Martha, Martha
Download MP3Scripture reading for tonight is from Luke 1038 through 42. Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?
Speaker 1:Tell her then to help me. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. This is the word of the lord.
Joel Brooks:Thanks be to god. Pray with me. Lord, we ask that you would honor the reading of your word that it alone would penetrate into our hearts. Lord, as I begin to teach on that word, I ask that you would give me clarity and conviction. All of us could probably substitute our names in there for Martha Martha Because we're troubled and we're anxious about so many things.
Joel Brooks:We ask that through the power of your spirit, you would show us what those things are and that you would remove those things tonight. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but Lord, let your words remain and may they change us. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. For the next 2 to 3 weeks, I haven't decided yet, likely 3.
Joel Brooks:We're gonna be looking at the topic of prayer in Luke. It's actually going to be just kind of one long sermon broken up into different parts. I really love the story that we're gonna look at tonight and how it deals with prayer because it's a very ordinary story. You know, most of the stories that we've had about Jesus up to this point are pretty spectacular. They're miraculous in nature.
Joel Brooks:You have Jesus calming wind and waves. You, you have Jesus transfigured in front of everybody. And we love these stories, but they're harder to relate to. You should relate to them, but they're, they're harder to, at least for me. It's, you know, transfigurations don't happen in everyday life for me.
Joel Brooks:But here, this is an everyday occurrence. It meets us where we live. This is a story about cooking, about getting things ready when guests arrive. It's, about family relationships and squabbles. It's about sisters fighting with one another which at the Brooks household is a daily occurrence.
Joel Brooks:I see this happening, And so I love this text because it's it's me. It's easy to relate to. This story is is different in Luke, you know, than the other miraculous stories. And in another way too, it's different in the people that Jesus rebukes. We've seen Jesus rebuke a few people in Luke and he's gonna rebuke a lot more people in Luke coming up.
Joel Brooks:But usually it is, you have 2 sets of people. You have the religious person and the Christian person And Jesus rebukes the religious person. You have the person who clings to their own moral righteousness and the person who knows they're a failure and they cling to grace. And Jesus rebukes the person who clings to their own moral righteousness. And you see that.
Joel Brooks:But here you actually have 2 Christians. 2 people who love Jesus, 2 people who want to serve Jesus, and Jesus rebukes 1 of the Christians who wants to serve Him. And before we throw Martha under a bus, we need to realize that she's actually a godly woman. She's a very godly woman. She and Peter give the 2 greatest confessions to Jesus in the gospels.
Joel Brooks:And we know the the famous confession of Peter found in Matthew 16 is also found in the chapter we looked at last week in Luke. When Jesus asked Peter, who do you say I am? And in Matthew 16, Peter says, you are the Christ, son of the living god. That's one of the greatest confessions that we have in the gospels. Well, Martha has a similar confession in John chapter 11, and it's after her brother Lazarus had died.
Joel Brooks:And she meets with Jesus, and Jesus is about to raise Lazarus from the dead, and she says this. She goes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God who is coming into the world. And that is a amazing confession of faith. She and Peter have the 2 greatest confessions you're gonna find in the gospels. And so when you see Martha, see a woman of great faith, see a woman who loves the Lord, see a woman who wants to serve him.
Joel Brooks:And that's what makes this story, at least to me, so fascinating because Martha is all of those things and she's rebuked. She is still rebuked because she's serving Jesus the wrong way. And I bet we have a lot of Martha's here in this room. Let's take a closer look at the story. It's 6 months till Jesus will be executed at this point in his life.
Joel Brooks:He probably is going to Martha's house to get a little rest. These are good friends of his. He probably considers them family. He loves them dearly. In John chapter 11, when Lazarus, who was the brother of Mary and Martha, when Lazarus was sick, somebody came to Jesus and just said, Hey, the one whom you love is sick.
Joel Brooks:Didn't even have to say Lazarus's name, the one you love. And he's like Lazarus. Jesus is very attached to this family. They're dear to him. Let's read again verse 38 through 40 here.
Joel Brooks:Says now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. So the picture here is Martha is cooking, and while she is cooking, Mary is in the other room as she's sitting at the feet of Jesus, and she's just listening to his teaching. And this is really astonishing because to sit at the feet of somebody is actually a technical term meaning discipleship.
