Mary or Martha?

Today’s passage is a little longer than usual but it tells a great story.  It is from Luke 10:38-42:
“As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.  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!”
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one.  Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
By the time of this story, Jesus had far surpassed rock-star-status.   He had performed many miracles and was the most famous person in the world.
So when Jesus came into the house, Mary’s goal was to soak in everything she could as deeply as possible for as long as He was there.  But her sister, Martha, was “distracted by all of the preparations” which probably means cleaning up, preparing food, and other chores.  Luke’s point is that we shouldn’t be distracted from the truly important things in life, most of all our time with Jesus.
It is easy for us to criticize Martha but what about those of us who read or watch political news an hour or more a day but don’t pray or read the Bible?  Or those of us who don’t prioritize quality time with our family and friends because we are busy with other “important” activities.  None of us are perfect and we all have at least some work to do in becoming more like Mary.
 
Here are a few questions to help explore this topic further:
  • In what areas of your life are you more like Mary and in what areas are you more like Martha?
  • If Jesus walked in to our house, most of us would ignore everything else and focus completely on Him, so why is it difficult to carve out time for Him every day?
  • What are some idols (anything that you put in front of Jesus)  in your everyday life?
  • Do you feel that the World expects something from us vs. what God expects from us? (self-help books tell us how to be efficient,  to-do lists, etc.). How can we deal with the onslaught of advice from Humans vs Godly advice ( How can the forget clutter of projects and spend time him). 

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