Trinity 8 TSJ and WSG 17-07-2016
Luke 10:38-42 - Martha and Mary
Introduction
To get to the root of a Gospel reading you need to look at it in context.
Darrell Bock in the NIV Application Commentary on Luke says this about our Gospel passage today within the context of Luke’s Gospel as a whole:
“Discipleship is one of St Luke’s great themes and Luke 10:25-11:13 focuses on this issue by highlighting relationships at three fundamental levels.”
The first relationship is with our neighbour (Luke 10:25-37), summed up in the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
Which we looked at last Sunday at All Saints in the Benefice service
The second relationship is with Jesus (Luke 10:38-42).
Here Luke records the famous gripe of Martha to Jesus about Mary not helping out in the kitchen when Jesus and his disciples came for supper, leaving all the work to Martha.
The third relationship was with God through prayer in Luke 11:1-13 culminating in the Lord’s Prayer.
The close positioning of these three relationships suggests a degree of interaction.
It implies that our response to God will have a result to our neighbour
In other words the vertical relationship
MAN---------------GOD (show a hand signal)
Affects the relationship
MAN ----------------- MAN (show hand signal)
When you look at these two hand signals you see the picture of a Cross.
And in fact these can only function correctly when we come to the Cross of Jesus.
Christianity is all about relationships.
The story in our reading today from Luke’s Gospel is about Martha and Mary and their relationship to Jesus.
Martha and Mary were sisters and good friends of Jesus.
And they invited him to supper at their house.
Martha was the older of the two and was busy with preparing and serving.
And she gets into a bit of a fluster when things don’t seem to be going well and so asks Jesus if he would be so kind as to send her sister to her in the kitchen to help her.
But Jesus gently rebukes of Martha telling her that Mary is doing the right thing spending time listening and interacting with Jesus rather than “doing something for Jesus”.
Martha’s relationship with Jesus was all about doing things for Jesus.
In contrast, Mary has a different relationship with Jesus.
She spends time with Him allowing Him to minister to her needs.
And so she has got caught up in conversation with Jesus and Jesus commends her for this.
Martha thought she knew what Jesus wanted – a banquet in his honour.
Mary actually knew what Jesus wanted – which was for her to spend time with Him.
I’d like to look at the sisters in a bit more detail because I think I can learn from both of them.
Being a bit of a workaholic myself, I feel an affinity for Martha.
1. Martha
Why Martha was still working on the meal when Jesus came?
We do not know.
Had she had too little notice of his coming or
was she trying to impress Him by preparing too many dishes?
Whatever the reason, when Jesus came with his disciples - she wasn’t ready.
As a result, she couldn’t spend time with him.
As it was her house, she felt responsible.
So instead of spending time with Jesus, she spent it in the kitchen – cooking.
She probably wished she had time to spend time with Jesus, but she had committed herself.
She was responsible for the meal. So she had to finish it.
When she found that she couldn’t finish preparing the meal herself, she probably said to Mary:
“Come on, Mary - if you help me we can get this finished much quicker together. Then, I too can come and listen to Jesus.
But we have to get this finished.”
But when Mary did not come and help, she flipped her lid and went to Jesus and complained.
"Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" Luke 10:40 (NIV)
I am not convinced that Martha’s preparations for the meal were wrong.
They were an important part of the meal.
The problem was that they distracted her from Jesus.
Our culture promotes busyness.
Steven Covey put it well when he said:
"People expect us to be busy, overworked.
It’s become a status symbol in our society - if we’re busy, we’re important; if we’re not busy, we’re almost embarrassed to admit it.
Busyness is where we get our security. It’s validating, popular and pleasing. It’s also a good excuse for not dealing with the first things in our lives." (Stephen Covey, First Things First, p. 33)
The fact is that Martha was the one with the problem, not Mary.
Her preoccupation with service had four effects.
1.1 The first effect was that she totally lost focus.
What was supposed to be happening?
This was a banquet in honour of Jesus.
Was she doing that?
No.
She was totally absorbed in the preparation of the meal.
So much so that she not only ignored Jesus, but she actually started bossing Him around.
