A life of devotion

We are all very familiar with the stories of the two sisters, Martha and Mary. Martha was almost certainly the older and she was the one who served – who got the job done. Mary just sat around at Jesus’ feet.

If asked which one you identify with, most of us would say Martha. We know Jesus said, ‘few things are needed – or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.’ (Luke 10: 42) but somehow sitting at Jesus’ feet when there’s work to be done doesn’t seem like the ‘better’ thing.

However Mary lived the life of devotion that followed the first and greatest commandment Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength (Mark 12: 30). It was given by Moses to the Israelites (Deuteronomy 6: 4- 5) and is part of the bedrock of the Jewish faith, the Shema, spoken by pious Jews morning and evening and it starts synagogue services.

Mary loved the Lord extravagantly and her greatest act of devotion is recorded in John 12: 1 – 8. A dinner was given at Lazarus’ house – Martha and Mary’s brother – in Jesus’ honour. Martha was serving as usual and Lazarus was reclining with all the guests.

Mary then did something incredibly brave. She walked into a room full of men eating their dinner and instead of quietly serving, the appropriate thing for a woman, she brought an expensive jar of pure nard and poured it on Jesus’ feet. The women would have been shocked and the men embarrassed. It was so inappropriate.

Some have surmised that this perfume may have been Mary’s inheritance. Money was hard to keep safe so inheritances came in the form of land or objects. Mary was blowing the very thing that would keep her in her old age in one extravagant act of devotion.

The apostle John noted that the fragrance filled the whole house – her act of abandoned love touched everywhere.

However even more shockingly Mary undid her hair and wiped Jesus feet with it. If people were embarrassed before, now they would not know where to look. Respectable women did not unbind their hair in public and only lowly servants dealt with dirty feet. Mary was not mindful of her reputation or her social standing, she just wanted to pour out her love to Jesus.

Some present ‘rebuked her harshly’ (Mark 14: 5) and she invoked criticism especially from Judas Iscariot who piously would have liked to give the proceeds of the sale of the nard to the poor. In reality he wanted to get his own hands on the money (John 12: 6). In this account in Mark 14, Judas was so offended by her waste that he went to the chief priests to betray Jesus. It was if it was the final straw.

Jesus however commended Mary for her beautiful act of worship. You can imagine all those reclining at the table who hadn’t known where to look before now sagely nodding their heads in agreement.  Jesus then said, ‘Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.’ How true - today we all know about Martha and Mary and her life of adoration.

Devotion though is a hard path to walk. Mary was criticised by her own family for sitting at Jesus’ feet instead of helping. The believers criticised her for extravagantly wasting an expensive jar of perfume.

Mary chose the ‘better way.’ Works for the Lord are important but they flow out of the greater thing. The priority is to Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

People will almost certainly criticise us for extravagant acts of worship – for living a lifestyle devoted to God – but it is the ‘better way’.

God's unconditional love

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.  John 11: 5

Jesus looked at him and loved him. Mark 10: 41

And standing here beneath the shadow of the cross.

I'm overwhelmed that I keep finding open arms.  Kari Jobe ‘What love is this?’

I am sure we all know that Jesus’ love is unconditional but this truth seems always easier to grasp when we are doing well and got our act together. But when we fail, when we show the wrong attitude or when we just plain mess up God’s unconditional love seems to melt away.

Nothing, of course, is further from the truth as these two little Bible verses show. We are all familiar with the story of Mary and Martha with Martha doing her diligent, older sister hospitality and Mary just sitting at Jesus’ feet.  When Martha asked Jesus to tell Mary to help, this was the tender answer: ‘Martha, Martha,’ the Lord answered, ‘you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed – or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.’

You see Mary was not just sitting at Jesus’ feet idly doing nothing.  She was being taught.  Her posture was one of pupil learning from her master. This was the better thing. Martha may have got it ‘wrong’ but Jesus loved Martha as we later see. He also loved her brother Lazarus and Mary but her name as the older sister came first.  In that culture, at that time Lazarus would have been the first name and then Martha. Even though Martha had not chosen the better way like her sister Mary, Jesus loved her. He loved her diligence, her servant hood, her desire to make people feel welcome and he loved her.

The second verse comes in the account of the rich young ruler or rich man who came to Jesus to ask him what he must do to gain eternal life. Jesus asked him if he kept the commandments and he said he did. Then Jesus looked at him and loved him. He saw to the heart of the matter, his wealth was a stumbling block to his relationship with God. Jesus told the young man to get sell his possessions and give his money to the poor. This was not a universal command to everyone. It was Jesus’s solution to this young man’s problems. 

Despite having this hindrance of wealth, Jesus loved him.  Like Martha he tried so hard and wanted the right thing.  Both his wealth and Martha’s desire for good hospitality were blocking their relationship with the Father.  Jesus in love showed them the better way, for Martha it was that sitting at his feet learning was even more important than serving. For the rich man it was getting rid of his wealth as it was a stumbling block.

When we get it wrong, when we miss it, Jesus will look at us and love us and then show us the better way.  In the shadow of the cross Jesus’s welcoming arms are always open.

Jesus loved Martha

We are all familiar with the story of Mary and Martha found in Luke 10: 38 – 42.  Martha ‘opened her home’ to Jesus and then got all caught up in the arrangements whilst Mary sat devotedly at his feet listening to him.

The same thing happened at a special dinner served in Jesus’ honour (John 12: 1 – 3) at their house in Bethany at the start of the Passover week.  Martha is serving (again), Lazarus is reclining at the table with Jesus and Mary is extravagantly and devotedly pouring her love out by anointing Jesus’ feet with expensive nard and wiping his feet with her hair.  This time Judas Iscariot complains about the cost and again Mary is commended for her devotion. 

Poor Martha – forever stuck in the kitchen.  However before we get carried away on a wave of sympathy for poor Martha, let’s take a look at the one other occasion the family is mentioned when Lazarus is sick (John 11).  The sisters send for Jesus who waits two days before setting off and in the meantime Lazarus dies.  However there is a very important verse slipped in here, ‘Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus’ (John 11:5).  It is obvious Jesus loved the whole family very much but note the order here – not devoted Mary, faithful Lazarus and, oh by the way, serving Martha.  Martha comes first and Mary is merely mentioned as her sister.  This story is all about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead yet Martha takes a central role in it. 

When Jesus finally sets off for their home knowing full well that Lazarus has died but that God would be glorified, the first one out to greet him is – Martha.  Naturally she chides Jesus for not being there to heal her brother but faith is not dead because she says, ‘But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask’(John 11:22). Jesus assures her that her brother will rise and she says that she knows that on the last day he will be resurrected. 

Then this wonderful exchange takes place, Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.  Do you believe this?’

‘Yes Lord,’ she told him, ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.’ (John 11: 25 – 26)

It is Martha who comes out with the profession of faith.  Martha who is always busy in the kitchen but she has faith.  Mary knows Jesus could have healed Lazarus but she does not have resurrection of the dead in her mind.  Martha does.

Too often people say they are a bit of a Martha by which they mean they prefer to be doing and serving rather than sitting at Jesus feet.  But Jesus loves Marthas and serving is no substitute for faith.   It is not serving or sitting at Jesus’ feet – it is both. Jesus loves Marthas and Marys.