Good morning. My name is Martha, and I don’t come out looking very good in the story I’m about to tell you. Mind you, I meant well, but meaning well doesn’t mean doing well. And of course, I was also doing what everybody expected me to do. I always have. It’s safe, I’m good at it, and besides, that’s how women are judged - by how well you cook and clean. But I did get tired of being taken for granted. Wouldn’t you?
Anyway, Jesus and some of the disciples stopped by on their way back from Jerusalem one day, and I knew they’d be hungry, they always were. But it was late in the week, and we were about out of everything, we had to grind more flour, we needed fresh water from the well, and well, I don’t suppose you’re interested in how much goes into getting a decent meal ready for a dozen or more hungry men. But it was hot, and I was tired, and I could hear the voices from around the corner of the house and nobody so much as stuck their nose out to ask if I needed more wood for the baking!
Yes, yes, I know, most men never even think about such things, they just expect the food to show up out of thin air, but I expected better from Jesus, he was never too busy or distracted to appreciate what people did for him. But what really got to me was my sister Mary. First of all, she shouldn’t have been sitting there with all the men in the first place. Jesus is the only rabbi I know who’ll let a woman listen in on the classes, and you’d think she’d realize that it was a privilege, not a right, and that you earn privileges by getting your work done first. Even in the synagogue women sit apart from the men. And in a household headed by a woman we have to be even more careful to keep from giving the wrong impression. Lazarus is far too young to be any kind of chaperon.
And besides, didn’t she think I’d like to listen, too? Didn’t it occur to her that if she’d only help we’d be done in half the time and I could get to sit down too? So finally I got so fed up that I just walked right out into the courtyard where they were sitting and said to Jesus, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to come help me.” Everybody turned around and stared. I suppose I should have been embarrassed to draw attention to myself that way, it really isn’t done, but I was so fed up that I just stood there with my hands on my hips and waited for an answer.
“Oh, Martha,” said Jesus. “You are worried and distracted by many things.” Well, thought I, nice of you to notice. Someone has to, after all. Bread doesn’t cook itself, you know. But then he went on, “only one thing is needed. “
What did Jesus mean, only one thing is needed? We needed everything from water to wine, I’d had to run around half the village to get enough figs for everyone, and besides that I’d broken two plates and a cooking pot because I trying to do everything at once. Did he think I was just going to throw a loaf of bread on a plate and think that was enough? I have more self-respect than that. We may not be the richest house in the village, but we have a reputation for hospitality that I, for one, was interested in preserving.
And then he went on to say the most puzzling thing of all. “Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Well, as you can imagine, that didn’t make me feel any better at all. Since when is scandalizing the neighbors by pushing your way into a lesson between a rabbi and his disciples better than feeding them, which as every Jewish woman knows is her primary duty? I was simply speechless. I didn’t dare look at my sister, I knew she’d be sitting there with a smug expression on her face. And since when had anybody ever taken anything away from Mary, anyway? Everything always just falls in her lap! Nobody notices that I’m the one who does all the work around here.
I was too angry to say anything, I just turned around and went back to the cooking area and promptly broke another plate by kicking the table it was sitting on.
Maybe you’re smarter than I am, but it was a long time before I figured out what Jesus was trying to tell me. I had to unlearn the habits of a lifetime, to question everything I had thought I understood about what it meant to be a good person and what was really important in life. Maybe you already know that some things are more important than setting a nice table and or making the best cheese in the village or whatever it is that you’re really proud of. But it wasn’t until later, after Lazarus was so sick and died, and Jesus brought him back to life, that I realized that listening to Jesus was more important than anything else I had ever done in my life.
Sure, they needed to be fed. But it didn’t have to be served right then. And it didn’t have to be something that they’d remember and admire me for, either. I thought I was doing it for Jesus, you know, making the most lavish dinner possible because he deserved it, but you know he really didn’t care about that, and I knew it. What I really wanted was for him to notice me, to compliment my cooking and - I’m really ashamed to admit this - but to realize that I worked harder than Mary and was more like the ideal Jewish woman, the one in Proverbs, you know, that lists all the things a husband should look for: “She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands... She rises while it is still night and provides food for her household ... Her lamp does not go out at night. She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle. [Pr 31:13,14,18,19] Mind you, I wasn’t setting my cap for Jesus, I knew better even then, I knew he’d never settle down and raise a family. But I wanted him to think well of me. I wanted him to like me better than he liked Mary.
What I didn’t realize was that Jesus really didn’t need what we had to give him half as much as we needed what he had to give us. Later on one of the disciples - James, I think it was - told me that Jesus had said he “came not to be served but to serve.” [Mk 10:45] And of course when we finally realized that Jesus was God’s Son it made perfect sense. “The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth... is not served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things." [Acts 17:24-25] We aren’t put on earth to meet God’s needs; he came to us to meet our needs. The Psalms tell us that God “will not accept a bull from our house, or goats from our folds. For every wild animal of the forest is his, the cattle, all the birds of the air, and all that moves in the field, and if God were hungry, he would not tell us.” [Ps 50:9-12] As a matter of fact, when Jesus arrived that day, he didn’t ask for food. I just assumed that was what I was supposed to do, get busy in the kitchen, and earn my right to be called his friend. That was my job, and that’s the way the world works, right? If you do everything right and always give a little extra, then people are more likely to treat you well and. You get what you pay for, one hand washes the other, always pay your debts. But with Jesus I didn’t have to earn anything.
