Prayer Series Sermon One - "Are You a Mary or a Martha?" (Luke 10:38-42)

1. Question

With which sister, Martha or Mary, do you generally relate to?

2. Text and Context

This is one Eastern text that certainly resonates with contemporary Western life. Life in the West is hurried, busy and complicated. This is the culture that has people at crowded shopping centres at 2 o’clock in the morning looking for that perfect present. This is the culture that has tended to obscure the celebration of Jesus’ birthday with all sorts of other agendas. This is the cultural reality into which the church has to promote spirituality, not just as an aside, but as the centre of people’s being. If we, those who are numbered amongst the followers of Jesus, don’t promote the notion of a personal relationship with God, then we can’t be too critical about any decline in society.

We see in this passage, one woman, Martha, who, despite all her qualities and desire to serve, had lost her sense of priority. Her labour in itself wasn’t wrong – it’s just that it had become the ends, not just the means. Martha’s attitude suggests that this perhaps was activity for its own sake, rather than out of a heart full of love and purpose. So important had her practice of hospitality become, that she had lost focus on what was most important. I have to ask myself the question everyday about why I’m doing a particular thing, especially when it’s a more stressful thing, lest my life becomes all about tasks, rather than caring about people.

Yet, we should not be too critical of Martha for several reasons.
Firstly, Martha seems to have eagerly enough welcomed Jesus into her home. There was no reluctance to receive Jesus, and indeed her feverish activity that followed showed that she was keen to show Jesus the best hospitality she could.

Then, Martha was only doing what her culture would have normally expected of her – providing comfort and refreshments for her male guests. If all the disciples were present with Jesus, then there would have been at least thirteen men to provide for, and this would be enough to send any host into overdrive.

Thus we can understand Martha’s attitude to Mary’s seemingly less than helpful and culturally unacceptable attitude. Don’t we respond similarly when someone doesn’t seem to be pulling their weight! This was a very human and natural and perhaps even reasonable response from Martha.

And, even though it may be hard to grasp in the English translation, Jesus’ response (in verse 41) beginning with the compassionate repeated “Martha, Martha” is not so much an admonition or a criticism, but rather a plea for Martha to seek for the best of life – that which leads toward freedom rather than oppression. Jesus is not so much criticising Martha, but more so commending Mary and pointing to the good example she is setting (in terms of priority).

As we have already indicated, it was not all of Martha’s activity and her desire to offer good hospitality that Jesus seemed so concerned about; but rather that all this had “worried and distracted” her, so much so, that when Jesus, who was known to and loved by Martha as her Lord, came to spend time with her, she couldn’t just stop for a second and listen to him. The desire to perform her duties had closed her mind (and ears) to what was really most important in the here and now. Putting performance first, as the most important part of our lives, will always lead to disappointment and loss of real opportunities.

Mary, on the other hand, had shown herself ready to hear, appreciate and learn. Martha’s restless heart sent her into action, whereas Mary’s restless heart brought her to the Lord’s feet. Where there is a spiritual need in the individual, in the family home, or in the community, nothing would have a higher priority than positioning oneself at Jesus’ feet.

As we see at the conclusion of this passage, what Mary had invested in pure devotion to Jesus, would “not be taken away from her” – meaning that it was of ultimate eternal worth; and unlike the things that can be stolen or will rust away, this attachment will hold her in good stead forever.

Now having said this, the context in which this incident from Jesus’ life is placed by Luke is very interesting. Have a look! Luke places this narrative right between a story about selfless neighbourly service and a teaching passage on prayer!! This shows that you can’t really divorce prayer from service nor service from prayer. Keith McClellan in a little book called “Prayer Therapy” wrote that, “If prayer makes you passive and indifferent, it isn’t prayer. True prayer will bear fruit in care and service.”

So with the huge challenge of the parable of the “Good Samaritan” before us, we are quickly reminded (then taught) that service for our neighbour, for it to be effective and redemptive, should come out of a heart connected first and foremost to God.

With this in mind, the point of the Martha / Mary comparison must be, to not to let the complexity and difficulty of the task to get in the way of hearing from the source of all light and good guidance. Otherwise the outcomes of the work will likely drift further and further away from where they should have (and where God would have wanted them to go).

