Martha and Mary

(Refer to: Luke 10:38-41)



              Many of us are familiar with this account of Martha and Mary, sisters who were dear disciples of the Lord Jesus. I’ve read this countless times before, and each time I gleaned timely reminders from the story. But today (just a few hours ago) as I reread this account, God crumbled the floor on which I was standing, and revealed to me a deeper, richer, gospel-centred meaning to this account.
              The key to this deeper meaning is to realise that this account came in the New Testament, spoken by Jesus, whose every word revealed some truth about the New Covenant He was ushering in. So, perhaps this account reveals to us something about the New Covenant as well. How so? It seems like such a simple practical story with a practical meaning that has nothing below the surface. But with God’s grace we can go further into the rich depths of this Scripture.
              Martha and Mary both loved God. They both loved the Lord Jesus very dearly. And they both desired intimacy and relationship with God, and with Jesus. Indeed, the Gospel is about relationship: a restored relationship. Our relationship with God was once perfect, but was then severed apart due to our sin. What Jesus did when He came to earth, was restore that relationship, to enable intimacy with God again, by God’s grace.
In this particular account, both women desired a more intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus. But what was different, was their approach to this desire for intimacy. Martha and Mary’s contrary approaches show us the difference between treasuring Jesus as our Saviour & means to an intimate relationship with God, versus trying to get into heaven on our own merits (perhaps subconsciously).
              Martha was working hard, preparing the meal, distracted by all the work. She was also exasperated at her sister Mary for not helping out with the work (v. 40). No doubt she had an abounding love for Jesus in her heart – I don’t question her motives here. She desired greater intimacy with Him, as Mary did. But what’s interesting is that while she sought greater intimacy, she missed it entirely. She laboured distractedly to become closer to Jesus, as if bringing food for Him and serving Him more and more will perhaps earn her a greater intimacy with Him. She focused so much on the work and the serving, perhaps thinking “The more elaborate the meal the better my relationship with Him”. By doing this, she completely missed the point. In pursuing intimacy, she lost intimacy. She passed the opportunity right by. This’ll be clearer after we take a look at Mary!
              Mary, on the other hand, simply “sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what He said” (v. 39). She recognised that Jesus had a gift to give: it was the gift of being able to gain a knowledge of God for free, to gain intimacy with God without having to pay for it with labour. “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:28. Jesus came to usher in the great Gospel: the free gift of an intimate relationship with God. He does away with the ways of the past, where people worked hard and tried to pay for a right standing with God, where they attempted to be saved through their works and deeds. But Jesus came so that we could receive this intimate relationship FREE and FULL.
Between Martha and Mary:
-          Mary recognised the gift of intimacy, and took it.
-          Martha looked for intimacy and passed right by it, missing it.
God desires for us to recognise and receive the gift He has given to us. We should do away with being distracted by labour and activity when our heart is in the wrong place. Jesus was pressing forward a message not just about the importance of learning His Word intently and undistractedly, but also a message about the Gospel: Are you subconsciously still trying to earn your salvation? Or, are you trying to earn greater intimacy with God by doing more and more work, volunteering in more and more ministries, as if a certain magic number of ministries will 'make the cut' for you go up a notch in your intimacy with God – like a commodity paid for?
When we sit at God’s feet, or when we serve God and labour for Him, we have to make sure our hearts are in the right place. Our hearts must be fixed on the Gospel – on the gift of intimacy with God, which was bought by Jesus’ blood. This gift of intimacy is given regardless of our futile efforts to ‘buy’ a closer relationship with God using our futile human currency. No matter how many meals Martha prepared, and how delicious they were – if Martha had continued with that mindset, she would never have become as intimate with God as Mary was, just by sitting at the Lord’s feet. So let’s be like Mary. Mary wasn’t a sluggard. She wasn’t unmotivated and inactive either. Although I'm sure she had a heart that would go and labour and serve ever readily, the important point here is that she had a heart that treasured Jesus as her Saviour – a heart that perhaps would’ve said, “Whether I’m reading His Word in stillness, or out there labouring, my heart is here receiving the free gift of divine intimacy. No intimacy is earned. It is all a gift.” The posture of her heart was constant: Sitting at Jesus’s feet. Whether she was literally sitting with the Bible, kneeling, or serving, or feeding the poor… her heart was in that position of humility. And all her disciplined work in learning more about God, serving the needy, worshipping the Lord… these are not her attempts to ‘earn’ intimacy: All these are her efforts to reap the full benefits of this beautiful free gift of intimacy already given entirely by grace.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"'Martha, Martha,' the Lord answered, 'you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.'" LUKE 10:41-42
Mary has chosen to treasure God's gift of Jesus, and it will not be taken away from her. Those who truly receive and treasure God's salvation through Jesus will not be turned away. Martha must stop being worried and upset, absorbed in her work, while she passes the Gospel by. In a huge way, perhaps the Pharisees were guilty of this mistake: too absorbed in their labour that they missed the gift of the Gospel totally. Too many people have passed the Gospel by, missing the point, because of the wrong mindset. Let's not make that mistake. For us who have received Jesus, let us never stop treasuring the Gospel - the utter grace and blood-bought freedom which we deserve nothing of, but are called to receive heartily.

Popular posts from this blog

Remembering 爷爷 (17.03.1934–20.11.2020)

Image
(Expanded from my eulogy at his funeral—celebrating the life of David Ho Lim Cheng and his return to his Maker)  My yea yea was nothing short of an excellent man. He was defined by a few unchanging values. Some of those values were all-important: for example, that all of life is lived to God's glory, that you use your might not to serve your own interests but to serve God and others, and finally,  that you never stop serving, not even in old age.  These were the values that yea yea held to strongly, and it determined how he spent his days.  There were also those values that yea yea held to quite strongly but which were perhaps less serious: for example, you never give up an opportunity to eat oh chien , however many there are in front of you, you always bring your granddaughters to KFC when your son drops them off at your house, and, as became evident in the last few weeks, you never decline tau fu fah , not even if you are semi-conscious and bedridden. Yea yea lived...
Read More »

Confronting my moral failures this Easter

Image
At this time each year I hear the message of Easter at church: Jesus, who was God as a human being, willingly gave himself to be killed for our sake. This was to take the punishment for our sins. Three days later he rose from the dead. He later ascended into heaven, and we can follow after him in eternity. This year, I think about this message in the context of a world like ours today where morality is a hugely important conversation. I don't mean morality as in exclusive church-ey piety, which is definitely not a central conversation (but rather, unfortunately, the butt of jokes). I mean morality as in living justly and ensuring no one lives in injustice, and at the same time cultivating patience, kindness, generosity, and other virtues in myself.  On the matter of justice, the past year's enforced shutdown of normal life has given me more breath and attention to observe and respond, in what way I can, to grave, prolonged injustices around me. I think of police brutality, raci...
Read More »