Joel Brooks:When Mary sits at the feet of Jesus, it it means that she is a disciple of Jesus, which is really amazing because in this day, women were not allowed to be disciples of any rabbi. They weren't allowed. This a woman's place was actually in the kitchen. Martha's where she's supposed to be, in the kitchen, not at the feet of Jesus, learning at a rabbi. And but you're gonna see throughout the book of Luke, Jesus liberates women to serve him.
Joel Brooks:And you're gonna see this over and over in the gospel of Luke more than any of the other gospels, how Jesus liberates women. And we'll see this in the weeks ahead. So Mary, she's a disciple. She's sitting at the feet of Jesus and Martha is cooking. Luke actually says that Martha was distracted with much serving.
Joel Brooks:The word distract literally means to pull away or to drag away. And the picture here is that Martha wants to be in the room with Jesus. She wants to be in the room with Jesus, but she is being pulled away by other things. She is being dragged away by other things. She's being distracted.
Joel Brooks:She wants to be with Jesus, but now she looks, she has to cook. She has to do all these things. It's gotta be a nice meal because it's Jesus after all, this better be a spectacular meal. Jesus likely has all of his disciples with him. So that's 12.
Joel Brooks:Peter probably eats for like 4 and so you got like 16 there plus her own family. She's preparing a nice meal for about 20 plus people here. That takes a lot of energy and she she wants to be with Jesus. She wants to hear him teach, but she's being pulled to do this because somebody's got to do this. Martha is described as distracted, anxious, troubled, And she's all of these things because she's one of those take charge kind of people.
Joel Brooks:I don't know if you noticed, but the house is described as Martha's house. They went to Martha. So they didn't go to Lazarus's house. They didn't go to Mary's house. They went to Martha's house.
Joel Brooks:She's the one who's in control. She's the one who runs the family. She's probably a firstborn, you know, that kind of take charge kind of person. When her brother Lazarus died, you can see some of the family dynamics there. Mary stayed behind with the body.
Joel Brooks:Martha ran on the road to meet Jesus and she told him exactly what she was thinking. Jesus, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. That that takes some guts right there, but that's who she is. She's this take charge kind of woman. There's not a lazy bone in her body.
Joel Brooks:Nobody can out serve Martha. She's always busy. She's always serving, and yet there is always something pulling her away from Jesus, pulling her away from time at his feet. Now commentary after commentary that I read pointed out that the church fathers, actually they saw Mary as representing somebody in full time ministry and Martha is representing a lay person, which is absolutely laughable. I have no problems this time of saying the church fathers are completely wrong when it comes to this.
Joel Brooks:They're crazy because Martha, if anybody represents the minister. Even the word serve is, you know, to serve actually is the same word as to minister. And so she's a picture of a person who is ministering and you know, a person who just tries to minister, it could become nothing but service apart from time with Jesus. You know, I could just look at my week and you know, you have all these emails, you have all these studies. I need to meet with this person.
Joel Brooks:I need to do all these things, and also, and I think, well, wait a second. Isn't Jesus part of the equation somewhere? Isn't he? What about sitting at his feet? Being a professional minister can be quite dangerous.
Joel Brooks:Well, Martha, she's in the kitchen and she finally has enough. I don't know about you, but I can picture this scene. I can hear this scene. I I picture like pots, hear pots and pans, like banging, making lots of noise, oven doors being slammed shut. You know, kind of like the the the whistle on the kettle is the kettle's just whistling, and she lets it go for like 5 minutes trying to get attention.
Joel Brooks:And, you know, she might come in and serve appetizers and she just kind of walks in, sets it down, glares at Mary, walks back in. I mean, I could really picture this scene. And finally, she can't take it any longer. So she walks up, she interrupts Jesus. She walks in straight to Jesus and she essentially says, Jesus, do something.
Joel Brooks:Do something. Make her help me. And so in her serving Jesus, she's asking Jesus to now serve her. And Jesus responds in verse 41. He says, But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.
Joel Brooks:Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken away from her. Now, let me just, I feel I need to say this. Husbands never ever say this to your wives. Don't do it. I've done that before.
Joel Brooks:I've gone, Lauren, Lauren, why are you troubled about so many things? And, don't you don't do that because you really, you misrepresent what Jesus is communicating here. It's a bad idea on many levels. But Jesus, when you repeat somebody's name, he's not saying this like with a sigh. Martha, Martha, when will you ever learn?
