NOTES from 9/5 Meeting

Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World

Mama and I recently tackled the daunting task of making lined drapes for my daughter’s apartment. We had invested in nice fabric, and I was determined that the finished product was going to be something she could use after she graduates in December.

Mama and I decided that I would do all the measuring, cutting, and pressing, and she would do all the actual sewing on the machine.

There were a few. . .challenges. At one time, I had the pattern on one curtain running up, and on the other, down. Mama sewed the header tape onto the wrong end. When we began pinning the hems, we realized I had cut the linings too short. Sew it up, rip it out, sew it up, rip it out. Depending on the seam, this sometimes proved easier than others.

For those of you who don’t sew, there is a dial on the front of the sewing machine just above the needle that adjusts the tension on the thread as the machine sews. For a strong, firm seam, a thread from the spool and another thread from the bobbin below must interlock smoothly and tightly in the fabric. An experienced seamstress checks the thread tension and makes minute adjustments in setting that dial because she understands how important it is that the tension be regulated properly.

At times as Mama sewed, she would accidentally bump that dial. I would hear the click-click—and Mama’s groan—alerting us that the delicate balance of upper and lower threads had been disturbed. This improper balance meant that no seams would be strong and usable until the tension was adjusted again. Everything else had to stop until Mama was satisfied that the threads were once more interlocking properly.

Hold that thought.

As I reread Luke 10:38-42 recently, I found myself thinking about the tension dial on the sewing machine.

Luke wrote about a dinner held in a home in Bethany. Here’s the scene as I imagine it:

A hot day. A whitewashed village on a hillside just outside Jerusalem. The home of Martha—possibly a well-to-do widow who had taken in her sister Mary and brother Lazarus.

Martha welcomes Jesus and His followers into her home and hurries to arrange a comfortable seat for Jesus and then to bring a cool drink to each of her guests. She nods to Mary who fills the basin near the door with water, then takes a towel and begins to wash each guest’s feet.

Jesus and His followers seat themselves around the large room, chatting quietly about events of recent days. This is not Jesus’ first visit to Bethany. The villagers have heard Him speak before. They begin to crowd the doorway, anxious to come in and listen. A few even edge in and sit down outside the ring of disciples. It’s even possible that, initially, both Martha and Mary take their places at Jesus’ feet to learn from Him.

I don’t know how long Martha sat there listening, but I have a feeling that if she was anything like me, she sat there that day with a divided mind. After all, there were 13 men who would be hungry and needed to be fed. What was on hand to feed them? What would it take to get everything ready? Did she need to slip out and run to the market for grain or fruit?

I identify with Martha. I know exactly what she was doing as she sat there. First, she made a mental inventory of everything in the pantry. After that, she planned the menu, making sure she overlooked no detail. Then she made a list in her head of all the things that had to be done. When she had thought everything through, she glanced around the room, plotting the best route through the crowd to get from where she was sitting to the kitchen.

With that in mind, she could sit there no longer. She had to get busy! After all, she was the hostess. It was her responsibility to meet the needs of her guests. No one would think less of Lazarus or Mary if the meal were not adequate. The blame would land squarely on her. No time to sit and listen to Jesus now—perhaps after dinner when all the work was done.

Once in her kitchen, Martha felt that flush of excitement that comes to many of us when we are about to do something special for someone we really care about. We want everything to be perfect—or as perfect as we can make it. Our love energizes us. We are exhilarated by the opportunity to demonstrate how much we care.

I can just see Martha now, can’t you? A galvanized whirlwind of activity--first, start the beans and lentils cooking with onions and garlic. Then, dress the lamb for roasting. Next, grind the grain and mix the bread for baking. Prepare the figs and pomegranates. Draw the water to mix with the wine. Set the table. Quick stir of the beans and lentils to keep them from sticking. Quick turn of the lamb on the spit so it cooks evenly. Pop the bread in the oven—and then—she glances out the window at the position of the sun in the sky and realizes that it will soon be mealtime and she is far from finished.

Been there, done that? Carried along on the crest of enthusiasm, only to realize you’re running out of time and can’t finish everything you’ve planned to do. I don’t know about you, but when that happens, I tend to get angry—angry with anyone else who might have made a difference in my accomplishing my plans.

I suspect that’s what happened to Martha. Suddenly all the plans and the work that had started out as pure joy turned into a frustrating, overwhelming chore. Indeed, Luke tells us in verse 40 that Martha was distracted by all the preparations she was making. The harder Martha worked, the more worked up she became.

It was Mary’s fault. If Mary had only been there to help her, it would have been different.

We all know that feeling, don’t we? It’s bad enough when we have to do everything, but it’s even worse when someone we think should be—or could be—helping us pull the load, doesn’t. Our irritation about the unfairness of it all builds to the bursting point.

That’s what happened to Martha. In verse 40, she finally explodes: Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!

I think it’s interesting that Martha spoke her irritation to Jesus directly. Maybe she had already tried to get Mary’s attention and signal her to get up and come help. Perhaps she had cleared her throat—given her the nod—made other attention-getting motions—but Mary had just ignored her and gone on listening to Jesus.

