Beside Still Waters Ministries

Luke 10:38-42 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.”

This story has two kinds of worshipers. One worshiped by service, the other worshiped by basking in His presence. First we’ll start with the one that we are more familiar – Mary. She sat at his feet and listened. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Just to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to His teaching. She knew that He was the Messiah, the Son of God. Mary knew that He was worthy of worship, He and His message was worth sitting and paying attention. She cleared her mind from worries of the day, and concentrated on Him. She probably also had a feeling that there wouldn’t be much time to get to listen to Him and learn from Him. How can you do this kind of worship today? Can this be done in your daily life? Do you take the time to do it?

Now, usually Martha is given the bad rap when people teach about this story because Jesus does obviously reprimand her. I would say, though, while Martha did get off-track in her worship, she still was worshiping Jesus. She was serving him and his disciples – she had the gift of hospitality. How many times do we forget to worship by serving other people because “someone else will do that” or “I’m singing or playing and that is more important”? This one hits me square between the eyes. It is very easy to get lazy about not serving other people directly and being hospitable to them. How can you show more hospitality to others? How can you serve others as if they were Jesus in your house? (Remember back 2 weeks ago with the woman who cleaned and anointed Jesus’ feet.)

So, is it better to worship by spending time in His presence? Or is it better to worship by serving Him (and other people)? Jesus says here that Mary did choose the “better portion”. I think that He is saying that service without spending time in His presence doesn’t mean anything. Martha lost focus on who she was doing this for, what He was about, what she had already learned from Him. Service and hospitality is important, but if you are doing it for someone you’ve never really spent any time with (Jesus) than you will loose focus on what is really important. I think that Jesus would’ve received Martha’s worship if she hadn’t let herself focus on Mary and what she was doing, and had stayed focus on the One she was serving.

Challenge: Find a daily time to spend at Jesus’ feet, and then also find ways each day to serve others.

Further Reading: Read “You’ve Got Mail!” by Paul Baloche.