Joel Brooks:That's that's not it. To repeat somebody's name was a sign of deep affection and emotion. You know, when David lost his son, it's oh Absalom Absalom. When Jesus is weeping over Jerusalem, it's Jerusalem, oh Jerusalem. When Jesus knows that Peter is about to be tempted by Satan, he goes, oh, Simon, Simon.
Joel Brooks:Satan has demanded to sift you. And this is a term of extreme emotional affection. Jesus isn't just rebuking her. He's saying, I love you. I'm attached to you.
Joel Brooks:Now listen to this, please. Says, look at Mary. Mary's right. She has chosen the better portion. Basically what Jesus is saying.
Joel Brooks:You're spending all this time fixing a meal, but she has chosen the better meal, the better portion, which is being with me. I want you to look at, I said this is going to be a 3 weeks on prayer. And so I want you to look at the difference in the prayer life between Mary and Martha. And we'll look at Mary first. Mary is sitting.
Joel Brooks:Mary is listening. Martha is full of request. Mary is satisfied with simply being with Jesus. Martha has a list of all the things that need to happen in order for her to be satisfied. And real quick, I feel like I need to say this.
Joel Brooks:Don't think of Mary as being, you know, like the lazy one and Martha is, you know, the one who works hard. Mary was in the room before she was helping before. Martha says, don't you, you know, doesn't it concern me that my sister left me? Meaning she once was in the kitchen. She once was helping, she was doing the work, but, but Mary knew when to cut out.
Joel Brooks:She knew when it was enough. And so she backed out to be with Jesus, but at one time she was working, she was helping. She just knew when she needed to end that and be with Jesus. For her, she's thinking, okay, Jesus doesn't need a 10 course meal. I'd rather go spend time with him.
Joel Brooks:But for Martha, she didn't know when to stop. And all of these things became necessary for her. All of these things had to happen in order for her to be happy and to be satisfied. And she might think she's doing these things for Jesus, but she is not. She's doing all these things for herself, not Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Jesus wants a relationship with her more than some 10 course meal, but she won't have it. You know, sometimes I'm, I'm playing with my, my kids. They ask if I'll play with like their little dollhouse people or something. And so I set up elaborate scenarios when I play with them. I mean, we, we have castles.
Joel Brooks:We, we have army men are part of the equation too somehow. And I'm setting up these huge situations and I'm building these grand castles and Natalie will say, Hey daddy, won't you just play with me? I'd be like, well, yeah, just hold on one second. I'm, I'm, I want to build this so we could play. Okay.
Joel Brooks:And so I'm setting up even higher towers. I mean, I, what I could do with wood blocks is amazing. And I'm setting all this up and Natalie goes, daddy, I really just want you to play. And I'm like, okay, will you just be quiet? I'm doing this for you.
Joel Brooks:Okay? Right. Like I'm doing that for her. At that point, it's me. It's all about me.
Joel Brooks:Maybe you are a, homemaker. And so you, you put a lot of time in your cooking because you want that perfect meal, you know, curse Martha Stewart for your, for, you know, making everything say, think it could be perfect and wonderful all the time. And so you have in your mind this gorgeous family meal. You're gonna work hard towards that. And of course the kids are going to sit down and say, mom, what a swell job you did.
Joel Brooks:This is probably the best food I've ever had. And they're going to sit and they're not gonna, you know, talk real loud, be crazy. They're gonna be, you know, nice gentle men or gentle women. And your husband is going to just sit and he's going to tell you all about his day because of course he's not emotionally tired or drained. He's just going to sit and you're going to have great adult conversation.
Joel Brooks:And that's the picture that you have. And then the reality is, as you're doing this, you know, kids are screaming or yelling. They're tired. They don't like this food. I want something else.
Joel Brooks:Your husband, he's there. He's like, oh gosh. I'm just so tired. You know, bowl of cereal is fine with me. And, and you're like, but I did this for y'all.
Joel Brooks:You'll sit, you enjoy, because I did this for you. No, you didn't. When it comes to that point, you didn't do it for them. It's about you and elbows can stop at this point. I'm looking around and I'm seeing so many elbows.
Joel Brooks:They can stop. Alright? But it's about you, what you want. It's about your way of trying to serve, but it's really about what you need, not what your family needs at that moment. We all like to serve like Martha.
