Pastoral Letter 125
Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,
Grace and peace to you all.
It felt good to join you in worship and fellowship last Sunday. I was happy to share with you some stories and reflect on my experience in Armenia and Artsakh. Once again thank you for praying to have a safe trip and for God’s blessing.
Now we look forward to our much-awaited Market Morning. After two years of break due to COVID-19, we are back and the next three weeks will be a busy time for us, for Virginia and our team. I am sure that by God’s grace we will have a successful program and good results as usual. Please be ready to do your utmost to support us as we are missing some of our usual active members.
A gentle reminder. We have received a special request from the Exodus Foundation asking for UHT (long life) milk. It would be good if everyone could donate a few 1L containers. We need to deliver it by the end of July. Please accept our thanks in advance.
Be safe and well, continue to pray, remembering those who need care, support and love and let us know if any member of the congregation that you know of needs our help and prayers.
Here are some more prayer points for this week:
- Pray for the poor, the sick, the vulnerable, the struggling and the stressed.
- Pray for those who are unwell and struggling with different kinds of medical issues.
- Pray for the Demirchian family in Artsakh as they struggle to have the minimum to sustain their lives.
- Pray for world peace and ask for God’s blessings.
- Pray for the hope that God gives.
Please let me know if you or anyone else has prayer points.
Best Regards,
Krikor
MESSAGE
Mary’s Better Choice
Luke 10:38-42
Last week we looked at the discussion of Jesus with the Jewish lawyer about the two great commandments of the Scripture: that we are to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, strength and that we are to love our neighbour as ourselves. And then Jesus told him the story of “The Good Samaritan” to illustrate how we should love our neighbour and now He uses the story of Martha and Mary, to illustrate how we should love God.
The story that we read today takes place in the village of Bethany which is located just outside of Jerusalem. Martha lived with her sister Mary and their brother Lazarus. It appears that Martha is the head of the household. Here in the home of Martha, Mary and Lazarus, Jesus and His disciples sit down for some relaxation away from the press of the crowds. Here is a home that Jesus had been to many times, a place that He knew He was loved and accepted. Both sisters are delighted to see Jesus but as you will see they express their enthusiasm in very different ways. In verse 38 we are told: “As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Lord’s feet listening to what he said.”
People have varying characters; some are active, always needing to be busy, never able to sit still. Others are thoughtful, willing to sit back and think things through. Martha is a very activity-oriented person; her sister, on the other hand, appeared to be of the more thoughtful nature. Many times, we have wrongly contrasted Martha and Mary, as though each Christian should make a choice to either be a worker like Martha or a worshipper like Mary. But in so doing I think we miss the point; the Lord wants each of us to imitate Mary in our worship and Martha in our work, and to achieve balance in both.
Mary is content to sit at Jesus’ feet soaking up the Word, and not “do” anything. But Martha was looking around at all the guests and saw the need to prepare a meal. Martha was obviously a great hostess; she got up and began to prepare food for Jesus and those who were with Him, considering it a privilege to prepare a meal for the Master! On the other hand, for Mary to sit at the feet of the Master was a privilege.
Is one right and the other wrong? No. Duty and Devotion are both necessary but there must be a balance.
Every action, every relationship, every institution has a basic focus, which is its reason for existence if it hopes to succeed; if it loses that focus it will fail. When you lose your focus, then you are in trouble. The story of the two sisters in the New Testament is the story where Luke contrasts two sisters, Mary and Martha and their relationship to Jesus on a particular occasion. In this story we find a good lesson to learn.
I don’t want to say that one did bad, and one did good. No, I would rather say one did that which was “good”, but the other did “better” or “best”.
The focus of our passage today isn’t that we should not be concerned about household tasks, but discipleship. We as the disciples of Christ need to choose the best over the good.
What does it mean to choose the better or the best over the good?
1. Being in the right place
In the story we see that Mary sat at the feet of Jesus, but Martha went to the kitchen.
The Greek word here (parakathizo) doesn’t mean to just sit, but sit near, which implies that she got as close to the Lord Jesus as she could possibly get.
Sitting at the feet of the master is the proper place for a disciple to be.
Paul said he was brought up at the “feet of Gamaliel” (Acts 22:3).
Luke 8:35 tells us the man whom Jesus cast demons out of sat at His feet.
If we want to be a good follower of Jesus and a good disciple we should choose to sit at His feet, as close as possible to hear His voice and learn from Him. Being near Him is the first important step.
2. Listening to the right voice
Mary, as she was sitting at His feet, heard the Words of Christ. She heard them clearly. While on the other hand Martha couldn’t hear the Words of Christ (at least not very well).
While at the feet of Jesus, Mary heard His word; “Listening to what he said”. Luke switched the tense of the verb here to an imperfect tense which means this was a continual listening and hearing process. She listened with attentiveness to everything He said, and she didn’t tire of His voice or of His teaching. She sat close enough to really hear what He had to say, which implies that she continued to think about them after He quit talking. You know there is a big difference between hearing and listening. You can hear a voice or someone speaking but not necessarily understand what that person is saying. While listening means hearing and understanding. We need to understand what the Lord is saying to us; not only hearing the Word being preached.
3. Setting priorities and avoiding distractions
Mary’s priority was being close to Christ. While Martha’s priority was serving Christ. “But Martha was burdened with a lot of serving…”
Is serving bad? No, of course not. “Serving”. It is the Greek word diakonias. The feminine form of the word we translate deacon. She was being a deacon/servant.
We are told that we should serve one another (Gal. 5:13). Jesus had commanded His disciples to serve one another and gave a good example when He washed their feet.
What Martha did was a “good” thing, so what was the problem? It simply was NOT the BEST thing to do at this point in time.
We are told that Mary “chose what is better”, the good part, which means decided to do the “better” or “best” thing. Mary made a choice. She knew there were other things that needed to be done, but she purposely didn’t do those things. Instead, she went and sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to what He had to say.
I can’t think of anything better than for a disciple to be sitting at the feet of Jesus getting every word that He spoke, so I think “best” or “better” is the best meaning behind “good part”.
Martha chose to serve the Lord, but that wasn’t the best thing to do at that time. She could have “sat at His feet” too. However, she chose to do other things instead. She was busy with good things that needed to be done, just not right then.
It is a lot easier to be a Martha than a Mary. At least we find that to be true in our own life. There are always what seems like a billion things to do, and we don’t have much time to sit and listen to God.
It is easy to get busy like Martha and not “sit at the feet of Jesus” like Mary.
We need to “get close to Christ, sit at His feet and listen to His words”.
We need to prioritise in our life and put the Lord first and be on watch for anything, even good things that might distract us from the Lord. We need to apply this in our homes and lives.
We need to make our relationship with the Lord our number ONE priority.
We need to be careful not to let “things”, “people” or “activities” get in the way of sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to His words.
I sometimes see Christians who are busy as “bees” or “ants”. Many Christians are going and doing all of the time, but are too busy to pray, read, study and meditate on God’s Word, attend worship services, etc…
Who are we more like: Mary or Martha? How have our priorities been the past years?
We should pray as we need to make changes in our life. Maybe we need to reassess our priorities or get rid of some of those things that keep us so busy so we can sit at the feet of Jesus.
Maybe we aren’t even sure what changes we need to make but we know one thing for sure, we have been more like Martha than Mary for so long. Most probably the church has been busy with doing good things and disregarding the better, sitting down at the feet of the Lord and listening to what He has to say. It is time for us, for the Church, to choose the better. If we do, then the Lord will say you have chosen the better option.
Amen!