Hall of Heroes: Mary and Martha[1]

16^th Sunday after Pentecost,

August 31, 2008

 

I’m going to start off with a question this morning I don’t think I’ve ever asked this directly before.  It’s not one you usually hear, but it’s a good one to stop and think very seriously about: Where’s your relationship with Jesus?

Where is your relationship with Jesus?  Is it where you want it to be?  Here’s a better question: is it where it needs to be?  We’re continuing in our series today by looking at Mary and Martha, and the three things that can mean the difference with where we are with Jesus.

Many of you know there are two ‘major’ incidents involving these two sisters recorded in the Gospels.  One event is the death of their brother, Lazarus, and the other event is a supper being put on for Jesus and His disciples.  This is the event we’re looking at today.

This event is recorded in Luke chapter 10, so I invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to this Gospel.  Luke is the 3^rd book in the New Testament, so the order goes, Matthew – also called Levi, a tax collector who stole from his own people until he ran head-long into amazing grace and his life changed forever; Mark – a young man who at first ran away from serving Jesus, abandoning Paul and Silas in the middle of a Missionary trip, but later in life came to be a traveling evangelist and one who Paul called a ‘son’; then comes Luke – not a disciple or an apostle, but someone who came to know Jesus as his Savior, and gathered information on His life from the eye-witnesses.  Luke spent his life traveling with Paul until he was put to death for being a Christian.  Again we are going to chapter 10, and we’re looking at verses 38-42:

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Jesus and His disciples were invited to supper by Martha.  Martha lived with her brother, Lazarus, and sister Mary.  Think about this for a second.  In a moment of great hospitality, Martha opened her home to their friend, Jesus and His disciples.  All of His disciples…all 12 of them.  That means she just invited 13 men over to her home for her to prepare supper for.  And don’t forget the three of them.  Martha’s invitation to Jesus and his disciples meant she was going to have to prepare supper for 15 people. 

How many of you would suddenly like to find 14 other adults in your living room that you – through your invitation – had to suddenly whip up a meal for?  There were no pizza delivery places back then.  When you made a meal you had to make it from scratch, and that’s the place Martha found herself in.

While she was running here and there trying to get a good meal whipped up, she saw Mary sitting on the floor listening to Jesus talk.  And that’s when Martha lost it, went up to Jesus, and demanded that He tell Mary to get up and help.  You can make a note of this in your Bibles next to verse 40, but Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made: in the original Greek, the word distracted means to ‘drag around in circles.’  Martha was just running in circles trying to get it all done, but nothing was happening.

Ever feel like that?  Ever feel like you’re just running in circles with nothing to show for it?  I know that at times I do, and something I’ve learned is it all really boils down to three points: attitude, state of mind and study.

First, attitude.  What was the difference between Mary and Martha’s attitudes?  Mary was focused on enjoying Jesus; Martha was focused on serving Jesus to the exclusion of everything else.

Now before you hear me say something I didn’t, let me be clear on one thing: thank God (literally!) for the Martha’s of the world.  If it wasn’t for the Martha’s nothing would ever get done.  It’s the Martha’s that move the church forward, taking care of what needs taking-care-of, and working it through to its completion.  The issue is not what Martha was doing, the issue was the state of her heart and mind just then: she was letting the things of this world get in the way of her relationship with Jesus.

It’s easy to do, I know.  We tend to see all that there is to do, and measure our success by how much we’ve accomplished.  When someone asks, “How was your day today?” how do we usually respond?  We usually respond by listing off all the things we either did or did not accomplish; all those things by which we think we can measure our effectiveness.  I think we do that because that’s the part of our lives people can see, and the part they look at when they measure our ‘effectiveness.’

I’ve got news for you – and me! – our effectiveness is not measured by the output of the things we do.  Our accomplishments shown in trophies, medals, certificates, and diplomas are not the only means of measuring whether or not we’ve done anything worthwhile.  Let’s peruse some of the Bible for a moment:

·        Moses spent 40 years trying to wrangle a nation of people into a solidified whole under God, and died before he could ever see the fruits of his labor.

·        King David spent most of his reign in battle with enemies on every side before he was able to bring peace and stability to the kingdom – just in time to turn it all over to his son, Solomon.

·        At one point the prophet Elijah thought he was so ineffective he prayed to die.

·        Peter denied he even knew Jesus, emphasizing the point through calling down curses on himself.

·        Paul said of himself  “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing.”^[2]

And yet I don’t know anyone who would say these people were ineffective; that they did not accomplish anything.  From the human perspective it may have looked like they accomplished little if anything, but from the divine perspective – as well as a time perspective looking back at them – they accomplished great things; they moved mountains!

