Jesus and Two Sisters

Intro

This morning we are going to look at the story of Martha and Mary from Luke 10. This is a short story, just five verses, but it’s such an interesting story that could not be more applicable for us today. It’s interesting because, just like many of the stories about Jesus, the person or people that we think should get the pat on the back are actually rebuked, while those we might expect to get rebuked are actually welcomed or commended. And we’ll see that same sort of thing in this story.

It’s especially applicable for us this morning becuase it’s primarily about someone who is trying to do good but finds herself anxious and distracted by the many things that she has to do. And if you’re over the age of 10 in this room you could probably create a long list of things that are making you anxious or are distracting you from living your life for the glory of God and the good of others.

We’ll take this text in three parts this morning and see what we can learn. First, we’ll look at Martha, then we’ll look at Mary, and lastly we’ll look at Jesus. Let me read the passage and then we’ll jump in.

[Read passage]

1) Martha

Well as I said a minute ago, if you are unfamiliar with this story or maybe you’d forgotten the details of it, as your reading you might surprised by which character is held up as the example in the story and which character is rebuked for her actions. Becuase you have one sister, Martha, who welcomes Jesus into the house and spends all of her time cooking, serving food, and trying to be an excellent host. And at first glance we expect this sister to be the model sister. After all, serving others and practicing hospitality is a good quality today and in especially in the 1st century.

But, Jesus ends up rebuking Martha and commending Mary, who is simply sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to him, not helping her sister. So let’s look a little deeper at Martha and see why Jesus responds in that way. Looking at Martha I think we see her do two things that cause her to receive rebuke instead of commendation. One, She elevates the important over the most important. And, two, she elevates her desires over God’s desires.

a. Elevated the important over the most important

So first, the important over the most important. At the beginning of the story it’s Martha who welcomes Jesus into her home. We don’t know if she knows Jesus at this point yet, there are other stories about Martha and Mary in Scripture, most notably Jesus raising their brother Lazarus from the dead, but we don’t really have a good chronology for when this story we’re looking at took place.

But at the very least, Martha would have known who Jesus was and that he had gained notoriety for his teaching. So what do you do when a great teacher visits your house? You want to listen to his teaching. And presumably that’s what Martha would have wanted to do, as well. But instead, verse 40 says, “Martha was distracted with much serving.” And in his rebuke of Martha, Jesus says, “You are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.” And here’s one of the primary reasons this story is so applicable for us today.

Martha doesn’t get rebuked for living a sinful life, she doesn’t get rebuked for ignoring Jesus and shutting the door in his face, she gets rebuked for serving Jesus! This story isn’t about a good person and a bad person, a follower of Jesus and someone opposed to Jesus, a Christian and a non-Christian, this is story is about two people who want to love Jesus. It could just as easily be about two people in this room.

And so what that means for us is that it’s possible to be a Christian and to come to church regularly and be part of a small group and serve in kid’s ministry and to give to the poor and yet fail to be worshipping Jesus properly. Martha is serving Jesus, she’s like a Christian who has filled her life with religious activity, but she’s missing something.

Jesus says “one thing is necessary.” Which seems to assume that Martha had made her servive necessary. She loved to serve maybe to look good for others, or to make herself feel good, or maybe just because she was a good person. Whatever the case may be, Jesus doesn’t seem to accept her service because she’s missed him, the one that she is serving.

So whether it’s serving a meal to Jesus or serving at a homeless shelter downtown, it’s so easy for us to do those things and lose sight of the one we are doing them for. Martha was doing an important thing, but she missed the most important thing in the process.

So what is it for you? What things in your life are important but you’ve made them ultimate, and so they’ve clouded your view of Christ? Maybe it’s something as good and important as serving the church. But you’ve been serving for service sake or maybe for your own sake or maybe because you really just enjoy it, and not for Jesus. Maybe it’s your job. Your job is an important thing, but where is Jesus absent in your work where he should be present?

It could even be something as important as family. If you are too busy with kids activities or too focused on making sure your kids reach their full potential or something like that, to spend time praying, reading Scripture, and just focusing on Jesus, then you’ve acted like Martha and allowed something incredibly important to become the most important. And only Jesus deserves that place.

b. Elevated her desires over God’s desires

But that’s not all. Martha didn’t just elevate the important over the most important, she also elevated her desires over God’s desires. We see that in verse 40 when she asks Jesus, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?” And does Jesus say, “Mary, go help your sister?” No, Jesus shocks us and rebukes Martha. And here’s why.

Martha assumed that her desire to serve Jesus and have her sister’s help was Jesus’s desire as well. And what’s more, she assumed that Jesus didn’t care about her because he hadn’t told Mary to go help. But that wasn’t true. In reality, Jesus did care but he wanted Martha to come sit and listen to his teaching. He wanted something very different than what Martha wanted. And we do the same thing every single day.

