Over the past few weeks I have been on
over drive with church stuff to do. Have any of you felt like that,
with some part of your life. You try to fit more and more in your
day and feel like you are chasing your tail and still behind? If
that pace lasts too long, and if you are anything like me, it will
cue the frustration and feelings of inadequacy.
I think this is why I resonate with
Martha so much and probably also why I have been confused by this
passage for so long. Why is Jesus being hard on Martha? We were
just told to take care of people last week with the Good Samaritan
so why is Martha getting reprimanded? What does Jesus mean?
Then I hit upon the idea in one of the
commentaries that perhaps it is the extreme service Jesus is warning
us of. I looked up the passage in its original Greek with an English
translation on a great website I have found
(http://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/2013_07_01_archive.html
). When I looked at that, I realized that one of the words for what
Martha was doing is business. I also found out that as a leader of
the women in the early church, she was literally acting as one of the
first deaconesses – connecting the world with the body of people
and serving the people through her work and her hospitality. So she
was busy with the business of hospitality. This is something that
Jesus has praised before.
So what is different now? According to
the Greek/English translation Martha is actually approaching Jesus in
a state of near hysteria. She is so overwhelmed by the task at hand.
She doesn't know where to start.....this sounds so much like my life
at times!!!! Has anyone else felt this? So many things running down
over you that you don't know where to or how to catch your breath.
This was my month of June! We sold our house, found a new house,
found an apartment, packed ten years of stuff, finished Kindergarten,
finished youth soccer – which I was coaching, said good bye to our
friends, our family and our home and headed to a whole new place. I
was Martha about mid June – Jesus send me some help already. Don't
you see I am drowning here? Get yourself moving and send me help!
Martha is there, panicking. There are
so many needs around her and she is trying to fill them, both
literally with food and figuratively with her gifts as a leader in the
early church. This is when Jesus tells her to slow down. Martha,
Martha is not a condescending pat on the back, it is an attention
getting. He says it to slow her down. Then he tells her she is
worried and troubled over so many things and only one thing is
needed. When have you felt like that? So overwhelmed you can't even
remember to do the one thing that is needed because it isn't a
physical pressing need. Taking time to listen to someone when ten
others are clamoring to you about their hunger is not easy. This is
what we have to do everyday. What clamors for your attention?
Smart phones, television, computers? What about meetings, groups,
chores, and schedules? Appointments that seem to be more important
than doing your devotions? What seems to sneak in and steal your
time with God in prayer, devotion or meditation. It may be a good
thing. It may be sharing your gifts and talents that God has given
you, but if we never take time to refill with God like Mary then we
will soon be empty. We will feel panicked like Martha because we can
not fill those needs without God. We cannot use our gifts and
talents without being replenished in Christ. We need to hold fast
onto the center of our faith so that we may live, truly live out our
faith.
Service and Word are required to live
out true faith, but the service comes from the Word. We can not
share with others what we do not have. We can not share the freedom
from separation that God grants us if we do not take time to stay
connected with God. The Word and the Spirit gives us strength to do
the work in the world, without them we have no power do any lasting
good.
So how are you going to refill with
God? How are you going to let your Martha and Mary sides work
together? What are you going to do to fill up with Jesus and then go
out and serve the world in all of its neediness?
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