Whatever had already happened, Martha became frustrated enough to address Jesus directly, accusing Him of not caring about her and demanding that He direct Mary to get up and help her. Quite a bold move considering the room was most probably full of men not accustomed to such behavior on a woman’s part.

Martha was sure, though, that, if Jesus really cared, He would do as she asked. I’m also amused by the way Martha linked Jesus’ care for her to His willingness to tell Mary to get busy. Martha thought she knew just how Jesus should demonstrate His care—how He could lighten her load—and told him so.

Jesus did lighten her load—though not in the way she expected.

In Jesus’ response to Martha, we can learn a lot about our discipleship as Christian women:

Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only this one is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her (41-42).

The problem didn’t lie in the work Martha was doing. It was in the choice she made. It was her attitude of fretting and worrying that created a bad situation. Jesus knew that Martha was putting too much stress on things that shouldn’t be taking priority that day. Martha’s problem was one of balance, of holding life in the proper tension.

Take a closer look at what Jesus did and did not say to the overwrought, overburdened Martha.

First, Jesus did not rebuke her for making preparations for Him and His disciples. She was the hostess. If she had decided to skip any food preparation, her guests would have gone hungry. Jesus certainly understood physical hunger. What was going on in Martha’s kitchen was important and good and right.

But Jesus knew that that in addition to hungry bodies, people have hungry souls. We do not live on bread alone. Martha’s problem was not that she was preparing food for her guests to eat. That was necessary, and in her role as hostess, it was appropriate.

But she gave it too much importance.

Instead of settling for a simple supper—maybe good bread, fruit, cheeses, wine—she tried to impress with an elaborate meal. Jesus in essence told her that this was not necessary. It was not He who had asked (or expected) such a meal; it was Martha who had decided it must be that way.

We all have responsibilities. We go to the office. We cook. We grade papers. We clean house. We do the laundry. We care for the children. We do these things, and we want to do them well. After all Dorothy Sayers reminds us, “The only Christian work is good work, well done.” No crooked table legs came out of the carpenter shop in Nazareth. God is not honored by shoddy work or the neglect of our necessary duties in life. Martha understood that. She sought to honor God and Jesus through her hospitality. She was going all out. She felt it was necessary.

What she had forgotten—what Jesus wanted to remind her of--was that we must be sure that the necessary doesn’t get out of proportion and distort our lives.

Jesus also recognized that Martha was looking down on or disapproving of what Mary had chosen to do. Martha was imposing her value system—her priorities and her agenda—on Mary.

Note that Jesus did not tell Martha to do what Mary was doing. At the same time, He pointed out that Mary had chosen the good or better part.

Do you think Jesus was a bit hard on Martha? After all, she was doing all this work to please Him. Poor Martha—there sat Mary enveloped in an aura of holiness, while she reeked of olive oil and garlic. Martha was trying to be useful, but Mary got the halo.

It’s important to note that Jesus doesn’t rebuke Martha’s character—or the work she was doing—her work was good and necessary. It was Martha’s attitude that needed correcting, her perspective that needed adjusting.

In the example of the good Samaritan, Jesus tells the religious scholar that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind, and our neighbor as ourselves.

Note the order of the two loves: God first, then neighbor. Not the other way around. It is not a question of choosing the active over the contemplative.

It is a matter of priorities.

I think the message of Luke 10 is that we must put listening to and learning the Word of God before service. Doing so equips and inspires us for our service for God and to others.

What Jesus wanted that day was not Martha’s lentils and lamb, but Martha herself. Mary has chosen the better part He told Martha—Mary had chosen to make herself available to Christ.

Martha wanted Jesus to lighten her load. He did—but not in the way she thought it should be done. He knew that our relationship with God does not develop in the midst of busyness. We need to hear God speak to us. We need to be still. Service and contemplation. They must exist side by side, tempered and supported each by the other.

That brings me back to my sewing machine tension dial. If the tension on the top thread is too loose, the underside of the fabric will snarl with excess thread. The seam will have no strength. It will pull apart the moment pressure is applied. The only thing the seamstress can then do is pull out all the threads, adjust the tension, and start over.

We also have no usable seam if the threads are not feeding from both the top spool and the bobbin underneath. We could try to sew all day with only the top spool on the machine and nothing in the bobbin holder, but we would not have a single seam.

The Martha thread and the Mary thread must both be feeding properly if we are to have any seam at all. The balance between the two has to be finely adjusted if the result is to be strong and usable.

The world we live in dictates that we concern ourselves with food and clothes and homes and family and jobs and schools and church. But we must also concern ourselves with our relationship to God. That was Martha’s real problem. She was sewing with no thread in the bobbin.

To get our service right, we must get our priorities right. We must let Jesus minister to us before we go out to minister for Him. That is God’s order: first we love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, strength, and minds, and then we are prepared to go out and love our neighbor as ourselves. He will show us how to do both if we will just get out of the way and allow Him to do it.

When we take matters into our hands and think that we know best—like Martha—we may end up feeling overworked and underappreciated, but when we keep our priorities in line with God’s priorities, we will find that God enables us to do what needs to be done with joy and satisfaction.

Martha and Mary—it’s the story of you and me.