top university and you wouldn’t be surprised if you heard Josh was in medical school. Josh works with children in Camden. And despite that he comes from a great family and went a great school, Josh told us that he needs to pray because nothing happens without it.
Josh’s approach to his ministry is simple. He waits for his phone to ring and then he goes to offer whatever help he can. He always prays before he goes. Josh often walks into homes of some of the poorest, most desperate people in the country. Violence and abuse of all sorts is a fact of life.
As smart as Josh is, he is smart enough to have figured out that without prayer nothing will change and nothing will happen in those homes.
So let me invite you to take a seat at the feet of Jesus at His Table today. There’s nothing for you to do but receive His mercy, grace, and love. Come, and be loved by Him. There’s a place for you, especially all you Marthas out there.
Amen.
“Your Questions Please” Study Guide: July 5, 2009
Question: Why is Martha at fault in the story of Mary and Martha? Why does she get such a bad rap?
Insights into the account of Martha and Mary (Luke 10: 38 – 42)
- “This passage challenges the role designations for women in the first century; the role of a disciple and future minister of Jesus’ message is more critical than that of homemaker and hostess, and is open to women.
- Luke 10:38 “Being one of Jesus’ hostesses would be a lot of work for Martha; he had brought many disciples to feed. Martha’s act may fall short of Mary’s in this narrative, but her labor represents the best display of devotion she knows how to offer.”
- Luke 10:39 “People normally sat on chairs or, at banquets, reclined on couches; but disciples sat at the feet of their teachers. Mary’s posture and eagerness to absorb Jesus’ teaching at the expense of a more traditional womanly role (see v. 40) would have shocked most Jewish men.
From The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament by Craig S. Keener
Resources:
This is site was created by Irish Jesuits and is a wonderful help in bringing people to the feet of Jesus. In the words of the creators of Sacred Space, “We invite you to make a 'Sacred Space' in your day, and spend ten minutes, praying here and now, as you sit at your computer, with the help of on-screen guidance and scripture chosen specially every day.”
- Books
- Space for God by Don Postema
I found this book when I was in seminary 20 years ago and it was a revelation for my prayer life. The author is a pastor and he writes gently while drawing on many of the theological riches of the Reformed faith. The book is filled with great works of art by Van Gough and Rembrandt. It is an ideal book for a study or personal use.
- Spotting the Sacred by Bruce Main
Bruce is the founder and Executive Director of Urban Promise, the organization we worked with this week in Camden. Bruce balances prayer and action as well as anyone I know.
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