Joel Brooks:It's in our nature. Martha thinks she has to do all these things. She thinks she has to do everything well and everything really has to be done well in order for her to be serving Jesus well, and in order for her to be satisfied. But she's not serving Jesus. She's serving herself.
Joel Brooks:And we're gonna look at more of this next week. She needs these things. She's not needing Jesus at this point. And so Jesus tells her essentially, Hey, Martha, you've got nobody to blame but yourself. I didn't ask you to do those things, so don't get frustrated about doing those things.
Joel Brooks:It's your own fault. It's essentially what Jesus says. You have to read between the lines a little bit, but you get the point. Let me ask you, do you think Jesus would give you more than you could handle? And I'm not asking about a task that requires faith.
Joel Brooks:I'm just talking about so many things on your plate, More things than you can handle. Do you think Jesus is that bad of a manager of your time? That he's going to give you all these tasks so that if you do them, it is impossible to actually spend time in prayer and study of his word. If you actually do all those things well, do you think Jesus would give you those things? Do you spend your life, you know, basically trying to fix Jesus a 10 course meal when he's just saying, Hey, I want a sandwich in your presence.
Joel Brooks:Okay. Let me ask you about your prayer life. Is your prayer life rushed? And when you do pray, are you somewhat mildly irritated at God because he's not helping you out with all of your tasks? And are you irritated at others, you know, who aren't helping you out or are you somewhat hurt that God's not answering your prayers?
Joel Brooks:Do you get fresh frustrated at others a lot for their lack of support? And when you do pray, do your prayers normally sound like this laundry list of all these requests, all these things that you need? If so, you might be a Martha. And Martha knew the Lord. Martha loved the Lord.
Joel Brooks:But Martha could not rest in the Lord. She felt this constant need to work for his approval. Her identity was not found in sitting. Her identity was found in doing. Also what we're going to look at next week.
Joel Brooks:Now Jesus, he said, we contrast her behavior with Mary. He says, Mary's doing the right thing. She's chosen the good portion. She has chosen the better meal. You know, she sat at Jesus's feet, listened to his words.
Joel Brooks:And I'm reminded of of Deuteronomy 8 that says, you know, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And so here you have Mary feasting on the word of God. That's her meal. That's her portion. That's the one thing that's necessary for her happiness.
Joel Brooks:Now let me tell you of a weekly occurrence that happens to me. During the week, I work really hard on studying the text, preparing for Sunday. Preaching is not something that really comes naturally to me. And so I have to put a lot of effort in that. And then every time I preach, I I always feel terrible about it afterwards.
Joel Brooks:It's a frustrating experience. But normally I study, I study and then come Sunday morning, I'm in my office usually at 5 am and I'm typing, staring at this blank computer screen. And for some reason today being the exception, usually Sundays are gorgeous. You know, I'm looking outside the windows in my office and I can swear, even though it's in the city, I hear like kids playing, you know, and all this stuff. And here I am, I'm stuck at this computer frustrated trying to type this all out.
Joel Brooks:And so I get it out. I come here, I preach, I go home and, it's hard for me to sleep on Sunday nights. Monday morning is the best day of the week for me. I wake up and I'm like, ah, a week until I have to preach again. Outstanding.
Joel Brooks:And so I get a cup of coffee. I sit in my chair, I open up the paper and I just try to relax. And it is almost like clockwork. Then God goes, boom, Let me unlock that text for you that you preached on last night. Let me tell you what it really means.
Joel Brooks:He unfolds it before me, and there it is, and I get it all wrong. He says, let me tell you how you should have preached that text. You should have said all this. I'm like, oh my gosh. Every Monday morning, we should have church Monday night, a second service, and I could go and I could preach you the correct message.
Joel Brooks:And every time I'm like, God, why didn't you tell me this 24 hours earlier? I could have really used this for the sermon. It'd been fantastic. And God tells me, you just answered your own question. You wanted that not to know me, You wanted it so you could do something better.
Joel Brooks:So you could try and serve better in this way, but you didn't really want me. You were using me. You had to have those things just so you could be satisfied, but I'm I'm giving you this just so you can know me. Goes against my nature. Let's look at Mary because I'm sick of looking at Martha, who's just like me.
Joel Brooks:Now, in order for her to sit at the feet of Jesus, she needed to pull herself away from the things that are pulling her away from Jesus. She's got to pull herself away from the things that are pulling her away from Jesus, which means she has to say no to a number of really good things in her life. Things that look like great ways to serve Jesus. To sit at the feet of Jesus is to be patient is to be unhurried. It means to find rest.