3. Making a Moment Count

It’s just that Martha had become so distracted and overwhelmed by the tasks at hand, that she had missed the moment to also sit at Jesus’ feet and soak up all he had to offer. Martha was fulfilling her traditional and cultural duties, but sometimes following Jesus has to be counter-cultural. And it would be deemed counter-cultural, yet it would be right and proper, for us to spend time in the midst of our busyness, service and mission … in prayer. Mary may have got busy later on, when the still hungry disciples were looking for their pavlova – but first and foremost … the place to be was sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening. Perhaps Martha learnt, and left the dishes for later, while she too gave her best attention to Jesus for awhile.

If we were to say that we reckon that God didn’t speak to us much – then it is this point about Martha being so distracted that we would have to take note of. I would have to be the first to admit that my ever-present to-do list can be a very persistent distraction to being able to hear God’s gentle whisperings. But there is hope for me as well, as I drop the excesses of Martha’s frenetic activity and develop more of Mary’s basic attentiveness (well, maybe). Quite often I think that if we cannot hear God’s gentle whisperings because we have the volume control up too high on our distractions, God is forced to get our attention in other (perhaps more dramatic) ways.

4. Sitting at the Lord’s Feet

To sit at the Lord’s feet and listen is not something that is easy for us to do. Yet, as we shall see next week, prayer is a conversation, in which we can hear as much as we speak, and this is something that can occur at various times in many places. But to sit directly under the teaching of Jesus today we will need to refer ourselves to the Bible – to read it, and seek to hear God speaking through it to us. Then we are in a position to bring our discoveries to others within our church community, so that the implications of what we have learned can be broadly assessed and addressed. Even while I’m attempting to bring understanding to this passage today, you can be praying for personal and corporate applications to be given to your mind.

I hope to make this series on prayer as practical as possible. Today I will share a five-part exercise for those who would like to try some prayerful reading and reflection on scripture.

(a) READ – Choose and read a passage of scripture. Read it both quietly and out loud. As time permits, try to find out as much as you can about the background behind the text and the context in which it sits. If this is new for you, let me suggest that you select passages from Matthew, Mark, Luke or John (where Jesus is the central character), and if anything confuses you, that you ask for help from someone you trust.

(b) IMAGINE – Then try and step inside the passage and broadly imagine the scene and the impact. You could perhaps imagine yourself in the particular narrative – in the crowd as an onlooker, or as one of the characters, or even as Jesus or God. You could also place yourself as the one being directly addressed by the text. Examples of this could be:

· imagining yourself personally present when Jesus said, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28); or,
· imagining yourself as one of the traders in the temple when Jesus came in and pushed your table over, seeking to restore the place of prayer (Mark 11:15-19); or,
· imagining yourself as an onlooker at the foot of the cross and hearing the various words Jesus said from there; or,
· selecting the passage from today, and imagining that you are Martha or Mary or Jesus, and waiting for what God might reveal to you. [When I read this passage again, this time out loud, imagining that I was Mary, I felt strongly the impact of the words about Mary listening to what Jesus was saying – the intimacy and nearness of this interaction.]

(c) QUESTION – Now ask yourself questions, like … “how does this relate to me?”, or, “What area of my life will this help with”? If nothing immediately comes, don’t give up – just sit quietly, try to dismiss distractions, and reread passage if necessary.

(d) RESPOND – Speak out to God what you have learnt and what difference this might make to you. Thank God for this new understanding. Have a conversation with God (and maybe others) about the particular applications you have been challenged with, and pray that you might have the strength and wisdom to put them into action. Some people benefit from journaling through this process, and noting progress and changes, not relying upon memory, nor expecting good things to happen without effort.

(e) REST – Know that God loves you and has your best interests at heart. Even though the world can be tough, know that God will never do anything to bring you harm. Be at peace, knowing that you are getting to know God more bit by bit, and that you will know even more tomorrow through reflectively reading the Bible. These restful, peaceful thoughts could happen while lying in bed, or when going off for a quiet walk, or simply through appreciating the wonder of something God has created or done.

5. Conclusion

Today we are promoting the concept of allocating time and priority to sitting at Jesus’ feet. This is important for us individually, and equally important for us as a church collectively. At our church meeting in November, deciding on the wording of our goals going forward, prayer was put at the top of the list. We will need as a church to work through the practical implications of this – the conversation should begin now as to how this might happen.

Next week we will study Matthew 7:7-11. You might like to look at this in advance, or even use it as a scripture reflection sitting at the feet of Jesus. Amen.