The One Thing Needed

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, October 23, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Luke 10:38-42.

            Mary and Martha.  It’s a story some of us have heard many times before.  Martha is running around, doing this, doing that.  Taking care of all sorts of things that need to be done.  Mary is just sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening to what He says.  Martha gets upset and tells Jesus to tell Mary to get off her rear end and do something to help.  Jesus, probably very much to the surprise of Martha, not only does not criticize Mary, he praises Mary.  And, by implication, criticizes Martha.  He says Mary has made the better choice.  In fact, Mary has made the best choice she could possibly have made.

            How many of us, when we hear that story, feel kind of sorry for Martha?  In fact, how many of us really kind of feel like Martha got a raw deal from Jesus?  

I mean, here’s Martha.  She’s working hard.  We’re not told exactly what she was doing, but we are told that she was working on “all the preparations that had to be made.”  So we can guess what she might have been doing.  Preparing food.  Cleaning the house.  Washing clothes.  Setting the table.  Making sure everyone had a place to sit.  The things you do when company is coming.  Especially when the company is someone as special and important as Jesus.

It’s a lot of work.  And of course, it was even more work back then, when everything was done by hand and you had to haul water in and all that.  And it’s not like Martha was going overboard to impress Jesus or something.  This was all work that needed to be done.

And so, Jesus comes.  And apparently, Martha’s not ready.  Maybe Jesus came earlier than she expected.  Maybe things took longer than Martha thought they would.  But Jesus comes, and Martha still has work to do.  And probably, Martha is a little embarrassed about the fact that she’s not ready.

And she looks over, and there’s her sister Mary, just sitting there, visiting with Jesus.  We don’t know what they were talking about.  Maybe Jesus was saying some really profound things.  Or maybe they were just chatting about the weather or something.  We have no idea what they were saying.  But Martha cannot believe her sister is just sitting there, yakking away, when there’s all this work to be done.

Have you ever been in a situation where you’re working as hard as you can, and then you look over and see someone–maybe a co-worker, maybe just a friend or relative, but someone who certainly could help you, and maybe even should be helping you–and they’re just sitting there visiting, or fiddling around on their phone, or watching TV or something?  How does that make you feel?  You’re probably kind of upset.  You probably feel just Martha did with Mary.  How can you just sit there doing nothing when there’s all this work to be done?

So why would Jesus respond the way he did?  Why would Jesus not just refuse to make Mary get up and help, but actually praise Mary for not helping?

Well, let’s look at it another way.  Last year, there was a survey taken of what people felt was most important to have a fulfilling, satisfying life.  The number one thing was having good friends.  Number two was having a job or career you enjoy.  Number three was being in a committed romantic relationship, followed by having children, being married, earning a lot of money, and having a lot of money.

Now, I’m not saying any of those things is unimportant.  But I hope it occurred to you what was left out of that.  God.  A relationship with God was not, by most people, considered one of the most important things necessary for living a fulfilling, satisfying life.

We look for satisfaction, we look for happiness, in so many places.  There are so many things that seem so important to us.  And some of those things do make us happy, for a while.  But they fade.  The happiness, the good feelings, they fade.  

The things people listed are good things.  It’s good to have friends–you’ve heard me say many times that life is too hard for us to go through alone, and God does not want us to try.  I can tell you from personal experience that having a career you enjoy is a wonderful thing.  We all want someone to love and a family.  And while I don’t know that having “a lot” of money is important, we all want to have enough that we can pay our bills and live comfortably, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

It’s not that any of that is bad.  It’s that none of it is enough.  You can have good friends, a wonderful job, a loving spouse and family, and plenty of money, and it still won’t be enough.  The only thing that makes it enough is having God in your life.  The only thing that makes it enough is having a relationship with Jesus Christ and knowing that Jesus is, in fact, the Savior.

            And so, we get back to Martha.  Again, I’m not saying Martha was doing anything wrong.  Jesus did not say she was doing anything wrong.  Martha was not sinning by doing the things she was doing.

            But the way it looks to me, Martha was trying to find fulfillment and satisfaction in the work she was doing.  Having a clean house, cooking wonderful meals, having a table that looked right, making sure the clothes were washed–all that was important to her.  She was trying to find fulfillment and satisfaction in her life from doing those things.

            And none of it was bad.  But none of it was enough.  And Martha could tell, somehow, that it was not enough.  And so, she wanted Jesus to get Mary to help.  She thought that if Mary did her part, the house would finally be clean enough, the food would be good enough, the table would look perfect, the clothes would be sparkling white, and she would finally find her fulfillment from the work she was doing.

            But Mary was not going to do her part.  It’s not necessarily that Mary thought those things were unimportant.  It’s just that none of those things would be enough unless she had a relationship with Jesus Christ.  And so, when Jesus was there, right in front of her, she was going to take advantage of that.  

            And that’s why Jesus approved of what Mary did.  It’s not that Jesus wanted Mary to get out of her work.  But there would be plenty of time to get the work done later.  I’ve always said that work is the most patient thing in the world–it always just sits there and waits for you to get to it.  The work would be there later–but Jesus might not be.  And the chance to have that relationship with Jesus might not be.  And so, when Mary had the chance to improve her relationship with Jesus Christ, she was going to grab that chance.  She knew that was that relationship was and always would be the most important thing in her life.  As Jesus himself said, “Few things are needed–indeed, only one.”  And Jesus wanted Mary to have that one thing that’s needed.

            Jesus wanted Martha to have it, too.  You know, we’re not told what Martha did after this conversation with Jesus.  The story is dropped there.  Luke moves on to the next topic, Jesus teaching the disciples to pray.

            What do you think Martha did?  Did she go on with her work?  Was she now upset with Jesus, just as she’d been upset with Mary?  After all, there were lots of people–and in fact there still are lots of people–who are upset with Jesus when Jesus does not do what they want Him to do or when Jesus does not tell them what they want to hear.  Maybe Martha was one of those people.

            But I hope–and I suspect Jesus hoped–that Martha stopped her work.  That she sat down, maybe next to Mary, and talked with Jesus.  That she listened to Jesus’ words, that she asked Him questions.  That she learned from Him.  That she strengthened her relationship with Him.  That she had that one thing that’s needed, just like Mary did.

            And I hope that’s what you and I will do, too.  I’m not saying your work is unimportant.  Jesus did not say Martha’s work was unimportant.  But nothing in your life, and nothing in my life, will be really satisfying if we don’t have a strong relationship with Jesus Christ.  We’ll always be trying to do more, trying to work harder, trying to make everything perfect, thinking that if we do that, somehow we’ll finally be happy.  But it won’t work.  Not if we don’t first get a strong relationship with Jesus Christ.

            “Few things are needed–indeed, only one.”  This week, and every week, let’s work on that one thing that’s needed.  Let’s improve our relationship with Jesus Christ.  If we do that, I think we’ll find that everything else will fall into place.  And we’ll have that fulfilling, satisfying life that we all want.