This week I came across a blog post by a man named Ian Stachowitz that caught my attention with its opening words:
My full-time job includes mopping floors, washing windows, vacuuming carpets, and scrubbing toilets. I also profess my faith in Jesus and I strive to live like Him. By all accounts, I believe that makes me a full-time minister.
Ian closes that same blog post with these words:
There are people in churches everywhere that are ministers, but do not hold a pastoral office. The most undignified work is often the kind of work that Jesus wants us to do. It does not have to take the form of full-time custodial work or take up a lot of time in your day. Often, the single, simple acts are the ones that mean the most. It may mean visiting hospital inpatients or removing snow from a neighbor’s sidewalk. It could mean participating in a church work day or working with students with special needs. It may mean being a parent or being a missionary. The work that appears of little importance is indeed the work that Jesus did and asked us to. If, as a Christian, that is what you are doing already, then by all accounts, you, too are a minister.
Ian does a pretty jog of summarizing the overall principle that undergirds our current sermon series – every Christ follower is called by God to be a minister. And because that is true, we have been examining how Jesus ministered to others to see what we can learn from Him and apply to our own ministry to others. We began a couple weeks ago with the account of the rich young ruler and then last week we saw how Jesus ministered to a Syrophoenician woman.
This week, we’ll examine the account of an event that is recorded only by Luke. Before we read that passage, let me briefly set the stage for that encounter.
Near the end of Luke chapter 9, we read these words:
When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.
Luke 9:51 (ESV)
It is now six months or less until Jesus reaches Jerusalem one last time and is crucified on a Roman cross. Jesus is on the road almost that entire time, going from village to village to proclaim who He is after first sending out a group of seventy two of his followers to prepare the way.
In Luke’s gospel account of this period, the primary emphasis is on the teaching of Jesus. Luke isn’t concerned at all with any of Jesus’ miracles. He isn’t even concerned with where Jesus goes. In the passage we’ll read in a moment, he just writes that “Jesus entered a village” without naming the village. Elsewhere in this section, he writes that Jesus was praying “in a certain place”, but doesn’t identify the place. Because of the emphasis on Jesus’ teaching, we can’t even be sure that the events that he chronicles are placed in chronological order in this section of Luke’s gospel account.
With that background in mind, let’s read the passage we’ll examine this morning:
Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10:38-42 (ESV)
Although this is probably a familiar passage for most of us, my experience is that most of the teaching on this passage focuses on what we can learn from Martha and Mary. And we’ll take a moment to focus on just one implication for our lives that is based on what Martha and Mary do here. But once again this morning our primary focus is going to be on Jesus and how He ministered to these two women. There is obviously a lot we could learn here, but we’ll focus on just four ministry principles.
Ministry principles:
Jesus ministered to all regardless of their background
Hopefully you’ll notice that this is exactly the same as the first principle we derived from last week’s focus on the Syrophoenician woman. And this is not going to be the last time that we’ll see Jesus employ the same ministry principle in a number of different situations.
Jesus goes against many of the cultural expectations of His day here. It is quite significant that Jesus visited these women in their home for the purpose of teaching them about spiritual matters. Most Jewish rabbis thought that teaching women was a waste of time. And even if a woman was permitted to learn, it had to be from the back, or from the section set aside for the women, certainly never at the feet of the teacher.
Even today in that part of the world, the cultural norm is for the men to sit around and engage in “men talk” while the women go about their domestic duties. In that culture, a woman’s place clearly was in the kitchen. Knowing that, it’s understandable that Martha was so upset with both Mary and Jesus.
But just as we saw last week, Jesus was always willing to go against the cultural norms of His day in order to demonstrate the value that God places on every single person.
Since we spent a bit of time on this principle last week, we won’t tarry here. But let me just remind all of us that God loved the whole world so much that He made the ultimate sacrifice of sending His own Son to die on the cross for their sins. And if God loves them that much, then we need to follow His example and be willing to minister to whoever He brings into our lives.
Jesus took time to build relationships
It’s interesting that during the crucial last months of His earthly ministry, Jesus didn’t just sit around waiting for people to come to Him. He went to where they were. He didn’t build some huge church building and spend a fortune on advertising to urge people to come hear Him preach. Instead, we find Him going from village to village, engaging mostly common people who didn’t necessarily have a whole lot to offer to Him or to His ministry.
And as He did that, Jesus took the time that was necessary to develop relationships with the people He encountered. Although Jesus’ ministry task was urgent, Jesus was never in too much of a hurry to spend time with people to get to know them better.
