Quit picking on Martha.

She changed. Give the girl some credit. Yes she was guilty of asking Jesus to nag her sister Mary to get off her butt and help her. At virtually every women’s retreat or conference we get to hear references to how Mary had chosen the better way, with the implication that practically minded people are less spiritual somehow.

I have a friend with a gift of service who becomes upset by referrals to Jesus’ apparent criticism of Martha. She says, “Well somebody’s got to get dinner on the table. It ain’t gonna get there by itself!”

It strikes me now that perhaps Jesus was not chiding Martha for fussing in the kitchen, but because she hadn’t asked him what he wanted. It’s not that he didn’t appreciate her contribution or that Jesus liked Mary’s personality more. I wonder if  his “Martha, Martha, tsk tsk” remark was because Martha’s contribution at that occasion was really about her priorities and not his. Maybe he had already eaten.

I did this. I made my hubby a “special gift” dinner of barbequed ribs — mostly because I had a craving for barbequed ribs. When I called him for dinner he said, “But I’m not eating.” I was kind of mad about that, with all the extra work involved and everything. This all-day recipe involved slow roasting the ribs on a rack over a certain liquid in the turkey roaster and then concocting a “secret” sauce (which was freely floating around the internet) and then finishing them on the barbeque.

He said, “I told you yesterday that I was fasting today. Didn’t you hear me?”

When I thought about it I sort of remembered him telling me, but I guess I wasn’t really paying attention.

Many times people have gone out of the way to do hospitality/entertaining right for us, but because of allergies and calorie restrictions we can’t eat the things they slaved over. I’ll never forget our first Christmas season after we were married. This was when we realized the combined social obligations to two extended families needed review. We were foolish enough to try to attend four turkey dinners within 24 hours. By the time we waddled in to Aunt Maude’s (the fourth engagement) jellied salad was extruding from our ears. Her hair was frizzed and waving in the air from guarding over a boiling pot of pyrogies when she expressed indignation that we barely touched her masterpiece trifle, not to mention that one of us (no names) had spilled punch on her freshly stripped and re-waxed rumpus room floor.

I once spent a couple of hours of a family weekend “trapped” in the kitchen churning out squares and goodies, while everyone else played games, because I was taught that this was what was required of a good hostess (even though I couldn’t eat ANY of it and rather resented having to do it all by myself). Most of it was hardly touched because people don’t indulge in sweets like they used to. I felt unappreciated –and they said they missed me at the Trivial Pursuit table. A bowl of peanuts was really all they wanted .

So often we do things to try to honour God because someone has told us this is the proper way to do it, this is how worship is done, but we forget to listen and pay attention to what HE wants. Sometimes he doesn’t want a big worship music/dance/drama production with sets and full orchestra. If  He doesn’t intervene when the lead singer gets laryngitis or the power goes out half-way through we get upset and say, “But Lord, why didn’t you answer our prayers for help? All this was to glorify you!” And he says, “Oh, really?”

Sometimes he merely wants us to sit down quietly beside him and listen –and pass the peanuts.

But here’s the thing; Martha DID learn to listen. In John 11, where we are told the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, this phrase stood out to me: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and  Lazarus.”

Martha. Martha and her sister, not Mary and her sister.

And the following conversation gives a big clue about faith and the working of miracles:

“If only you had been here, Lord,” said Martha, “my brother would never have died. And I know that, even now, God will give you whatever you ask from him.”

 “Your brother will rise again,” Jesus replied to her.

 “I know,” said Martha, “that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

 “I myself am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus told her. “The man who believes in me will live even though he dies, and anyone who is alive and believes in me will never die at all. Can you believe that?”

 “Yes, Lord,” replied Martha. “I do believe that you are Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into the world.”

It was Martha who had the insight that Jesus was the Christ. She listened.  She learned.  She changed.

People talk about Peter’s great revelation when he made a similar statement and he ended up with a huge cathedral in the middle of Rome with his name on it because of that moment.

What did Martha get? She got to see Jesus do what Jesus does, raise our dead hopes and show us what true life in him is all about.

Give the girl some credit.

Faith: it’s a good thing.