Sitting Still When There's So Much to Do

Jesus had just finished his story about the man on the dangerous road, and now he was back on a road himself, walking with his friends toward Jerusalem. Late in the day they came to a village, and a woman named Martha flung her door open.

"Teacher! Come in, come in! Sit down! You must be starving!"

Martha lived there with her sister, Mary, and the Bible says Jesus loved them both. So Martha did what people do for someone they love. She cooked.

There was bread to bake and water to haul up from the well. There were lentils to stir, a lamp to light before dark, and a floor that suddenly looked very dusty. Martha hurried from the oven to the water jar to the table and back to the oven, sleeves pushed up and cheeks red from the fire, and while her back was turned the pot boiled over. HISS!

(Feeding a teacher and his tired, hungry friends was a big job. Bread does not bake itself, and nobody had invented the sandwich.)

Mary did not hurry anywhere. She sat down on the floor at Jesus' feet and listened to every word he said.

(In those days the place at a teacher's feet was the student's place. Mary had taken it, and Jesus let her stay.)

Martha cleared her throat. Loudly. Mary did not look up.

Martha set a bowl down on the table. CLUNK. Mary kept listening.

Martha stirred the pot so hard the spoon rang against the sides. "Mary will notice," she muttered. "Any minute now."

Mary did not notice. She was busy hearing Jesus.

At last Martha marched across the room, wiping her hands on her clothes. "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to come and help me!"

(Martha was so busy serving her guest that she had started giving him orders.)

Jesus looked up at her. He did not send Mary to the kitchen. He did not tell Martha that her cooking was wrong. He said her name, gently, and then he said it again, the way you might call to a friend whose thoughts have run off somewhere far away.

"Martha, Martha. You are worried and upset about so many things. But only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the good portion, and it will not be taken away from her."

A portion is a helping of food, the share that gets put on your plate. Martha was rushing to make many dishes. Jesus said Mary had already found the best one, and she was eating it right there on the floor.

The Bible does not tell us what Martha said next. It does tell us that Jesus came back to visit this family again, and that one day Martha hurried out along the road to meet him.

By morning Martha's supper had been eaten and the bowls were washed and stacked. Every supper goes that way. What Mary received from Jesus that evening was still hers.

The road went on toward Jerusalem. Along the way Jesus told a story about a master who came home late and found his servants still awake, waiting for him. That master tied on an apron, sat his servants down at his own table, and served them supper himself. Then, at his last supper with his friends, on the night before he died, Jesus said it plainly: "I am among you as the one who serves."

Martha had been rushing to feed him, and all along he had come to feed her. That was the guest Martha had been cooking for. Mary had chosen the best helping in the house, and it was Jesus.