We don’t know for sure exactly how much time Jesus spent with Martha and Mary on this particular occasion, but we do know that this was certainly not His only encounter with them. Not more than a few months later, when their brother Lazarus dies, John’s account of that event reveals that Jesus’ relationship with the family had developed far beyond just a casual acquaintance:
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
John 11:5 (ESV)
But Jesus didn’t take the time to develop a relationship with everyone He came in contact with. He primarily went where He was welcome. We tend to read this account and focus on all the things that Martha did wrong and we overlook that fact that Martha welcomed Jesus into her home. And even though Martha certainly did not always have the right focus and though her faith in Jesus waivered at times, because she welcomed Jesus, He was willing to take the time to develop a relationship with her.
This principle certainly has important implications to us as we minister to others. The instructions that Jesus gave when He sent out the 72 to prepare the way for His visits earlier in this chapter are certainly relevant for us as well:
Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you. Heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’
Luke 10:8-11 (ESV)
Where people welcomed Jesus’ followers as His representatives, they were to stay and develop a relationship with the people there. But where they were not welcome, they were to move on and not waste their time.
As we minister in the name of Jesus, we are always going to be the most effective with those people with whom we take the time to build a relationship. But obviously not everyone is open to that. So, as we saw last week, we need to make wise use of our time and focus our efforts where we are welcome. And then we need to spend whatever time and energy is necessary to develop relationships with those people.
One of the best ways that we can demonstrate the importance of a personal relationship with God to those who have not yet experienced that is by taking the time to develop personal relationships with those God brings into our lives.
This is an area where God really began to convict me several years ago. And as He helped me to recognize that there were several people that He kept bringing into my life on a consistent basis, I determined that I was going to be a lot more pro-active in developing a relationship with these people. With most of those people, that is still an ongoing process. And what I find is that as our relationship develops, I have more opportunities to minister in their lives in some way.
Jesus was direct without being confrontational
Jesus didn’t shy away from addressing the root cause of Martha’s frustration with both her sister and Jesus. Martha was anxious and troubled by many things because she failed to recognize that which was necessary – to listen to and obey the words of Jesus. But He does that in such a gentle manner.
There are only a handful of times in the Bible where God addresses someone by using their name twice like Jesus does here with Martha – “Martha, Martha…” The first example of that is with Abraham as He is about to be obedient to God and sacrifice His son Isaac:
But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.”
Genesis 22:11 (ESV)
There is a certain tenderness and affection that is expressed in the way Jesus addresses Martha, but at the same time He is not afraid to be very direct with her about that which she needed to deal with in her life.
While Jesus had no problem applying this principle, this has to be by far the most difficult for us. We spent a lot of time in our Monday morning Bible study discussing how hard it is for us to be truthful with people about their shortcomings without being judgmental or confrontational and just driving them away. Although there are no easy answers to that problem, Jesus does three things here that might be helpful to us, too:
• He didn’t force the issue
Although Jesus obviously observed Martha’s behavior long before He addressed it, He didn’t force the issue. As a guest in her house, Jesus didn’t walk in and immediately begin to condemn Martha’s behavior. He waited until she approached Him.
Obviously there are cases where what a person is doing is so dangerous that we have to address the issue immediately. But most times, we are going to be much more effective if we’ll wait for the right opportunity to deal with the issue in a more non-confrontational manner.
• He kept the focus on His Word
Jesus made it really clear to both Martha and Mary that the one thing that was necessary was to focus on what He was teaching.
That is an important thing for us to remember as we minister to others. Our own opinions and ideas are never going to be adequate to deal with the issues that people are facing in their lives. But God’s Word does indeed have all the answers they need.
Even if the other person does not believe in the Bible, God can still use His Word to accomplish His purposes in both our life and in the life of the person we are ministering to. That’s not just my opinion; that is God’s promise to us:
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
Isaiah 55:10-11 (ESV)
• He left the results to God
In this microwave, fast-food culture we live in, we like to see immediate results. But the reality is that rarely occurs. We have no evidence here that Martha actually dropped what she was doing to listen to Jesus. And even when we see Martha again in John 11, her faith is far from complete.
Most of the people that Jesus ministered to during His earthly ministry didn’t really get it until after His resurrection, and even then some of them came around very slowly. But Jesus patiently waited for God to work on their hearts and He left the results to His Father.
But in a culture where we’re usually evaluated on our results in most other areas of our lives, it is often difficult for us to follow Jesus’ example. And it is that desire for immediate results that often leads us to be confrontational or push the issue when that is really not appropriate.
