(Note: This blog entry is based on the text “The One Thing You Need”, originally shared on July 13, 2022. It was the 225th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
We are surrounded with claims on our time
and on our lives. Voices all around us tell us what we should need. What is the
one thing that is needed? Today, we’re going to find out.
I was the first-born in my parents’ family.
I tell my three younger siblings that they should be grateful that I was such a
good baby because our parents said, “We want three more of those!”
My mother had four babies in five years. I
was actually four when her fourth child was born; two weeks later though I
would be five.
The oldest sibling in birth order is usually
“the responsible one,” because they grow up taking care of the younger siblings.
We were so close together in age, however,
that we somewhat grew up together. I don’t recall being consciously aware of
being responsible for my siblings, just the oldest.
When you read or hear the story of Jesus and
Mary and Martha, though, don’t you get a clear picture of their birth order?
The Bible doesn’t say it, but don’t you just
picture Martha as the older responsible sister, and Mary as the younger one
craving attention? Parenting contributes to this.
I read about a comedian who came from a
large family saying that her mother had once told her that when her oldest
sister coughed, she called the ambulance, but when her youngest brother
swallowed a dime her mother said, “That’s coming out of your allowance.”
I once heard Garrison Keillor, humorist, author,
and host of the public radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion”, observe that
with the first child you're panicky, with the second one your nervous, with the
third you're skittish, and after that it's just pure entertainment.
I asked my dad what he thought about that,
and he said that he wouldn’t say it was pure entertainment, but it did get
easier.
Here’s what happened when Jesus encounters
the sisters Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42, starting:
38Now
as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named
Martha welcomed him into her home.
Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. He and
his disciples stopped at Bethany, about two miles east of Jerusalem over the
Mount of Olives, at the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus, his best friends
in the world, his home away from home. It was Lazarus who Jesus raised from the
dead but who doesn’t appear in this story.
Luke tells us that Martha welcomed Jesus and
the disciples into “her” home. It was very unusual for a woman to be the head
of the house. Scholars think that Martha may have been a widow. One of my
favorite preachers, King Duncan, points out that name Martha means “lady” or
“mistress of the house”. Maybe her name changed to fit her new self at some
point.
We also can picture a rather large house for
the time, stocked with enough food to care for thirteen hungry men at a
moment’s notice.
We also know that she was brave, as the
authorities were looking for a way to kill Jesus, so it was dangerous for
anyone to be known to befriend him.
Then, Luke reveals something more, in verse
39,
39She
had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was
saying.
To say that she “sat at the Lord’s feet” was
an expression meaning that she was receiving formal training from Jesus. In Acts
22:3 St. Paul declares that,
3 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in
this city at the feet of Gamaliel, educated strictly according to our ancestral
law, being zealous for God, just as all of you are today.
St. Paul sat at the feet of Rabbi Gamaliel
one of the most respected rabbis in the history of Judaism.
Some of us remember a time when there were
very clear expectations for what was considered “men’s work” and “women’s
work”.
Mary was doing what would have been
considered “man’s work.” A woman being taught by a respected teacher like Jesus
would have been actively discouraged and almost nonexistent. A husband would
not even teach his wife. Men’s and women’s worlds didn’t mix.
Martha took on the more traditional role,
and was not happy that Mary didn’t, as we see in verse 40,
40But
Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord,
do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell
her then to help me.”
We see how much things have changed when we
hear this story and wonder, “Well what about the disciples? Why didn’t they
offer to help?”
Their’s was a different culture It wouldn’t
even have occurred to them.
Martha speaks directly to Jesus as one used
to having authority in her home, also a surprising attitude for a woman in
Jesus’ day.
Jesus knows something that the others don’t,
however. Jesus speaks as one who knows that his time on this earth is short.
Jesus sees that Martha is distracted by what
she sees in front of her.
The guys cutting hair at my barber shop were
saying the other day that business had slowed down. That the days leading up to
the Fourth of July were the slowest in recent memory. They thought that people
were filled with uncertainty over where the economy were going, and so were
putting off things like haircuts.
Martha was worried about carrying out her
responsibilities.
She was the responsible one, and we couldn’t
function, in the Church and anywhere else, without people like Martha. I mean,
as a Bible study I once read on the passage asked, “Who would you rather work
for, Mary or Martha?” And, “Who would you rather have working for you, Mary or
Martha?”
For Martha, though, her worries had become a
distraction. We see it in verse 41,
41But
the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many
things;
I read a little book on time management once
called “The Tyranny of the Urgent”. Its point is to learn to separate the
urgent daily demands from what is enduringly important.
I read about a guy who said, I live every
day as if it were my last. That’s why I never do laundry. Because who wants to
do laundry on the last day of their life? 😊
Urgent or important?
Martin Luther, the 16th century
Church reformer, was reportedly digging a hole to plant an apple tree when a
member of his church stopped by to talk about the member’s belief that they
were living in the end times. He asked, “Dr. Luther, what would you do if you
knew that the world was going to end tomorrow?” Luther replied, “I’d plant my
apple tree.” Urgent or important?
Martha wanted to know who was going to feed
all those hungry men? Who was going to fulfill the cultural demands of hospitality?
All urgent, but Jesus encouraged her to consider what was of enduring
importance in that moment.
Providing hospitality in your home is
encouraged throughout the Bible. Some consider it a spiritual gift.
I took a continuing education class at Fuller
Theological Seminary in Pasadena by Dr. Peter Wagner, who had written books on
the subject.
He said that as a former missionary family,
he and his family were often asked to house and feed visiting missionaries in
their home. When such an event was about to take place, everyone knew their
jobs. They planned every minute, cleaned the house, stocked the refrigerator,
treated their guests like royalty and when the visit was over, they collapsed
in a heap, exhausted.
They did not have the gift of hospitality.
People with the gift of hospitality open
their homes in such a way that you feel you feel like you belong there, without
any need to impress, they give themselves to their guests.
What was needed? What was more important
than what was urgent? Jesus says it in verse 42,
42there
is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be
taken away from her.”
Food and drink are urgent needs but
satisfying them is temporary.
There’s a diner near our home, Mr. D’s, that
is known for its large portions. A page in its menu references this with the
observation, “The trouble with our portions is that four or five days after
eating here, you’re hungry again.”
What endures? What is the better part, what
some translations call “the better portion”?
In the movie “City Slickers” (1991) with
Billy Crystal and Jack Palance, a group of friends from the city sign-up to go
to a dude ranch for adventure in the midst of their mid-life crises. They are
charged with moving the ranch’s herd of cattle to a lower valley, which becomes
more and more difficult as they go.
Everyone admires the foreman, Curly (played
by Jack Palance), because he seems to have his life together while theirs are
falling apart. At one point the character played by Billy Crystal asks Curly
about the secret of life.
Curly holds up one index finger and rides
away. One thing.
What is the one thing that is needed?
What endures? A living relationship with the
one true living God, the one thing for which we were created.
It’s been said that human beings have a God
shaped hole, that we cannot experience the wholeness for which we were created
until it is filled.
That is the one thing for which the Church
exists, and for which we exist. To bring people to that wholeness of body, mind
and spirit that has been God’s desire for us from the beginning of our
creation. The thing God finally gave his life for on the cross.
What defines our lives? What shapes
everything about us?
Only one thing is needed, everything else is
merely urgent.
Live the relationship with God for which you
were created, a daily gift through the power of the Holy Spirit, be defined by
it in every way, and like Jesus share it with your friends and your family.
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