I’m always thankful for the opportunity to speak at a Ladies’ Day or to write articles. They are humbling experiences for me. I hope and pray that readers get as much learning from Martha and Mary as I had in preparing this lesson. I have learned so much from these two sisters for my everyday life. I want to be as spiritual as I believe they were.
What herein is an article was first my presentation at a Ladies’ Day hosted by the Wildwood, Florida Church of Christ. I appreciate and love the ladies from the Wildwood congregation. They are a very special group of Christian workers for the Lord. From the first day Louis and I put our membership there, the church welcomed us as family and made us feel special.
Let’s make this lesson very personal. Only you can answer the questions I ask. Are you a Martha? Yes, ladies, I am Martha! I am a Martha in more than one way since my name is Martha. Sometimes, I am cumbered about with much service like Martha of old. Other times I work hard for the Lord as best I feel I can, as Mary did in our lesson today. I do believe that over the years Martha has gotten a bad rap. She really thought she was doing right, or she would not have gone to the Lord asking Him to tell Mary to come and help her. Let’s read Luke 10:38-42.
Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.” And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” (NKJV)
In this reading, we find Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus. She was listening to every word He said. She worshipped our Lord, while Martha was in the kitchen preparing a meal. Martha wanted everything to be perfect for the Lord and her other guests. Is there anything wrong with wanting things to be done right and nice for company? I say, “No!” This is the way things should be. If something is worth doing, it is worth doing it right. This is the way I was raised by my mother and dad.
Martha wanted help getting things ready for all to eat. This was the Lord’s reply, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” This time Mary was the wiser of the two sisters. How often do we make the best and wisest choices? I am afraid, not as often as we should.
Was Martha sinning by preparing a meal for the Lord? Since she was doing the cooking, the cleaning up, maybe setting the table, etc., who would do this work if she or Mary weren’t making ready for the Lord? I doubt she had servants, or she would have been sitting at the feet of Jesus just like Mary. I am here to tell you she was not sinning with the work she was doing. Martha’s problem was, she was doing physical labor and not giving spiritual honor to Jesus at the time. She was not putting the Lord first.
Ladies, I am here to tell you Martha is not alone! I believe most women have this problem. This is not an excuse. This is letting the Devil have his way with us. When I was in 7th grade English, my teacher Mrs. Wheeler said, “An excuse is a made up lie we tell ourselves or someone else.” I do not remember a lot from her class, but this is one thing that has stuck with me for over 60 years. What an impression she made on me. I do not agree that every excuse is a lie! I believe it is telling ourselves that what I want to do is more important or what I think needs to be done. This is letting the Devil have his way with us.
I know I am a Martha. Sometimes, I get busy and involved with doing chores around the house, doing errands, doctor appointments, etc. and by bedtime I am exhausted and can hardly keep my eyes open. Have I studied God’s Word? No, and if I try to read, I fall asleep with my Bible in my hands. If I do get my reading done, I probably do not remember what I just read. Therefore, I have been a Martha, Martha, and my priorities were not in place where they should have been.
Maybe some of you ladies work out of the home. Then, you have double duty as a housewife and mother. Can you come home from work and just sit, read and study when there is a husband and children you want to care for, children have homework to be done, sports practice or games to attend or whatever else your evening entails? If you and your husband do not take care of these things together, I ask you, “Who will?” Of course, a lot depends on the age of the children and how much help you get from them. Then, when it is time for bed, you are so tired you can hardly keep your eyes open to study Gods Word. You want to study, but you are just too tired. We take our nightly shower and fall into bed and collapse.
Ladies, sometimes the dishes may have to sit in the sink, or the laundry goes unfolded or whatever else is waiting to be done. It may have to wait until a later time. Of course, our house is not in perfect shape, but our spiritual life and the spiritual welfare of our family is intact. Don’t forget to spend time in Bible study and prayer with your children daily. We all need to learn to make the time to study more. We need to be a Mary and put the Lord first, setting the right example for our family. They are our first and primary ones to bring to the Lord. If our children see us putting the Lord first, they will also do this when they are older. In our busy world this is much easier said than done.
I have a Christian friend my home congregation whose practice is especially praiseworthy. I am sure there are others from the Lord’s church who do this very thing, also. Every morning, she starts her day with a cup of coffee and her Bible. She gets her reading and prayer done. She is ready for whatever or whoever (Satan) meets her in the day. She is a Mary. She is ready for this confrontation. Satan appears in 2 Peter 5:8 as a fiend who goes about seeking whom he may devour. He doesn’t pounce on us like a lion does his prey, but he sneaks upon us as a sly, sneaky fox.
