Daily Dose 53: Mary and Martha

Of all the family meals in history, the dinner at the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus may be the most analyzed. Imagine the Lord pulling three or four hours of your home life out of the swirl of time, and hoisting it up for generation after generation of expositors who never knew you, your back story, or  the events leading up to dinnertime, to explain to the world exactly what sort of person you were. If one dinner’s preparation, not even the dinner’s menu, was going to define your spiritual outlook to millions of strangers for almost two thousand years (and counting), how would you feel every time you walked into the kitchen?

Deconstructing Dinner

But that particular meal preparation did get selected for our instruction. Facts and conversation about that evening are part of the biblical record. Many times, I have found myself thinking, “If this bit of my time became part of the biblical record, like that dinner, what would Christ be telling me about my priorities?” Whatever else can be said about the account, the bottom line is that Christ, as the God-Man guest, observed behavior, and as Lord of the Universe assessed the priorities motivating the behavior.

Several points cannot be overlooked. Christ had a comfortable, personal, ongoing relationship with the ladies. He talked to them about weighty issues. He did not treat them as people existing only to meet His needs, but as distinct individuals with needs He could address. He conversed directly with them, intelligently, about the time mystery of eternal priorities as part of daily activities, expecting them to grasp His intent and import.

He often stayed with them and it is in that context of His being a frequent visitor to the one place we know He enjoyed a family welcome, that we should look at this first century dinner through the lens of diminishing returns and accrued benefits.

We know the Lord was not pleased with Martha’s domestic efforts that evening. He rebukes her for her being cumbered (weighed down) with concerns He knew were not important for the moment. He did not view her service as worship or a love sacrifice, as He did another Mary at another meal. Martha was not thinking about their time together like He was thinking about their time together.

He is also not saying taking time to fix dinner is misspent time, so while Mary and Martha were real relatives in a real home, they are also a good picture of the related pulls we have as believers, whether men or women: to be heavenly minded and to fulfill earthly needs.

A Question to Consider

If everyone only “sat at Jesus feet” and never fixed dinner, when would anyone eat?

If Mary was not rebuked, it was because she arranged her priorities to have the home and meal under control before Christ arrived, so the priority when He arrived could be giving Him full attention.

I trust we can also surmise she did not “handle” these preparations through coy, fluttery excuses that forced Martha to shoulder extra needed cooking/house work deftly neglected by her sister. Had that been the case, the Lord would have rebuked both.

No, in this instance, Mary had done in advance what was required (accrued benefit: now she was ready to sit with Christ). Martha, on the other hand, was bustling and harried because her trying to do more than was satisfactory now encroached on the needful priority of attention (diminished return: more action and effort where it wasn’t needed meant missing what was needed).

Think About Yourself

If you were hosting the King of Kings for dinner tonight what meal would be worthy enough? Pheasant under glass or a tricky souffle? Sun-bleached, ironed linens? Lilies imported from France?  Bread in a wooden bowl? What difference would it make to know that His assessment of the meal would not be the food itself, but all the motives, processes, plans, and sacrifices that went into preparing for Him?

The Lord is UNABLE to be swayed by superficial attempts to impress Him. While most “important” people are secretly bolstered by trappings that signal their human superiority, the Lord unerringly perceives genuine love sacrifices and is never fooled by social pandering.

Our heavenly King knows the best we can give Him is our submitted attention. Thus, we prove His importance by foresightful advance preparation. Think about that in conjunction with your devotional habits. Ouch.

On that night, Martha treated Jesus as a meager celebrity who would be impressed with a fuss, and not as the Grandest King-Dearest Friend who could only be rightly honored by such thorough advance preparation that every hint of last minute fuss or flurry was  eliminated, assuring only attention to every word and moment with the honored dear one was all that was “left to do.”