Jesus: Guest or Friend?

Luke 10:38-42 is the well known account of Martha and Mary. Martha was more task oriented while Mary chose to sit at Jesus’ feet and learn from Him. Martha was rebuked, Mary was rewarded.

Many times we can relate to Martha more so than Mary. We are busy doing the “right”things while neglecting the “main” thing. When we get overwhelmed, it might be a good time to restructure.

Transcript

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Hey friends, thanks for joining me on this evening's Unfiltered with Jesse B. A quick shout out to listeners in Pokemon City, Maryland. And I hope I'm pronouncing that name correctly, but if I'm not, please forgive me. Just know that I appreciate all my listeners and want to welcome everybody to the Unfiltered Podcast listening family. If you like this content and think others you know would too, go ahead and share and subscribe. It doesn't cost you a thing to do so, only just a few seconds of your time, and I'd be humbly thankful. So after coming off of a busy weekend, I thought that it would be good to talk about Martha and Mary. I'll not read the scriptures, but it's found in Luke 10, 38 through 42, and you can read that for yourself and study it out. But most of us are familiar with the account detailing Jesus' visit to the sister's home. Martha, of course, was the busy one with the typical hospitality responsibilities, and Mary was the one who was taking it in, listening to Jesus' teachings and just enjoying his presence. Now, under stress, Martha finally complains to Jesus about her sister Mary not helping out, and Jesus actually rebukes Martha in her stress, not Mary, stating that Mary had chosen what was better, meaning that Mary was making the guest a priority, not the housework. Now, if you're like me, you've heard sermons and teachings on this account for years, and perhaps your opinions have teetered as mine have throughout the years, whether or not you're feeling sorry for Martha, or maybe even wondering if Mary was being a suck up of sorts while Martha's heart at work and being ignored and underappreciated. And also Mary's lack of help for her sister Martha being rewarded. However, we need to remember that Jesus looks at the heart above anything else. It wasn't that Jesus was unappreciative of Martha's hospitality. After all, when you have guests come to your home, you want everything to be as nice and presentable as possible, and the only rest comes from the host when they are sure of having done everything possible to make the guest feel welcomed and comfortable. However, it is hard for the host to fully enjoy guests if they're just frantically scurrying about, worrying about what needs to be done. It's not long before that host views having guests as more of a drudgery than a joy, because the work comes more about what the host has done and less about the comfort and company of a guest. So my grandmother Joanne went on to be with the Lord in 1993 at the young age of 57. God bless her, but she was more of a Martha on these things. And even though she loved it when people came to visit, behind the scenes she had an anxiety when people would come over because she wanted everything to be perfect. Now my grandparents' home wasn't anything fancy, it was just the standard Craftsman style rural Midwest home. It wasn't a South Fork ranch by any means, and those of you my age and older know what TV show that's from. But my grandmother always kept it clean by dusting, vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, dishes were always done, food was not left out, bathrooms were clean, and you know, just the standard daily things, weekly things. However, when a guest was expected, it became roof to floor, spick and span cleaning. My uncle, my grandpa's and grandma and grandpa's son lived in Kansas City, which was just a few hours north of the old home place in Missouri. So sometimes my uncle would joke about saying, Anytime my wife and I tell my mom we're coming in for the weekend, she thinks she has to remodel the house. Now, when it was learned that my grandmother had breast cancer and she was undergoing a lot of chemo treatments and radiation, those every so often visits from family became more frequent. And my grandfather and I did the best we could to help out and keeping things in order, but to grandma it wasn't the same as doing it herself. And I remember my uncle respectfully and kindly telling my grandmother, Mama, Tracy and I aren't coming down there to see your house or what you've done with the property. We just want to come spend time with you. We're here for you. How many times have we treated Jesus as a guest? You know, always busy doing the right things while neglecting the main thing? On a corporate level I have seen more ministries concerned with numbers of attendees and service than they are about souls being saved and lives being changed. On an individual basis, I confess that there are times when I catch myself being more concerned about cord progressions and dynamics than I have been about the Holy Spirit actually working through the worship service. On a personal level, I can attend church every Sunday and fulfill all my responsibilities there and not take time to spiritually eat, and then I go to God a hot mess when I'm overwhelmed and ready to explode or want to pull the blankets up over my head and cry. And that's when I know that I have marthed enough for the day. It's time to be like Mary for a while. It's important to note that Jesus does not expect us to neglect our responsibilities. He knows that we have to work, we have families, friends, church, school, kids, house cleaning, oil changes, dentist appointments, etc. etc., all demanding our attention. But if things get to the point where we're feeling overwhelmed with the right things while neglecting the main thing, that's a pretty good indication that we need to take a lesson from Mary to sit with Jesus and learn from him. Thanks for listening. Love you guys. Good night.