Remember the biblical account of King Balak and the prophet Balaam. The prophet turned to God before responding to the king and concluded, “If Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the word of the Lord, to do good or bad of my own will. What the Lord says, that I must speak” (Numbers 24:13 NKJV). Likewise, I am sure sister in Christ I cited is not the only lady in my congregation or elsewhere who turns to God’s Word first and at the beginning of one’s day. What a wonderful habit to do daily.
Two things that we as women don’t generally do is (1) take time for studying God’s Word and (2) take time for ourselves. We can do both at the same time. We can find a nice quiet place with a cup of coffee, a cup of tea, a glass of water or a glass of soda and sit to study God’s Word. It doesn’t have to be a long time but enough time to spend in study and prayer.
From John 11:1-54, we can learn how to balance our time as did Martha. We read of Martha, Mary and the death of their brother, Lazarus. In this period of Martha’s life, she is the one showing how much faith she has in Jesus. This is not to take away from Mary. These two sisters loved and believed in Jesus very much, as did Lazarus. Do we love and believe in Jesus as much as they did?
Wisdom is a hard-to-get quality that we admire in other people but find hard to develop in ourselves. God tells us in His Word that if we ask sincerely and do our part, we will get the wisdom we want. Please don’t forget the secret of receiving is to ask, seek and knock. Matthew 7:7-8 reads, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” God is willing for us to have spiritual wisdom, and He wants to give it, but we must do our part. In 2 Timothy 2:15 we read, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
John 11:1-45 is about Mary, Martha and Lazarus –two sisters and their brother Lazarus who died. Jesus was called from Bethany to come heal Lazarus because he was sick unto death. Jesus did not go immediately. He waited two more days. In talking with the disciples, Jesus said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (John 11:4). Jesus told the disciples that Lazarus was dead, and He was glad that He was not with him. This way they would believe.
When Jesus and the disciples were on their way to the home of Mary and Martha, friends had already come to comfort them at the death of their brother. As soon as Martha heard Jesus was nearing, she went to meet Jesus. She proclaimed how much faith she had in Jesus by telling Him, ‘Lazarus would not have died if You had been here.’ She also knew that whatever she asked of God, God would give it.
In their conversation, Jesus told her Lazarus would rise again. She knew of the resurrection, but Jesus was not talking of a future time. He was talking of right then. “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world’” (John 11:25-27).
Then Martha went to get Mary. She told her “the Teacher” is calling for you. She arose and those with her went quickly to go see Jesus. Jesus knew he could raise Lazarus from the dead. His tears were because of the sadness of His friends and those with them. Evidently, many loved Lazarus. Jesus saw how sad they were concerning the death of Lazarus, and He grieved and cried with them. Those with them saw how much Jesus loved Lazarus by His tears. John 11:35, “Jesus wept,” is probably one of the most quoted Scriptures because it is the shortest verse in the English Bible.
They wondered if Jesus could heal the blind, why could He not raise Lazarus from the dead. This was not a question in the mind of Jesus. At the tomb of Lazarus, Martha told Jesus that he had already been dead four days, and he stunk.
Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.” Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him, and let him go.” Then many of the Jews who had come to Mary, and had seen the things Jesus did, believed in Him. (John 11:40-45)
If Jesus had not called Lazarus by name, all of the dead would have risen and come forth. As you can see, Martha did not always put other things before the Lord. She was human, but that is not an excuse. We should not use our human frailties as excuses. By doing that, we play right into what the Devil wants us to do. We need to be responsible for our actions. We need to put our Lord first, and by this, we put first things first. We find in Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” What things will be added? The things our Lord knows we need come after one’s devotion to Him. Following is a poem about Martha.
Martha Loved Him, Too
Elwood McQuaid
We’ve been too hard on Martha,
Because of the rebuff.
I think somehow, we feel
She didn’t love her Lord enough.
No, quite to the contrary,
Martha’s love was such
That in her eagerness to serve,
She tried to do too much.
For there’s enough time for serving,
And there’s time for rest.
Everything in season.
Choosing what is best.
That hour had it’s “good part,”
In sitting at His feet,
Taking in the blessed Word
Which is our bread and meat.
Things must stay in balance,
So let us pray from youth,
“God, give me Matha’s diligence
And Mary’s love for truth.”
I hope you learned from Martha and Mary’s love for the Lord as much as I did when I prepared this lesson for all of us. I pray we can be more like them in the days to come.
