Mary and Martha were two sisters in the Bible beloved by Jesus. That’s pretty much the only thing they had in common, though. Biblical narrative portrays Mary and Martha in stark contrast. Martha was the one who had her life together. She was a homeowner, a masterful host, and always remained poised even in the most difficult circumstances. Mary on the other hand, can be seen, at least on the surface, as frivolous, impulsive and socially thoughtless, unhlepful. So why was it that Jesus esteemed Mary? Jesus explains why through one rather uneventful story in Luke 10.
“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.” – Luke 10:38-42
According to this passage, not only is Martha entrenched in elaborate meal prep, but the Bible refers to the house as Martha’s house, not Mary’s or Lazarus’ home. Martha is both the financially savvy one and the masterful host. The Martha of the Bible is something of a present-day Martha Stewart. And not for nothing. This was an act of service unto the Lord for she was getting ready to host him.
In painting Martha this way, it also tells us a lot about who Mary is not. She can be seen through these stories as perhaps the un-achieving one (she lives with her sister), the frivolous one (pours out a year’s wage of perfume on Jesus’ feet), and the unhelpful one (sits idly by Jesus’ feet as Martha preps a feast). It is this last portrayal of Mary that makes Martha visibly upset and understandably so.
Imagine Martha Stewart opens up her home, cleans the home, preps all the meals. Then in walks her sister, right past the bustling chaos in the kitchen, and proceeds to sit next to great grandpa as he regales heroic war stories. By any societal metric, this move is audacious, bold and rude. Who wouldn’t be annoyed? And any conscientious grandpa would encourage Mary to listen later and instead help her sister.
Which is why Mary isn’t just visibly upset with Mary. She’s annoyed with Jesus, too, as she tells, no orders, the master of the universe to pursue a logical course of action (a detail I have to admit I love because it tells us with what kind of honest candor, we, too, can approach Jesus).
“Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me.”
But Jesus responds this way.
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” – Luke 10:41-42
There are a few reasons why Jesus responds this way, and it’s not because Jesus esteems laziness. Jesus was not a freeloader. Remember he worked for his keep as a carpenter.
But this was an extraordinary moment in time. In just a short while, Jesus was going to die. And he wasn’t dying of some illness or old age. Jesus would soon march to his death to die on a cross to bear our sins – Mary’s sins. For as many times as Jesus speaks about his own death, however, no one grasped this reality. Not his family. Not his disciples. The only person on the planet who got it was Mary.
“Teach us to number our days”
If what Jesus was saying was true, as Mary believed it to be, and our Lord and savior traveled the galaxies and “submitted” himself in human only to die a humiliating death and be separated from his Father whom he had been in perfect fellowship for all time, then pouring a year’s worth of perfume on the soon-to-be-pierced laden feet suddenly doesn’t seem so frivolous. It seems like the only logical course of action. What was seemingly wasteful and impulsive on the surface, was commensurate to the magnitude of the moment.
Nor does Mary seem neglectful when she chooses to sit next to Jesus instead of slaving away in the kitchen. Nobody would fault a mother for being bedside to a dying child with leukemia while dishes were piling up. And for the biblical reader who knows how this story ends, we understand Mary is neither wasteful nor neglectful. She is incredibly intuitive, courageous and wise. Mary knew how to number her days because she took time to listen to Jesus.
Mary understands Jesus’ love language
Listnieng to Jesus also informed Mary on how best to serve Jesus. As people struggling to get through the trudge of daily life and somehow incorporate God in some meaningful way besides making him our genie in a bottle, we often forget that there is actually a way to bring joy to our maker. This is an incredible privilege we hold and shows just what kind of worth we hold in our creator’s eyes.
Putting on a huge feast in honor Jesus is certainly noble. But so often, we try to serve and honor our loved ones through our own lens or by what society deems is the best method. Isn’t this the downfall of every workaholic, to work hard and provide a good life for the family at the expense of being away from our loved ones?
Mary understood Jesus desired her company over an instagram-worthy spread. She understood that Jesus would’ve been fine with DoorDash if it meant some quality time. Mary spoke Jesus’ love language.
Mary is bold
So what enabled Mary to be so bold? We are reminded time and time again there is power in God’s words. God spoke creation into being through his words. When Jesus was tempted in the desert after 40 days of fasting. He recited scripture to ward off temptation. He didn’t just draw upon the wisdom of scripture. He recited scripture.
Mary might appear on the surface like some disconnected hippy, but it took guts to go against societal norms. Inviting that kind of scrutiny takes more than wisdom and insight. It takes superhuman strength.
I am the vine. You are the branches. Apart from me you can do nothing.
We might not have Jesus in human form, but we do have his word in the Bible – his living word. And we have direct access to him through prayer. No longer do we need an intermediary or a high priest to enter the holy sanctuary to reach God. We can speak to Jesus from our homes, our work, in the elevator, from the deepest abyss of our lives. And we have the words he speaks to us through the living word.
“The veil was torn…”
Telltale Signs
One of the telltale signs you have non-negotiable goals is that you get annoyed with people who don’t share these same goals, or stand in the way of these goals, or don’t contribute to you achieving these goals. And I have been getting annoyed with my husband every time he does not budget to support this goal. And nothing hits a nerve like when he says let’s just sell it.
A telltale sign of this is irritability, perhaps with God and perhaps with those around you who are not on the same page as you or who are hindering you from achieveing this goal, as Martha was. Martha’s annoyance was much more noble than mine. She wanted to serve Jesus her way in line with who she was.