Joel Brooks:It means to waste time in the presence of Jesus. To sit at one's feet also means to put oneself under their authority. You know, we'll look at this in acts when we get there in about 3 years. In acts, when people came and they set their money at the apostle's feet, and when they set something at somebody's feet at the apostle's feet, they're saying this money is yours. It is now under your authority.
Joel Brooks:You can now use it exactly how you want to use it. It's no longer mine. And so when Mary sits at the feet of Jesus, she's saying, I'm under your authority. I am no longer mine. So if I need to waste my time here, that's great.
Joel Brooks:Or if you want me to do something, that's fine, but I'm yours. We see Mary at Jesus's feet, you know, not just here. We see her one other time in scripture. It's the same story. It's in John 12 and it's in Mark 14, in which Mary, she goes to the feet of Jesus and she takes an entire Now this perfume would have cost between $20,040,000 $20 to $40,000 it's an entire pound And she wasted at the feet of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And it describes it as the room was filled with that, that perfume, which I imagine it would be a pound of that. And when you see that, you got to ask what, what led her to this extravagant act of worship to put an entire pound of perfume down at the feet of Jesus. And in Mark chapter 14, Jesus says, you know, the reason she did this, she did this to prepare me for my burial, to prepare. And this that's an amazing statement because it means that Mary actually knew that Jesus was going to die. She did this for the purpose of preparing me for my burial.
Joel Brooks:And that's why she did this extravagant act. Waits $20,000 to $40,000 at the feet of Jesus to prepare him for what awaited him. And this is amazing because no other person in scripture understood that Jesus was to die. None of the disciples got it. You know, you have all these disciples are going, they're listening to Jesus and we've already seen at least two times how Jesus has said, hey, I'm going to go to Jerusalem.
Joel Brooks:They're going to take me. They're going to kill me. And we've looked how it went right over the disciples' head. They're like, uh-huh, uh-huh, messiahs don't die. And they're, and they're, they're filtering it in their minds the way they think they should understand these things.
Joel Brooks:They're not listening. But Mary sat and she listened. She was the kind of person when she came across the scripture and she read it, she didn't just say, okay, I know what this means. And she jumped. She sat there and she said, lord, teach me what this means.
Joel Brooks:Lord, open this up for me. I'm not gonna make any assumptions because often my assumptions are wrong. The disciples assumptions were wrong. Mary alone knew that Jesus was gonna die because she spent time listening to him. She alone did this extravagant, expensive act of worship, because she first listened and that listening letter to worship.
Joel Brooks:Sitting at the feet of Jesus. You need to see that as true service. Sitting at the feet of Jesus is having a prayer life that's about listening. It's about being, not about doing, and that's what shaped her life. Martha served Jesus through all of her activity and that's what comes naturally to us.
Joel Brooks:We're doers, we're performers, and we think that's how we need to serve. And as a result, we are distracted, anxious and troubled as we serve him. My desire for us as a church is that we become more like Mary. Sitters that we know when to serve, you know, when, when to, to do, when to work at the hospitality house, you know, when to come up early and set up for church, when to lead a home group, you know, when to have visitors over for dinner. We know when to do all those things and we know when not to, or if we have guests, we know when it's time to make a 5 course meal or when it's time to order pizza.
Joel Brooks:So we're not pulling our hair out. We know when it's time to actually, you know, maybe let our house seem like children live at our house. When people come over 1st, when people come over and you're like, wow, your house is immaculate. But yeah, we've been pulling our hair out and we're not prepared for relationship. We need to know when to let go of some of these things.
Joel Brooks:All of us as a church need to know when to let go of the things that Martha held onto so dearly. I want to sit at the feet of Jesus. And we've got these inner engines that are driving us, that revolt against that. We're gonna look at that next week. Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Lord, we do have all these inner engines that want to do rather than be. We want to be working instead of sitting because we feel good about ourselves when we're performing and we want you to notice. And Jesus, we're doing it all for you. Help us not to deceive ourselves and believing that lie. Much of our service, Lord has to do about us and forgive us.
Joel Brooks:I ask that we would no longer do things out of duty, but it always be done out of delight. Lord, as we have sat in your presence, as we have beheld your beauty, that leads us to serve you in extravagant ways. I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