Do you ever get frustrated over small things that happen throughout the day? You can ask my wife, I never do. In those moments, when the internet is slow or I’m missing an ingredient for dinner or a stub my toe or our daughter won’t go to sleep, whatever it is, I get frustrated. And I usually don’t say this out loud, but it’s certainly there in the back of my mind, why would God let that happen? I’m a Christian, I prayed that Imogene would sleep good today, so why isn’t she sleeping God!? Just like Martha, I doubt that God really cares becuase if he did, wouldn’t he just give me this desire?

But God’s desires are not my desires. His desire isn’t that I would have this perfect, carefree day where nothing goes wrong. His desire that is that I would grow in the faith and knowledge of the Lord Jesus and that I would grow to look more and more like him. And guess what? That slow Internet or difficult child trains me to love Jesus a lot more than a picture perfect day does.

But it’s not just minor inconveniences. How many of us, and again this is probably not something we say out loud but it’s there, how many of us think we probably deserve to have more money than we do because, after all, we are good people who love God and just want to use it on our family and we’d be able to give more to our church? How many of us think, how could that major tragedy have struck my family? Does God even care?

And what we learn from this story is that God does care! He cares more than we could ever imagine! But God’s desires are different than our desires. He has an eternal perspective. His number one desire for us here on earth is that we would know him and that he might prepare us to spend eternity with him. And in his mysterious wisdom and sovereignty, that requires allowing us to experience difficulty, big and small, it requires us to not get what we want some of the time, maybe most of the time, but it’s not because he doesn’t care. It’s because he cares so deeply.

Now let me say something really quick about suffering. This isn’t a sermon about why God allows suffering or how a good God could allow evil in the world, I’ll leave those simple questions for Eric to answer. But I do want to be very clear: God doesn’t get pleasure watching his children experience suffering, from a stubbed toe to the death of a love one. It grieves him.

But the reality is we live in a fallen world where suffering does happen and where our hearts are naturally turned against God. And God uses one bad, the suffering that exists in this world, to bring about a greater good, that people might know him and our hearts might be turned back to him. In fact, if we could see the world from God’s perspective, we’d probably be amazed at how much suffering he holds back and protects us from.

So that’s Martha. She invited Jesus in and she wanted to listen to his teaching, but instead she elevated the important over the most important and her desires over God’s desires. What about Mary?

Mary

a. Chose to adore Jesus

In verse 39 we read that Martha had a sister named Mary, “who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching.” The first thing to see with Mary is that she chose to adore Jesus. While Martha chose to try and put on a great show and make sure every detail of the evening was covered, Mary just wanted to be with and to get to know Jesus.

Luke says that she “sat at the Lord’s feet.” The was the place for the student with a master. The inferior with the superior. The emphasis in the story is not that Mary failed to help her sister Martha even though that was technically true, the emphasis is that Mary was so intent on being with Jesus. And, as Jesus says, “Mary (chose) the good portion.” Martha adored her serving. Mary adored Jesus. And that was far better.

b. Chose to listen to Jesus’s Word

The other thing that Mary did to receive commendation was she chose to listen to Jesus’s Word. Not only did she sit at his feet, but verse 39 says she “listened to his teaching.” All throughout the gospels we see Jesus teaching and his teaching was radical. He told the religious leaders that they needed to repent. He spoke in parables that people didn’t understand. He said he had authority to forgive sins. He said that he was God’s Son and just as divine as Yahweh. And what did most people do when they heard it? They rejected it and many even wanted to kill him.

We don’t have Jesus walking around with us today but we still have his teaching in the Bible and guess what, people still reject it. People are still hostile against Jesus’s teaching. But this passage really isn’t about people out there, like I said earlier, this about God’s people. And just because we aren’t openly opposed to Jesus’s teaching doesn’t mean that we actually listen to it and obey it either. We are fallen human beings just like everyone else and we want control and authority over our lives. We still have sinful tendencies that are clearly addressed as sin in Scripture.

Oftentimes we are just indifferent to Bible. Not hostile towards it but not submitting to it either. But Mary listened and accepted Jesus’s teaching. She probably heard Jesus explain the Old Testament in a way she had never heard before. She probably her Jesus commit blasphemy and make himself equal with God. These teachings were hard for her to hear, yet she sat and she listened.

We should learn much from Mary here and as ourselves, does Jesus’s Word truly have authority in my life? Are there any areas where you’ve rejected its authority? It’s so easy for us in the Bible Belt to get behind the authority of Scripture when it comes to cultural or political issues like gay marriage or abortion and pit the Bible against secular culture, but the Bible has just as much to say about the harsh word we spoke to our spouse or kids or the way we spend our time and money. So let’s submit to it in all areas.

And of course that assumes that we’re reading it, that we’re studying it, that we’re hearing it taught, and that we’re teaching it to others. May we be like Mary. In contrast to Martha, she chooses the most important, Jesus and his Word, over everything else, and she chooses to submit her desires to God’s desires.

