The Good Portion

“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? Tell her then to help me’”
(Lk 10:38-40).

I think about Mary and Martha a lot.

When I came running to Christ, at nearly 41 years of age, I was terrified. I’d been in and out of church all my life. I’d had spurts of religious fervor followed by disastrous descents into the abyss of sin and darkness. But this time felt different. For the first time, I’d come to recognize the kindness and patience God had expressed toward me. For the first time, I’d recognized that I was the problem. There was no one to blame for my own sin but me. For the first time I’d caught a glimpse of how wicked I was, and how evil sin really is. And for the first time I wanted more than anything to leave it behind. I wanted to be made new, a brand new person created in the image of Christ. I prayed to God, not fully knowing what I meant: “Please, give me a new heart.”

But how could I know for certain that God would accept me this time, after so many false starts and so many betrayals? How could I know I hadn’t come too late, or that there was no sacrifice for sin left for me? And if God would accept me, how could I be sure I wouldn’t fall away again, as I had so many times before? 

I prayed, and I dragged my sinful self back to church. Dying of hunger and thirst, desperate for the bread of life and for a drink of living water, I cornered just about anyone who would listen to me. In retrospect I can see how I must have looked, so frightened, so earnest, and always just a few words away from tears. I was as needy as a soul could be and I knew it. Like Mary, Martha’s sister, I wanted nothing but to sit at the feet of Jesus. If I could have, like Mary, I’d have washed his feet with my tears.

My experiences as a new believer in church were a mixed bag. There were precious few women (let alone men) willing or equipped to take on such an earnest mess as me. Thankfully, someone thought to pair me up with the woman who would turn out to be my first and best Christian friend. She was desperate like me. Perfect. She was a little farther down the path with Christ than me. Also perfect. She and I clung to each other in a sea of people who seemed uneasy and unsure of what to do with such intensely hungry and thirsty women. Together, we searched for places where we would feel welcome to sit at Jesus’ feet—and be taught by his Word.

And this is when I begin to think of Martha. But before I say more, I want to be clear that I’m not going to pick on Martha. The apostle John tells us that “. . .  Jesus loved Martha and her sister [Mary] and Lazarus” (Jn 11:5). Jesus loved Mary enough to intervene on her behalf, and he loved Martha enough to correct her, lest she lose sight of what she, too, needed most: 

“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’” (Lk 10:41-42).

Since coming to Christ, very little of the “women’s ministry” I’ve encountered has been designed to ensure that God’s daughters are sitting at the feet of the Savior. Far too much has looked like Martha on that day when she missed the point and was more concerned with putting on a well-managed event than with being taught by the Savior. Are we called to serve? Of course. We all are (men and women). But if Martha had been serving out of the joy of knowing Christ, she certainly wouldn't have been judging her sister for not being in "her place." In fact, as Jesus said, she would have chosen “the good portion” and joined her sister in sitting at the feet of Jesus and feasting on God's grace. Yes, there is a time and place in the church for serving tables, but it should never, ever, be at the expense of the ministry of the Word. Rather, it should support the ministry of the Word.

The other grave weakness I’ve encountered in women’s ministries is that when women who, like Mary, do show up eager to learn, they far too often find themselves directed to sit at the wrong feet. They get fed, but not from the Word of God. They are not served “pure spiritual milk” (1 Pt 2:2), and certainly not “solid food . . . for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Heb 5:14). What Scripture they do manage to ingest is torn from its context and divorced from the transformative power of Christ and his gospel. Though they feel like they’ve eaten, they come away weak and easy prey for “those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:6-7).

So often I think of the wasted years of my life and wonder how different it might have been if, during my early bouts of religious fervor, I had been directed to sit at the feet of Jesus rather than the feet of so many others. Only in his Word, in the 66 books breathed by his Spirit, can we come to understand the heinousness of sin and the glory of God’s plan of redemption. Only there will we find “the power of God for salvation” (Rm 1:16) which is the gospel of Jesus Christ. “All Scripture,” Paul tells us, “is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man [or woman] of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

This is why I’m so devoted to teaching women—both Marys and Marthas—the Scriptures. And this is why I want more than anything for the Word of Christ to be central to every single thing we women (and men) do here at Living Hope. My hope and prayer is that each and every one of us will choose “the good portion.”

“Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal”
(Jn 6:27).