Most of the time, we read the bible wrong.
By that I mean, we read the bible like its purpose is to tell us how to act, and what we should be doing. Really the bible is here to show us glimpses of how God acts, and what God is doing. But we forget that most of the time. And almost nowhere as much as the story of Mary and Martha. Weird we even call it that, though. Because this isn’t a story about two sisters, pitted against each other, Mary the thinker and Martha the doer, Mary the serene vs. Martha the preoccupied. This isn’t designed to help us divide the world into Marys and Marthas and decide which one is better (Mary), because Jesus says so. And it’s certainly not meant to send us home striving to be Marys, while secretly thinking, dear God, everything would fall apart without the Marthas.
This is not a story to tell us how to be and what to do. This is a story about an encounter Jesus had with a woman named Martha. It begins, A woman named Martha welcomed Jesus into her home. Let’s start there. She wasn’t wife of so and so, or daughter of who’s its. A powerful, capable, head of the household woman named Martha welcomed Jesus into her home.
Martha and her sister Mary and brother Lazarus were Jesus’s friends. Martha’s house is where Jesus went when he needed a break from the road, needed to feel like he was going home to his people. It’s where he rested. Where he found solace. Where he felt known. So let’s get that clear: Martha was arguably the savior’s favorite host. She regularly ministered hospitality to God incarnate.
And they were all close. They told it like it was to each other, these siblings and Jesus. Martha is the one who reminds Jesus of his power to heal when Lazarus dies, and demands to know, Where were you, Lord?
Martha is a strong, competent person. And good grief, who knows, she might have been a terrific storyteller or a fantastic card player. I’m just saying, she was possibly really fun to be around, or at least had all sorts of great character qualities that made her an excellent friend to Jesus. But how would we know that?
We’ve boiled her down to not her best moment. We’ve made being overwhelmed and stressed out her entire personality.
Sometimes, in my not best moments, I wonder if being overwhelmed and stressed is my entire personality. It sure feels right now like being overwhelmed and stressed has become our national personality.
I could begin to name why it’s our not best moment, and why we are collectively overwhelmed and stressed out, worried and distracted, but I don’t even have to list all the things– because it’s all the things. It feels like most of us are carrying an internal list all the time. We’re tense and clenched. Panic-level anxiety is at the ready. All we have to do is reach for it. And not even that, really, it’s being dropped right into our laps at every turn. For most people right now, it would be hard to name an area of life that doesn’t feel a tad precarious.
So our prayers start to sound a little like Martha when she’s had it, and like the disciples in the boat, being tossed about in the flashing darkness by the loud and terrible storm while Jesus sleeps soundly in the stern, because they say the same exact thing. Lord, don’t you even care? Don’t you even care that we are drowning?
And when I am in a state, what I want is for the person I am dumping my anxiety onto, to join me in the deep end of despair. I want them to say, Oh my goodness, yes! This is terrible! This is, in fact, worse than you even thought! No wonder you are overwhelmed! Your panic is totally justified! This ship is going down, no doubt about it!
At least, that’s what I think I want. That’s what I believe would feel good to hear in the moment.
But here’s the thing about our God, who came into this whole storm of a life with and for us all – God doesn’t necessarily see things the same way we do. And even better, God can’t get pulled into our flawed interpretation of reality.
Jesus sees Martha for real. He listens past her desperation, and what she thinks should happen to make her feel better, how she thinks things could be put right (Make Mary help me!). He doesn’t sign on to her strategy because he doesn’t buy her interpretation of reality. Instead he hears her need. He listens to the heart of her. He sees and upholds her humanity.
Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the good, and it will not be taken away from her.
At first this might have sounded super annoying to her. Maybe she didn’t want to give up her strategy. Make her help me. Maybe her righteous anger felt too hot to let go just yet. But I suspect it had a different effect. There is something so powerful about being seen. Martha. I see you, Martha. You are worried. You have so much weighing on you. I see your distress, and I see that you are pulled in many directions.
And then he says, There is need of only one thing.
And oh, I wish he had expounded on this! But he goes on to say, Mary has chosen the good part. And it will not be taken away from her.
Jesus will not participate in the lie that we are drowning, that things are urgent, that we are alone, no matter how real or overwhelming it all feels to us. Instead, the one with the power to quiet the storm reminds us again, I care about you. And I care about your sister. And I am right here. You are not alone. You have a choice. And so does everyone else. I won’t take that choice away.
We don’t have to live as though we are alone, as though it is all up to us, as though we are against one another instead of in it together. Whatever the storms around us, between us or inside us, they are never more powerful or more real than God. We are not drowning. The one who made and loves us all is right here in our midst, we cannot be destroyed. We can feel overwhelmed, terrified, worried, anxious and afraid. We will even die. But however bad it feels, or even gets, we are held in the love that does not waver or falter or fail. Love does and will prevail.
When Martha is feeling at the end of her rope, she actually comes to Jesus with her panic and her stress, her demand that he change someone else’s behavior, and her accusation, Lord, don’t you even care? That is courageous and faithful and honest. And Jesus meets her right there - in her misunderstanding of reality and her misguided strategy, and her bold trust, and he invites her to freedom. He invites her into a different way of being, a deeper way of trusting.
And I am not going to praise Mary for ditching out on her part of the work. But I am going to listen when Jesus says Mary has chosen the good. Maybe choosing the good has nothing to do with ignoring what can or should be done. Maybe choosing the good is about turning our hearts toward the presence of God in the midst of whatever we are in. Maybe it’s about receiving Christ more than doing things for him. Maybe the good has something to do with letting ourselves long for the one needful thing.
There is need of only one thing. I want it explained. I want, if I am honest, to be told what to do and think and how to act. I keep repeating that tantalizing, exasperating phrase to myself, turning it over in my mind, There is need of only one thing. It’s mysterious, and feels deeply true, and I don’t know how to grab hold of it, and I want to grab hold of it to make myself feel better. I want to wield it like a strategy.
Instead, I suspect, that very sensation of not knowing what to do with it, of instead letting it grab hold of us like an irritating invitation, that is what we’re nudged toward today. There is need of only one thing. Only one thing is necessary.
Sometimes our not best moments become a gateway into a different way of being, an invitation to find a new freedom. Sometimes dumping our anxiety and our misguided strategies onto God can result in a whole new possibility opening up before us. This is what God does. God is with us. God is right here. We are worried and distracted by many things. But there is need of only one thing.
Amen.
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Prayer Practice:
Take an index card or post-it note. Write on it your name, and these words from Jesus.
Put it somewhere you will see it often this week. When you see it, let it stop you. Breathe. Imagine Jesus asking speaking the words to you.
___________, ___________ you are worried and distracted by many things. There is need of only one thing.
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