Jesus

Well even though this story gets the heading “Martha and Mary” in my Bible, this story isn’t actually about Mary and Martha. It’s really about Jesus and people, in this case two sisters, relate to him. So let’s notice two things about Jesus.

First, Jesus is tender with us. Martha starts out this story welcoming Jesus in to her house and meaning well while serving him, but then she does something that should have greatly offended Jesus. She goes up to the Son of God and asks that terrible question we already looked at once, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?” And then what’s even worse she commands Jesus, “Tell her then to help me.” Yikes.

And Jesus explodes in anger. No, he doesn’t. He says, “Martha, Martha.” In Hebrew, the doubling of a name indicates great caring emotion. We see that many places in the Bible but just two examples are Luke 22:31-32 where Jesus says, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you…but I have prayed for you,” and Luke 12:34 where Jesus is lamenting over Jerusalem and he says, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem.” And here he says, “Martha, Martha.”

Even though Martha has prioritized her hospitality over simply adoring the God of the universe and even though she accusingly asks him if he even cares about her, Jesus isn’t angry or harsh with her, he’s tender. And that should give us great comfort this morning.

It would be really easy to read a story like this where we have two opposing characters, one example to imitate and one example not to imitate, and ask ourselves, am I Martha or Mary? But the reality is you’re not either one. Every single one of us, if we are believers, acts like Martha way more than we should and we want to act like Mary more than we do.

And after studying this passage, hopefully you see that. It might even make us a little bit discouraged, though, knowing how often we act like Martha and how many things we’ve elevated over and above Jesus in ours lives. But Jesus is tender with you too. Jesus comes to you the same way he responds to Martha. He isn’t disappointed or upset, he knows our weakness and our proneness to love the things of this world more than we love him, and he’s gentle with us.

We might expect Jesus to act that way towards Mary, the one who worships him in this passage, but he surprises again and acts with the same tenderness towards Martha as well. And I think the reason Jesus treats both women with the same heart is because they have both have similar hearts for him. Remember, Martha wanted to hear Jesus but she was distracted. In other words, this story, like so many other places in the Bible, teaches us that our relationship with Jesus is not built upon what we do.

If it were, then this story would be completely different. Maybe Jesus would actually commend Martha because she worked hard for Jesus instead of Mary who just listened. Or maybe Jesus would still condemn Martha and not accept her service but he might go all the way and reject her company as well. But what actually happens is you have two people who want to know Jesus and they do completely opposite works in the story, and Jesus accepts them both.

If you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, when you adore him as you should and submit your life to his Word and still you elevate the things of the world over him and your desires over his, he tenderly loves you. Our inability to love him does not affect his radical love for us. And that doesn’t mean we have a license to do whatever we want. Instead, we should let that truth drive us to love him more and obey him more fully.

b. Wants the best for us

One more thing that we learn about Jesus from this passage and then we’ll close. Jesus wants the best for us. We see that in verse 42 when he’s speaking to Martha and he says, “Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

What Martha chose was fine but it wasn’t best. Serving Jesus was okay but sitting and listening to him would have been better. But it does beg the question, who would it have been better for? Did Jesus want Martha to listen to him because he thought he was really important and so he demanded respect? No, of course not. In that last sentence, the emphasis is on it being the “good portion” for Mary. We see that because Jesus says it “will not be taken away from her.”

Jesus doesn’t say, “Mary has chosen the good portion and treated me how I deserve” even though that’s true. Jesus says, “Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” In other words, Martha chose something that would be taken away. Something fleeting. Serving Jesus. While Mary chose something lasting, something eternal even, Jesus himself.

And Jesus’s tenderness towards Martha and his desire for both sisters to know him and to obey him is not for his sake, it’s for theirs. And in the same way, Jesus’s desire for us not to allow our church attendance or community service or jobs or families or minor inconveniences or major tragedies to control us, it’s for our good. It’s because he cares about us and he loves us.

Setting our gaze upon Jesus is so freeing because it allows us to enjoy good things, like serving the church or loving our family, freely and not to earn favor in someone’s eyes or produce the best life we can possibly produce. And it’s also freeing because it gives us perspective for the bad things, big or small.

Jesus’s greatest desire is for our eternal good, but when we make that our desire as well it actually leads to best possible life here on earth as well. Because no matter who you are and what you believe, there will be incredible joy in this life, but it’s so fleeting, and there will be incredible sorrow, and it will probably linger. But when it’s all about Jesus you have an answer for both.

The joy is worth enjoying and those moments give us a foretaste of what awaits us as we spend eternity in the presence of our Creator. And the sorrow is in fact only temporary, and will be completely and utterly wiped away when we see our Lord face to face. So let us fix our eyes on Jesus.

This isn’t a sermon where I give you three things to go and do or anything like that. It’s the simplest yet most difficult application anyone could give: fix your eyes on Christ. Worship him. Adore him. Make it all about him. Love him. And know that he loves you.

Let’s pray.