well reported of for good works

 Spring, 2009

Two sisters and their brother lived together in a small town called Bethany.  It is not known for sure whether any of them were married or had children, but it seems unlikely.  Maybe one or more of them had been married, and were now widowed.  No parents are mentioned, so they were likely deceased.  According to the law of the land, single women and widows remained in their father's house until marriage/remarriage, or until death.  If they had no father, they lived with a brother, an uncle, or some other male relative, in his house.  The fact that these sisters lived with their brother is a strong indication they were not married.  This is an important point to note.

This sibling group was well known for their hospitality.  Their house was a favourite resting place of our Lord's while conducting His earthly ministry.  He often visited, and wherever He was, there was sure to be a crowd.  Mary, Martha, and Lazarus opened their home to all.  They loved their Lord Jesus, and they loved being part of His ministry.  They loved and served because that's what we do when we truly love our Lord.

What do we really know about these people?  Martha is often criticized; Mary is praised, and elevated to an almost unattainable position.  The only thing we usually mention about Lazarus is that he was raised from the dead.  Do we accept these stories, and only these stories, or do we dig deeper?

Listening to sermons about Mary and Martha usually makes me cringe.  One is held up against the other, compared, scrutinized, with the end result that Mary is venerated, while Martha is almost villainized.  Worse, we women -- no matter who we are, or in what stage of life we find ourselves -- are exhorted to be more like Mary, less like Martha.  That's a lot of guilt to heap on all of us who identify more with Martha than with Mary.

I spent a good deal of time writhing under the guilt of being Martha when I was being told I needed really to be Mary.  I felt I was being belittled along with Martha; that my gifts and abilities were not nearly so highly valued as the prayers of those who seem to sit for hours at the Lord's feet.  I felt the ridicule of those who made fun of Martha.  As one person said, "If the church called everyone for prayer and fasting, Martha would bring the muffins."  This is grossly unfair to Martha, and shows that many people really don't understand the Scriptures.

Have you ever thought that maybe the reason we knock Martha down so much is because she happened to have a sister like Mary?  Think about it: Who criticizes Dorcas for spending so much time sewing clothes for poor people?  Who thinks Priscilla did wrong making tents with her husband Aquilla and with the apostle Paul?  Who believes Susanna, Joanna, and many other women should not have used their wealth to meet the needs of the Lord?  Certainly Lydia should not have taken in Paul and Silas, feeding them and providing a place for them to sleep.  Surely she should have stayed by the river with all the other women praying instead of making meals and changing sheets.

Do you see my point?  Martha was not wrong to serve.  That was her gift.  Jesus was a human being who required food, water, a place to sleep, clothing, and even friendship, just as much as the rest of us.  What a privilege it must have been to cook for Him, to make a bed for Him, to sew and mend for Him, and, yes, even to sit quietly at His feet just listening to Him talk!

Martha's problem was her attitude.  She was "cumbered about with much serving".  The idea in the Greek is that she was being far too detail oriented.  The tablecloth had to be snowy white and wrinkle free.  The napkins had to be folded just so.  The silverware had to be arranged in the order of their use, with the salad fork on the outside because it would be used before the dinner fork.  The food had to be just so, served in their proper dishes with the proper utensils and at the proper time.

Jesus got hungry just like anyone else, and needed food.  But He also craved fellowship.  He didn't mind Martha cooking for Him.  What He minded was that she was so busy with all the unnecessary details that she had no time to sit and fellowship with Him.  This is what He rebuked her for.  Later, another story is told of the same family, again with the Lord visiting in their home.  This time, it appears Martha has learned her lesson.  She is still using her gift of service.  But now it's not encumbering her.  Instead, she is simply serving quietly in the Lord's presence.

Remember my point about Mary and Martha being single, and without children?  They had more time for things like sitting at the Lord's feet than most married mothers do.  Mary-Martha analogies are often damaging to mothers because we don't have time to sit in quiet reflection with our Bibles open before us for hours on end.  We have diapers to change, husbands to feed, dirty clothes to wash, floors to mop, vomit to clean up, jeans to patch, and all the rest of it.  We would be wrong to neglect all that in order to shut ourselves up in our prayer closets.  And after being up half the night with a sick child or a nursing baby, there's no way I'm going to be able to get up at five so I can spend an hour reading my Bible and praying before the rest of the family gets up.

Nor should we neglect prayer and Bible reading.  I have learned to study my Bible with my door open and my ears attune to the sounds of children getting dressed and doing chores.  And they are welcome at my side, as well.  Sometimes a child has to sit beside me in order to stay out of trouble, and we've had a number of conversations about the chapter I'm reading out loud.  The girls and I sing a lot while working in the kitchen: scripture songs, hymns, choruses.  I'm often carrying on a conversation with the Lord while hanging out laundry or working in the garden.

But this isn't just worshiping while working.  My work is my worship, because I'm doing it for HIM.  I wrote about that once in my old blog, in a post titled Holy Ground.  Service is just as much a part of worship as praying.  Some people have not learned this.  They are content to sit at the Lord's feet without serving, and are often so heavenly minded they are of no earthly good.  Amy Carmichael, working with the poorest of the poor in India, once asked a visiting missionary to help her by carrying a bucket.  He replied that he would rather carry his Bible.  But Jesus said that in order to be great in His kingdom, a man must learn to be the servant of all.

Still others go to the other extreme of serving without bothering with the fellowship with Jesus part.  They are prone to complaining about all the work they have to do that no one is helping them with.  If only other people would work, they would have more time to spend with Jesus.  But since no one else is helping, there they are, so pitiful, doing all this work while Jesus sits on the sidelines saying, "Martha, Martha..."

Let's learn to turn our service into worship, taking the few minutes we have as wives and mothers to be alone with God when we can, but always remembering that He is with us always, and fellowship with Him all day long as we do our work with Him and for Him.