And when you stop to think about it, the disciples didn’t earn anything, either. WE admire them - or at least I do - because they left their homes and their jobs and everything to follow Jesus - but what was happening was Jesus was giving them not only a reason to live, but the promise of eternal life. Jesus didn’t need helpers, we did. Boy, did we ever. And all the work they’re doing for him now, why, what’s his gift to them, not their gift to him. All the things they are doing, healing people, feeding people, teaching them about Jesus, why, it’s not really they who are doing the work, it’s Jesus working through them. It makes such a difference when you see it that way.
So when Jesus said that “only one thing is needed” he didn’t mean we could get along with a simple one-course meal. He meant that listening to him was even more important than food. And no matter what you eat, you’ll be hungry again soon enough. Food doesn’t last. But the words he had for us, words about what God really was like, not a harsh taskmaster who counted up your good deeds to see if you’d made your daily quota, or a strict mother who would make you go without dinner if you’re hands weren’t quite clean enough. No, the God that Jesus showed us didn’t wait for us to show up with acceptable offerings, he came down to us and gave us the offering himself. Sure, he wants us to live right - but we need help to get our priorities straight. We should have known better, after all, God rescued us from Egypt before we even had the Torah! But somehow we’d gotten it into our heads that if we followed the law absolutely perfectly, God would be in our debt - that he would owe us salvation. We forgot that it was all gift, even the law, and that the only thing we could do is sit at his feet and ask for manna.
And do you know what happens when we start thinking that work is something we do for God, instead of something God gives to us?
We get mean! That’s right, we get downright mean. We start looking around at other people and comparing their work to ours, and either start feeling sorry for ourselves or full of ourselves. Depending on who we’re looking at. That’s what I did, that long-ago day in Bethany.
Remember I thought I was working for Jesus, but I was really doing it for myself, to make myself important. And because I was looking at myself and not at him, the first thing I did was throw myself a pity party. I wanted everyone else’s attention to be on me, too, and to feed my ego by acknowledging how unfair life was - even though I had made my own choices! Have you ever done that? Said yes to too many people because you wanted their good opinion, or because you figured no one else would do - whatever - and then felt sorry for yourself because you were so overworked?
And the second thing I did was get angry. I had a temper tantrum. If no one would feel sorry for me, the least I could do was get them to be sorry about something! Of course it didn’t accomplish anything - it didn’t even make me feel better - but that’s what I did. I got so mad I wouldn’t even look at my own sister, because I was afraid of what I might say.
I knew it was important for Mary to listen to Jesus. I loved Mary, even though she was so impractical she occasionally drove me nuts, and usually I was thrilled that she got a chance to listen and learn, and she always shared with me what Jesus had said. But there was just something about that particular day. I expected her to read my mind. I expected her to give up what she wanted to do in order to do what I wanted her to do. I judged her harshly for being different from me, for making her own choices and being happy with them. I wanted her to share my misery. Have you ever done that? It’s an awfully easy trap to fall into.
And then, do you realize what I did? I blamed it on Jesus! I accused him of not caring about me. I couldn’t have been more wrong. But he knew that I had to come to understand on my own. Jesus always let people make their own choices. I’ve never known anyone else who respected people that much. You know how almost everyone tries to manipulate you or coerce you into doing what they want you to do? Well, Jesus never did that. He laid the choices out in front of you and let you decide. And if that weren’t enough, if you chose wrong and wanted to come back later and change your mind, he always gave you another chance. That is, if you could find him, because he wasn’t always where you expected him to be, off in Galilee one month and across the Jordan the next. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, it wasn’t Jesus’ fault that I wasn’t in there listening like Mary, it was mine. I was the one who made the wrong choice that day. I suspect he knew I was miserable, slapping the bread dough around and chopping up dates like a frustrated butcher, but it was up to me to turn around and take my place at his feet.
Because that’s the best place to be. It was the best place then, and it’s the best place now. Listening to Jesus does for your soul what a cool drink of water on a hot day does for your body. All of the business I used to fill my days with - well, I can’t tell you that I’ve become another Mary. But I can tell you that remembering Jesus’ words, and inviting him to speak to my heart, makes my work light. Oddly enough, putting Jesus before the work makes the work I do seem to matter even more than it did when I put the work first, but in a different way. Before, I used to think about myself, and try to figure out what people owed me for everything I was doing. But now, I think about the people around me, and about how glad I am that Jesus has made it possible for me to share with them what he has given to me.
When Jesus comes first, everything else falls into place.