We need to recognize, like Jesus did, that coming to faith in Him is usually a process in which God has graciously allowed us to play a part. And in the end, the final results are all up to God. Paul certainly came to understand this principle:
What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.
1 Corinthians 3:5-9 (ESV)
Jesus focused more on attitudes than actions
When Martha confronted Jesus, Jesus never did comment on what she was doing. Instead, he focused on her heart. Martha’s problem was not so much that she was busy with all the preparations for Jesus’ visit as it was that she was anxious and troubled by many things.
I think that this may be an area where most Christ followers really hinder their ability to effectively minister in the lives of others. Because it is much easier to see outward actions than it is to discern the hearts of people, there is a natural tendency to focus on what people do. And I wonder how many times we end up driving people away from faith in Jesus because we expect them to behave like a Christ follower even though they have never committed their lives to Jesus. So rather than helping people to focus on the underlying heart problems that they have in a gentle and sensitive manner, we tend to condemn their outward behavior.
It’s pretty easy to recognize that kind of approach to ministry when it is taken to an extreme. For instance, most of us immediately recognize that the Westboro Baptist Church is way out of line when they show up at the funerals of our servicemen who are killed in action and claim that they died because God is punishing our country for rampant homosexuality. But most of the time, the tendency to focus on outward actions rather than the heart is much more subtle.
Although Jesus never shied away from calling people to account for their sin, we find that He consistently focused on the heart condition far more than the actions that were a result of those attitudes. As we minister to others, we would do well to follow His example.
As I mentioned earlier, our primary focus this morning has been on how Jesus ministered to Martha and Mary. But there is one crucial personal implication for each of us that we dare not pass over. So we’ll close with that.
Personal implication:
Just prior to this account of Jesus’ ministry in the home of Mary and Martha, Luke records the conversation that Jesus had with a lawyer about what it means to love one’s neighbor. That is where Jesus shares the parable of the Good Samaritan.
I think that Luke places the account of Martha and Mary right after that for a reason. If we take the parable of the Good Samaritan out of context, it would be very easy to conclude that one’s service in the name of God is to take precedence over one’s faith in Jesus. But the account of Martha and Mary leads us to draw this important implication for our lives:
My worship must undergird my work
We see Mary three times in the gospel accounts – once here and twice in John’s gospel. And every single time we find her in the exact same place – at the feet of Jesus. Here she is sitting at His feet, learning from Him as He teaches her. In John 11, when Jesus comes again to her home in Bethany in order to raise her brother Lazarus from the dead, when Jesus approaches, Mary falls at His feet. Finally in John 12, we see Mary anointing the feet of Jesus with expensive perfume and wiping them with her hair.
Together these three pictures give us a beautiful picture of Mary’s worship of Jesus. Certainly if we had the time that could be another whole message in itself. Mary’s main concern was developing her relationship with Jesus by spending time in His presence. And Jesus commended her for making that her priority.
Martha, on the other hand, was focused on what she could do to please Jesus. Obviously there was nothing wrong with what she was doing. As I pointed out earlier, she had welcomed Jesus into their home and was doing what she could to extend hospitality to Him while He was there. But the problem is that she was so busy with all her work that she didn’t have time to spend time with Jesus that was needed to learn from Him and develop a relationship with Him.
As a pastor, this is a trap that is so easy for me to fall into, and I’m certainly prone to doing that from time to time. I can easily get so caught up in studying the Bible for the purpose of teaching and preaching that I fail to take time to just spend time with Jesus in His Word and in prayer just for the purpose of worshipping Him and getting to know him better.
And my guess is that all of us struggle with this from time to time. As I mentioned earlier, we live in a culture in which we are constantly being evaluated by the results we produce. So the tendency is to focus on getting things done. And that tendency can easily carry over into our ministry. We can get so wrapped up in what we are doing that we forget that our work must be undergirded by our worship.
Jesus certainly demonstrated this principle in His time here on earth. Before every significant ministry event in His life, Jesus prepared for what He was about to do by spending time with His Father. Before He faced Satan in the wilderness, he fasted and prayed. Before He chose the twelve apostles, he prayed all night. Before performing many of His miracles, the gospel accounts show Jesus prayed. And just before going to the cross, Jesus retreated to the garden with his disciples to pray. If Jesus needed to undergird His work with His worship, then just think how much more important that is for us.
Do you want to minister like Jesus did?
Then you must minister to all, regardless of their background.
You must take time to build relationships.
You must learn to be direct without being confrontational.
And you must focus on attitudes rather than actions.
And most important of all, you must make sure that your work is undergirded by your worship.