The other thing with Martha’s attitude was that she had to accomplish something NOW, and the desire to ‘do’ got in the way of her just being with Jesus. 

We do the same kind of thing, though.  How many people spend Sunday mornings away from God’s house, His Word, His presence in the sacrament, and His people, because they think they can do more, can do better, by focusing on something else?  When they find themselves frustrated, then they turn to God, just like Martha.  When she found herself in a place she didn’t like, then she turned to the God she’d been ignoring and asked for help.

Mary’s attitude was one of enjoying Jesus – just being with Him, sitting at his feet and learning from Him.  Did you know Mary is mentioned three times in the Bible, and each time she is found in the same place: at the feet of Jesus – listening to Him in these verses, pouring out her heart to Him when her brother Lazarus died[3], and worshiping Him.[4]

So what’s our attitude?  To ‘do’ or to ‘be’?  To be busy with the things of this world, or to be still and know that He is God[5]?  To sit at the feet of Jesus and just connect with Him, or to be preoccupied with the things of this world? 

The second thing is the state of mind.    Take a look at what Jesus said to Martha in verse 41: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things…”  Her state of mind was worry, anxiousness and the turmoil resulting from both.  She was angry, frustrated and exasperated, but these things were happening to her because of her state of mind that led her to that point.

Why was she in this place?  Listen very carefully to this: she was in this place because she allowed herself to be.  She was in this place because she put herself there.  I don’t know what the meal was she was preparing, but I have a feeling it didn’t have to be as extravagant as she was making it.  You can almost hear Jesus saying, “Martha, we don’t need a seven course gourmet meal – a bologna sandwich will do just fine.” 

The thing with Martha’s state of mind is that it came about because she was neglecting time with Jesus.  When we turn our eyes off Jesus, the same thing will happen to us.  When we neglect personal time with God, we begin to carry burdens we were never intended to carry.  Know what else will happen?  It will affect your relationships with other people as well.  When your relationship with God is out of whack, all of your relationships suffer.  Martha was raging mad at her sister, and she was mad at the world.  Why?  Because she was trying to carry too much.  She needed to lay it down and rest in Jesus. There are worse things in the world than a meal without side items.  What Martha needed, more than food, was the peace that comes through drawing near to the Prince of Peace.

So what’s your state of mind, what’s your focus this morning?  I will tell you point-blank this morning that when I neglect my relationship with Jesus, my relationship with Stacey and Alannah goes to you-know-where in a hand-basket pretty quickly.  I end up going around and around in circles carrying things I never should have picked up in the first place; carrying burdens that are not mine to carry.

Attitude and state of mind.  The third and final thing is study.  Next to these verses write the scripture reference, 2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness”

Training in righteousness.  To be righteous means to be ‘right’ before God.  Mary was ‘right’ before God because she was listening to the very words of God as He taught, rebuked, corrected and trained her.  That is what kept her from running in circles and carrying things she was never meant to carry.  Her life was centered on the Words of God.

How are you doing with this?  When was the last time you picked up your Bible and read the love letter God wrote to you?  You can make a note of this scripture reference next to these verses, too: Amos 8:11  “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land – not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of The LORD."

Are you hungry yet?  Are you hungry for the Word of The LORD?  Mary was, and it riveted her to the feet of Jesus.  Martha was not, and it resulted in a sharp rebuke from Jesus.  Martha was hungry for food – for the stuff of this world – when she needed to be hungry for the Word of God. 

Here’s the thing: we are not in a famine for the Word of the Lord like they are in China, Sudan, Iran, Iraq and many other places around the world where it is illegal to be a Christian.  They are experiencing a true famine for the Word of the Lord – they can’t get it in their hands.  We are not experiencing a famine for the Word of the Lord here, but rather we are choosing to ignore it.  I’m not sure which is worse, to not have access to God’s word, or to have complete and free access and ignore it.

Pray for hunger.  Pray for a hunger to read and study God’s Word that isn’t satisfied with just a cursory glance or a once-a-week reading in church when someone else reads it to you.  Pray to be Mary at the feet of Jesus.

Attitude, state of mind and study.  Three simple things that can make or break the relationship someone has with Jesus.  For Mary her right attitude, state of mind and study earned her a place at Jesus’ feet, growing in His word and changing her life.  For Martha, her wrong attitude, state of mind and ignoring God’s word lead to anger, bitterness and being left all alone.  Let’s be a church full of Mary’s – focused first on the Lord, so we can then be trained to do the work in front of us for our families, our church, and others we encounter every day.

Amen.