January 7 At Jesus’ Feet

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. 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 only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
 
IN our past two lessons, we looked at the Good Samaritan story to see how Jesus teaches us to “do” our love for God and for our neighbors. Now we come to a story that points us also to “not doing”. How do we know when to “do” and when to “not do”?
   Martha’s distracted dilemma is very common in our lives and certainly in Jesus’ church, isn’t it? For example, our culture has made “busy-ness” an idol to worship. Also, churches I have joined, pastored and attended seem to have a religious “be busy” mentality. Many different groups are formed to care for the building, to study the Bible, to tend to the sick, to reach out and to administer the church’s functions. These are all good and necessary ministry things to do. But too often these activities become the church. “We have a good church because we do all these things.” But what happens? Too few people doing too many “Martha jobs” get too busy, too upset and too tired to sit down and be with Jesus. We meet to feed the poor, but we do not feed our “poor spirits” with a gathering of prayer and teaching. We set a worship time, then assign church members to a multitude of tasks while the preacher is preaching. The Lord has come to sit down and be with us. But we only conversation with him is to tell him what is wrong, to blame and to accuse.
   This is the outcome of our relationship with God deteriorating into religion. “But,” you say, “religion is good. I want to be a religious person.” Do you? To be religious is essentially defined as self-centered activities. Anyone can be religious – about reading the Bible, about serving in the church, about following a certain diet, about watching a TV show, about exercising regularly, about worshiping false idols, and about anything you feel you want to do.
   Martha religiously attended to her house. The expert in the law from the Good Samaritan parable religiously memorized Scripture. The Romans were religious about defending Caesar’s absolute authority. The disciples religiously wondered, “Who will be the greatest in the Kingdom of God?” Our culture religiously says, “Do it all at all costs.”
   Jesus came to the world to reform the world out of idolatrous religion back to the love relationship established in Eden. As we saw in the Good Samaritan and we see in this passage, Jesus urged his people to focus on God. He wanted Mr. Expert to learn with a love for God and his neighbors. He wanted Martha to serve loving God and loving her sister. He wants his church to love him above all things – even organizing more ministries. God, who is love, wants you to live in his image.
    Teacher and theologian Dr. R.C. Sproul says it this way: “First we must come to a sound understanding of God. Our lives will never be Christ-like until we have a clear understanding of Christ, the original form, the ideal, the true humanity that is found in Christ.”
    Are you too religious to love God and to love your neighbors as yourself?
 
Prayer: Guide me, Holy Spirit, to sit at Jesus’ feet. I set my love on God and on my neighbors. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.