She told Him to make Mary get up and help her.
1.2. The second effect of her preoccupation with service was to cause her to be critical of those who were not in line with her vision.
Charles Hummel, in his book Freedom from the Tyranny of the Urgent, writes:
“Tension and frustration mount when we are performing the wrong tasks or trying to cram too many of the right activities into a given period.”
A critical spirit developed and she began to judge and condemn Mary for what she didn’t do.
Jesus’ rebuke shows me that Martha’s spirit of criticism wasn’t godly.
1.3. The third effect of her preoccupation with service was to cause her to adopt the "Martyr Syndrome"
You know the “martyr Syndrome”:
"I work myself to the bone for you and this is all the thanks I get?"
"Nobody else will do it - so I guess it’s up to me … again."
Poor little old me. That’s the martyr Syndrome.
Martha was so busy and was getting all worked up that she said.
Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?
1.4 The fourth thing that Martha’s preoccupation with service did - was that she did more than was actually needed to be done.
"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one is needed …" Luke 10:41-42a (NIV)
She could have cut down drastically on the food and still had a delicious meal.
She would then have had quality time with the Lord. She was doing more than needed to be done.
Service is a good thing.
But service for God must be balanced with time spent in Jesus’ presence.
Otherwise we will be ineffective, get burned out and put people off helping us.
This passage tells me that we must find a balance between "doing things for Christ" and "listening to the Lord."
And it is especially true when we are committed to serve Jesus.
We can get so tied up in serving Christ that we lose that lose that close relationship with Jesus that He far rather wishes that we would have with Him.
. Mary
Now let’s look at the other sister.
Let’s look at Mary.
She decided to come to Jesus and listen to what he had to say.
That’s why Jesus commended Mary when he said:
"Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." Luke 10:42b (NIV)
If we are followers of Christ we need to spend time with him.
We do this by prayer and reading our Bible.
As my old Spiritual Director, John Edmonds Seal once said to me:
“Set aside a couple of key extended times in the week to be alone with Jesus. Consider them as ‘little treats in your life’.”
If we don’t spend time with Jesus, we won’t have direction in our lives and our efforts will be less effective.
Did it mean then that Mary did nothing?
No, Mary was able to serve with clarity and understanding because she’d spent time at Jesus’ feet.
Though it is a sermon for another time, St. John identifies Mary of Bethany (the Mary of this story) with the Mary appearing in connection two other incidents:
• the raising from the dead of her brother Lazarus (Jn 11:1-2) and
• the anointing of Jesus. (Jn 12:3)
The identification of this being the same Mary in both incidents is given explicitly by John when he wrote:
"Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair."[John 11:1-2]
John records: in John 12, the following
Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair.
You might think that is a little strange, but Jesus commended her for it.
She had kept the perfume to anoint him for the day of his burial.
Have you ever wondered what Jesus was talking to Mary about that night, when Mary was sitting at his feet?
I wonder if he was sharing about his imminent execution.
That would explain why Mary offered her gift – symbolising burial- in the way she did in John 12.
3. Conclusion
Martha missed out because she was so distracted ministering to Jesus.
For her Jesus was an important guest.
She thought she knew what Jesus wanted.
Martha wanted to minister to Jesus needs.
For Mary, on the other hand, listened to Jesus as a close friend. She gave him her full attention.
She knew what Jesus wanted. Jesus wanted Mary to spend time with Him.
Mary allowed Jesus to minister to her.
In our busy schedules, as Christians there is a time and place to do things but there is also a time to draw aside with God and be refreshed by Jesus.
We must draw aside in our heavy schedules to find time to spend with Jesus daily.
And the question I would like us to ask ourselves this morning is: “Who am I more like – Martha or Mary?”
On the “Martha to Mary scale” which end do we gravitate to?
I know for me it is the Martha end
The challenge of this passage this morning for me is to take more time with Jesus – in prayer and studying God’s word – the Bible.
To move from being a Martha to becoming more like Mary. Amen
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SONG: Said Judas to Mary by Sydney Carter
There is a beautiful song about the attitude of Mary to Jesus and I would like to sing it with you.
Please join in as you pick the tune up.
