Imagine a pastoral counseling scenario. A married couple sets up a meeting over marriage struggles. At the meeting the wife says, “I don’t feel like he loves me. He never wants to spend time with me. We barely talk. It feels like we’re roommates.” The husband incredulously responds, “Are you kidding me? Everything I do is for you. I work overtime every week to provide for our family. When I’m off, I’m always working around the house to make it comfortable for you.”
It's a very realistic scenario that gets to the heart of an extremely vexed question: What does it mean to love someone? It’s also the very question being discussed between two sisters and Jesus in Luke 10:38-42.
In the story of Martha and Mary, it’s important to pay attention to the details. But first, here’s a brief overview. Jesus is traveling, and the two sisters welcome him into their home. Martha takes over the hosting duties while Mary “sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching” (v. 39). Martha, however, grows indignant over a matter to which most can relate—she’s doing all the work while Mary sits idly. Feeling justified in her displeasure, she complains to Jesus and asks him to rebuke her sister. Jesus surprisingly takes Mary’s side. She’s the one, Jesus says, who has chosen the one necessary thing.
It's noteworthy that Martha is not condemned for serving. If we compare this passage to Acts 6:1-7, a Lukan passage with parallel themes, we see that serving tables was important for the mission of the church—so important, in fact, that it warranted the creation of the office of deacon. Also, Jesus rebukes Martha very gently, affectionately repeating her name—“Martha, Martha, you are troubled about many things.”
Martha’s problem isn’t that she’s serving Jesus. Rather, her mistake lies in her choice of service over listening to his word. She’s “distracted with much serving.” She’s chosen serving him to the neglect of listening to him. In Luke’s gospel, faithful discipleship is defined by listening to the word of Jesus (6:49; 8:15; 8:18; 8:21; 9:35). Jesus elsewhere calls his people to serve. However, service must never rise to the expense of listening to the word. Of the two, listening is the one thing necessary, the “good portion, which will not be taken away.”
It is hard to imagine a scriptural account with more cultural resonance to today. In fact, I have returned to this story repeatedly for course correction in my own life. We live amidst so many distractions and make so many excuses for our neglect of Christ’s word. We commonly hear from people who feel overly busy, always on, and overstimulated. We carry distraction-devices around to avoid never having to face boredom or sit alone with our thoughts. We are all Martha.
Luke places this account right after the Parable of the Good Samaritan in answer to Jesus’s conversation with a lawyer in which Jesus commends his description of covenant faithfulness as loving God and loving neighbor. If the Good Samaritan parable defines love of neighbor, it seems as if Luke intends this account to define love of God. To Jesus, sitting at his feet and listening to his words is how we love him. The hypothetical wife at the beginning of this article has a point.
When your life is over and the pastor sits down to prepare your eulogy, he will work from the materials at hand to attempt to describe your life accurately. In a very real sense, what we choose to pay attention to defines our lives. You may even say, “We are what we pay attention to.” It’s just another way of saying something else that the Bible repeatedly affirms—we are what we worship, or we are what we love. We will devote our lives to whatever we value the most, and taking inventory of what we pay attention to is one measurable way to calculate who we are becoming. At the end of our lives, what has most shaped us into who we are will be what we chose to give our attention to.
Service to Jesus must derive from devotion to Jesus. Devotion to Jesus is cultivated at his feet. We arise to our feet to serve only after we’ve been filled with the words of life.
You can’t say to your spouse, “I love you, but I don’t want to spend time with you.” And you can’t say to Jesus, “I love you, but I don’t have time for your word.” If you love him, you will prioritize his word. You will ensure that you are habitually finding time to know him, to sit at his feet and listen to what he has to say. If you don’t have that habit right now, what are you waiting for? The clock of your life is ticking. Will you choose the one thing necessary, or will you waste your precious moments in pursuit of distractions?