“Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.’ The Lord said to her in reply, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.’” (Luke 10:38-42, The Gospel for 10/7) In this very familiar passage we see two different aspects of our relationship with Jesus, one of service, and one of prayer. Both are necessary in their place, but I’d like to look at the relationship between the sisters themselves and where we might see ourselves in that relationship. Martha had certain expectations of her sister, Mary, which weren’t being met, and so she made judgments about Mary’s actions, or inaction, in this case. She blamed her sister, in a sense, for her burdens and became anxious and worried. To her credit, she looked to the Lord for an answer, but even then she had expectations of how he felt and what he should do. “Do you not care?” “Tell her to help me.” How often do we build up expectations of what others think or what they should do, and that leads us to make judgments of them. The more we brood over these expectations and judgments, the more irritated and anxious we become. And when we go to the Lord with our burdens, we sometimes also go with expectations of what he should do for us. On the other hand, Mary must have noticed the burden her sister was feeling, but she remained seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to his word. Where was her compassion for her sister? The answer might be that she was entrusting her time and her life so deeply to the Lord, that she was looking to him to direct her every move. If she was to help her sister, might he not direct her to do so? Sometimes we build up expectations of ourselves, as well, which are beyond our capabilities or what the Lord really desires us to do. The bottom line is, in my mind, that we always seek the Lord’s direction first in prayer and in his Word. Rather than building up expectations for ourselves and others, which inevitably lead to judgments, we can encourage others to seek the Lord’s direction along with us, and, as Mary, totally entrust our lives to him, patiently listening at his feet to sense the direction in which he may be leading us. This is the better part and it will not be taken from us.
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 03:49:43 +0000
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