Who are you blaming currently? Who is it at fault for not having the live you want or always wanted? The badge of business is pervasive even when you are working for God.
How we form our priorities
So how can we prioritize and reorder our loves so that we can live a the kind of life we won’t regret. So why do we inundate our lives with impossible standards of accomplishment and make ourselves so busy to the point we squeeze out any quality time with Jesus after he has traveled so far and sacrificed so much to be with us? Your heart is where your treasure is. What you invest your time and money in, there your heart will follow also. Carving out time, but in substantive quality and quantity, and spending time with Jesus and getting to know his worth is the only way we can reorder our loves. It’s not done with human strength alone.
Why does Martha put on herself the enormous load of being Martha Stewart when Jesus would’ve probably been happy with Door Dash?
But unless we can stare at our non-negotiables in the face and tell them they are dispensable and the only thing in our lives that is indispensable is having Christ at the center of it, it will be impossible to withstand the current of daily life and find time enough to sit at Jesus’ feet. So Be very careful to listen to the narrative you’ve created in your life. They form without malicious intent. They slip through the sensible consciousness and form in the sleuthy subconscious.
I don’t know when I formed mine, that a renovated home will help me to be a better wife, friend and mom. But writing this post challenged me to dissect what was driving my annoyance. But without having written this post, I would’ve never realized that they formed so ridiculously. It’s crazy that this is the narrative that’s formed in my mind. How long have I told myself that I need a bigger home to be a better person and to live a better life? No wonder I am so stressed.
Deconstruct your narrative.
I’ve since asked my husband to declutter some of his things and throw things away. Instead of nagging, i asked nicely and gave him ample time to do it. This has promoted teamwork, sacrifice. And we still host. We might not have enough space but really, who does it bother? Would Martha’s guests really ahve minded a 5 course meal instead of a six course? And while my pre-teen daughters dream of their own bathroom and as much as i hate hearing htem fight in the morning about how to share one, they are learning to share, and fight and sacrifice. They have a roof over hteir head and they have to learn to be grateful for this. I don’t need a bigger, nicer home to have a better life, or to be a better person or feel inadequate for not providing a home as nice as some of their friends. I would still love to renovate my home, but it is a negotiable. And I don’t have ot have you. And by inviting friends into our home, who really would I be offending because they need to sit on chairs that don’t all match?
My non-negotiable is the daily time I spend with God whose peace transcends all understanding and who guides my heart and teaches me to number my days so I can rise above mediocrity. Because life is short. And its all too easy to be caught up in the tide of life and be swept away until one day you look back and regret that you did not live with intentionality.
Maybe I’ll still get annoyed with the clutter. Perhaps I can’t stop my girls from fighting in the morning. perhaps I can’t stuff 50 people into my home. But maybe I can fit 20 at a time. It’s all too easy to feel like your efforts and the resources at your disposable which enable your efforts are never enough. But Jesus gauges our hearts not our result. So we need only to look to the heavens for approval and not work according to the metrics of society. Jesus accepts the smallest of offerings when done with the right intentions.
[How to spend more time with Jesus]
Meditate on a verse. Than memorize it.
Keep a journal. We retain 90% more by writing.
How many onward Christian soldiers are marching to the beat of a misguided love language? We do it in our politics, in our pursuit of career, the way we rear our children. But how many of us are speaking God’s love language? The love language of the bible is…. gentle, kind, humble.
And how is it that we understand anyone’s love language or the love language of our lvoed ones if we don’t spend time to listen to what they have to say and get to know who they are?
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[Mary and Martha Up Close]
There are many dramatic accounts of Mary and Martha in the Bible that display these characteristics. The famous resurrection of their brother Lazarus was an initial loss felt poignantly by the two sisters. But even in her grieving, Martha maintains social decorum and greets Jesus with composure. Mary on the other hand is a hot mess. She runs to Jesus and falls at his feet sobbing. Ironically, Martha and Mary both say the exact same thing to Jesus when they first see him after their brother has died.
“If you had been here, my brother would not have died,” says Martha and Mary on separate occasions.
To Martha, Jesus responds by reassuring her that Lazarus will rise again and asks if she believes this. But when Jesus sees Mary weeping at his feet, he meets her where she is and grieves with her, even as he knows he will resurrect Lazarus just moments later. And from the shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept,” to Lazarus’ resurrection from death to life, we see in one fell swoop both the immense vulnerability and power of Jesus as seen through the lens of the two sisters.
There’s also the time Mary pours out a whole year’s wages worth of perfume on Jesus’ feet. The perceived frivolity of Mary’s actions are hard to appreciate because our standard of living has far outstripped the cost of perfumes. But perhaps the moment could be better captured if we imagined Mary pouring out a 100-year old bottle of wine to wash dung off Jesus’ sandals. It was simply inconceivable during that time how someone could be so wasteful. That kind of money could’ve been donated to the poor, the pharisees chastised.
While theses stories help paint a portrait of who Mary and Martha are, these more dramatic accounts don’t actually show us the formative narrative of Mary and Martha. It’s not the climatic events in our lives that form us. They merely reveal who we’ve become.
[What Shapes Mary and Martha]
In the humdrum backdrop of the everyday mundane, however, we can see in one rather uneventful story how the simple daily habits of Mary and Martha mold who they are.
