Martha or Mary – Who Are You?

Bible Study Topic on Luke 10: 38-42

We often host many international students from the University at our home. My wife usually prepares a wonderful, delicious and hot meal that all students would relish. But one thing that always bothers me is the time she would spend in the kitchen preparing for the food, snacks, coffee or tea, when the students are over. She has a wonderful personality, along with great leadership and communication skills. She can bring many insights in our conversations which I usually have with students. But because of her work in the kitchen she would miss out on all these opportunities.

Similar story was played out during Jesus’ visit to Martha and Mary’s home. It seems likely that Martha was the elder sister, and she being the host was busy with all the preparations that needed to be done.

Distracted, Dissatisfied, Disturbed

Martha was disturbed that she was doing all the hard work while her sister was idly sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to him. So she went to Jesus and complained to Jesus about her. She thought that Jesus would tell Mary to get up and do some real work!

 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” (Luke 10:40)

Better Choice

What was Jesus’ reply? Jesus did not take Mary’s side. He lovingly asked Martha to set her priority right. He answered.

“few things are needed – or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10: 42)

Today, we live in an extremely busy life style. We have to constantly juggle between work pressures, home projects, church responsibilities, Kids schedules and many more. And in all these, we often compromise (or sacrifice) our daily time with the Lord. We often think that God knows what we are going through, He understands our pressures.

Surely, God knows an understands everything. But this story is a reminder that we need to set our priorities right. Our first and foremost choice must be our daily quiet time with God, everything else can come after that. Everything else can wait. This is not some legalistic thing that we need to follow. But we need to do so because it is a “better choice”.

Time spent at the feet of Jesus is never wasted time. It is an incredibly invested time. It is my own personal experience, when I allocate time with the Lord from my busy schedule, Lord always returns back even more time. All of sudden, I seem to have that little extra time for other chores. The clock seems to be ticking little slower! The problems or issues that I am working on, gets fixed quickly. It might just be my perception or a coincidence, but I have noticed that more time I spend with God, more of these coincidences happen! Jesus emphasized the similar approach in Matthew 6:33.

“Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Application

What about you? Are you ‘distracted’ by the work for the Lord, that you don’t have time to sit at his feet and listen to him? Will you take time from your busy schedule daily to be with God in his words?