Think of all the things you have to do first before you can do the things you want to do:

• You have to eat your vegetables before you have dessert.
• Do your homework before you go out to play.
• Work all year before you take a vacation.
• Work all your life until you retire.

The list goes on and on.  It is part of our ethic: labor before rest.  It’s for this reason that many of us identify as Martha’s.  Mary and Martha are sisters and friends of Jesus.  He comes to visit.  Martha is busy doing her chores while Mary sits at Jesus’ feet to hear what he has to say.

Martha isn’t happy about this.  “Jesus, tell that lazy so-and-so of a sister of mine to help me out.”  You can almost hear her: “I’ve laundry to do, dishes to clean, and I have not even begun cooking yet!”

Jesus’ response is interesting: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things, but few things are needed — indeed only one.  Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”  It seems to go against that list I just mentioned: you work and then you relax.  But Mary isn’t relaxing, and she isn’t just being a good host.  She has “chosen the better part.”

William Barclay offers two interpretations of this passage:

First, it is a clash of temperaments.  Barclay writes, “Some people are dynamos of activity; others are naturally quiet.”  He continues: “It is hard for the active person to understand the person who sits and contemplates.”  They seem lazy, don’t they?  But Mary is anything but lazy.  She is busy feeding her soul.  She is taking time to devote herself to learning all she can from Jesus.”

Second, according to Barclay, this story shows us the wrong type of kindness.  He asks us to think about where Jesus was and what he was doing in this part of the story.  “He was on his way to Jerusalem — to die.”  When he comes to Mary and Martha’s house, the latter was eager to celebrate Jesus’ presence “by laying on the best the house could give.  So she rushed and fused and cooked.”  Barclay tells us that such fusing about was precisely what Jesus did not want.”  He wanted her attention.  Barclay says that, “So often we want to be kind to people, but we want to be kind to them in our way; and should it happen that our way is not the necessary way, we sometimes take offense and think that we are not appreciated.  If we are trying to be kind, the first necessary step is to try to see the heart of the person we desire to help—and then to forget all our own plans and to think of what he or she needs.”

While I don’t disagree, I think that Barclay misses the real point.  Jesus is not just any old house guest.  He isn’t someone stopping in for a meal on his way to the big city, or spend a few moments kicking his feet up.  Jesus, the Word made flesh, the Messiah who has come to teach people about the kingdom of God — this same Jesus enters Mary and Martha’s house to teach or tell them something.  The test tells us that Mary “sat at Jesus’s feet and listened to what he was saying.”  That is the better part that she has chosen.

How much time do we spend listening to Jesus?  How much time do we carve out of our busy days just to sit and pray?  How much time to we allow ourselves to study the Scriptures, and I mean really study them: allowing the words to saturate our being and to shape our perspective?  That type of quiet time isn’t a priority for most of us.  We see it as leisure time: something we turn to when the rest of our busy work is done.  But that is not what Jesus wants.  He wants this to come first.

Patrick Mabilog writes the following: “No one wakes up one day accidentally praying or reading his or her Bible.  In fact, it’s more likely that we’ll accidentally forget to do so.  We all need some help when it comes to setting a time of regular devotions.  I believe that the Holy Spirit gives us a supernatural hunger and delight in God’s Word and God’s presence.  But no matter how much the Holy Spirit prods us to spend time with Him, we will find it hard to build strong devotions without creating a habit of scheduling a fixed time to do so.”  How true!  There’s other stuff that needs to come first, we think.  Put the dishes away, mow the lawn, wash the car, pick up the kids from soccer practice, make dinner, do the dishes again, and then — and only then — can you crack open your Bible and rest for a bit.

We’ve got the order all wrong.  God comes first.  Who cares if the vacuuming hasn’t been done yet?  My wife, who is definitely a Martha, is not here today.  She is flying out to Cleveland as we speak to go to the bridal shower of my son’s fiancée.  They are getting married in September.  This isn’t a criticism of Cindy’s spiritual life, because she is a person of deep faith who prays and ponders the bigger questions of existence.  But she is also a person who loves to clean.  She is organized.  Our house is always immaculate.  All of that is important.  I bring her up because, if she were here today, I can imagine how she would have looked at me when I said, “Who cares if the vacuuming hasn’t been done yet.”

Spend time with Jesus.  Make it a priority.  Sit at his feet each day and listen to what he has to say.  The Bible is one of those books that you get something new out of each time you read it.  Allow its stories to not only comfort you, but to disturb you — to challenge ways of thinking and being that have become rote to you.  Take time to be still.  We spend so much time watching what we eat and getting exercise to make sure that we stay physically fit, but, for many of us, our souls are famished.