How Many Marthas?

This past series our teaching pastor has been hitting on busyness and how it effects our intimacy with people and with God. One of the verses he used was  Luke 10:38-41 NIV

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. ³⁹ She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. ⁴⁰ 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!”

⁴¹ “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, ⁴² but few things are needed—or indeed only one.Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

My wife in her amazing wisdom pointed out, that was me when I was working at the church, I was worried about a great many things when only one was important. The question she asked me after that floored me. She asked “If that was you, when you were working at the church, how many Marthas do you think are on staff?”

The answer is I’m not sure, but certainly I fell into that category, and I find it hard to think I was alone. It’s easy to get caught up in the busyness of doing God’s work, but if you have forgotten why you are doing it, then it probably doesn’t matter as much as you want it to. Sadly it’s an easy trap to fall into, in fact it’s a great excuse to use that gets you out of almost anything “I would love to, but I have to work at the church.” No one argues with you when you say that. No one says “Really, is that really that important?”  No of course not, you are hand selected on a mission from God and no one wants to chance getting in way of that. But maybe they should. Maybe someone should ask “if you aren’t there to EQ that board, what’s going to happen?” How large a disservice are you doing to your church if you can’t miss a weekend without the wheels coming off? I looked through the original Greek (which I never find helpful, because I keep forgetting I don’t speak Greek) but I can still say with some certainty it doesn’t say “wherever two or more are gathered, as long as one of them is insert your name here, there too am I.” Let me ask you are you doing that? We can be honest here, it’s the internet. I was, and it’s dangerous because now you have elevated yourself to a position only God should have, and I had to make some radical changes in my life to fix it.

Are you worried about a great many things, when only one is required? Maybe it’s time for you to remember what is important.

photo credit: More Good Foundation via photopin cc