“But the Lord said to her, “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41-42 NLT
Jesus was super close to Martha, Mary and Lazarus. They were family to him, and their home became a safe, welcoming place to stay and rest. Their home was large enough to host all the disciples as well. It is well known that hospitality was the ultimate expression of love, care and provision in the Jewish culture. The story typifies the struggle between these clashing priorities – serving or sitting with Jesus. The story hits a nerve among those who feel it was unfair to call Martha out for working so hard while her sister seemingly sat around ducking her responsibilities.
We all understand this is Jesus giving the correction! But Jesus has a way of flipping all of our perspectives right-side-up, especially when he challenges our priorities concerning the urgent verses the eternal. We need to let the Holy Spirit sift out preferences so we can see the Kingdom of God.
Jesus says Martha was “perispaó” distracted. Distracted? Martha thought Mary was distracted! What was she distracted about? Luke uses this word Jesus often talked about. She was distracted about “diakonia” the powerful word meaning service. This word was the common Greek word for a waiter, a table servant. The word was constructed from two Greek words meaning “raising dust,” giving us the picture of the sharp attention and speed of a great waiter would look like – moving so fast that dust would fly off their sandals! But this word is also the word for our word – minister! Ministers are supposed to be this picture of ultimate serving. Martha was distracted by ministry, by serving? Ah, yes, our gifting can become so focused, so intense, so singular dimensional that we can’t see, can’t hear anything else happening in the room!
Jesus pointed out Martha’s shadowed side of this beautiful gift of hospitality – she was trippin over her own gift by missing what was more important AND she wanted her sister Mary to join her in her disordered perspective. Martha wanted to pull Mary into her orbit, not Jesus’. Martha wanted Mary to experience what she was experiencing, feel the pressure of her dilemma. Jesus told Martha, she was “merimnaó,” anxious and “thorubeo” disturbed! In Martha’s mind, she WANTED Mary to be anxious and disturbed with her.
If you have ever seen someone excellent in their gift it is amazing. But when you are close enough to someone who excels in their abilities, you’ve also seen how they can be obsessively focused and become situationally blind to everything else. The acuteness of excellence can leave one unable to read the room. And, when this happens, there will be a lot of anger, hurt feelings and unnecessary accusations of others who just don’t “GET IT!” Martha saw Mary as lazy and irresponsible, Jesus saw Mary as dedicated and perceptive!
Jesus corrected Martha because he loved her – but in her “diakonia,” her service, it had brought out her overwhelming intensity, making her anxious, disturbed and critical of her sister. Every single gift can either be shared in a beautiful submission to Jesus OR it can be weaponized with these critical assessments of others! One brings peace and unity, the other brings anger, bitterness and disunity.
Prayer
Dad,
First of all thank you for loving us enough to correct us in your mercy. I have seen this in my life and have absolutely experienced this in the body of Christ, the Church. And it’s not just our imperfection that causes us to shift or trip over our own gifts and abilities. It’s a tunnel-vision perspective when we are overwhelmed, and start believing it’s more about us and less about you and others. Help us Oh Lord, speak to us Holy Spirit, just as clear as you spoke to Martha. Tell us when we’ve stepped into something that is not helpful, not healthy for us or definitely not others. Help us see when our gift has caused us to produce more fruit of the flesh than fruit of the Spirit.