Martha and Mary and Marvin

Perhaps you have heard the story from the Bible about Mary and Martha.  It goes like this: Jesus and his disciples were out traveling.  They came to a village and Martha, a woman who lived in the village, opened her home to the disciples for them to rest and have some food.  Martha busied herself with all the preparations that came with hosting Jesus and a dozen of his closest followers. With these unexpected guests, she was running around trying to get the house cleaned and straightened up and cook a decent meal for her guests.  Meanwhile Mary, Martha’s sister, simply sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to what Jesus had to say.  Martha got super upset with Mary and then asked Jesus to tell Mary to stop sitting around and help!

Jesus calmly responds, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.  Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41-42).

I have always found that I am more of a Martha.  I tend to focus more on tasks and getting things done.  I would much rather be in the kitchen cooking and cleaning than in the living room entertaining guests.  On the surface level, there’s nothing really wrong with this, but not remembering the deeper message of this story can get us in big trouble.

This week I got a “Mary/Martha perspective check”.

It was a long week of desperately trying to get done everything that needed to get done at work.  I’m usually able to put my daily “to-do” reminder lists on post-it notes, but this week a full size legal pad was necessary for my “to-do” list.  Every day, I was acutely aware of how I was just barely keeping my head above water. 

Friday came around and the list was getting shorter, but was still too lengthy for comfort.  I immersed myself in work on Friday with the sole goal of being able to cross things off the list and be able to head into the weekend without too much work hanging over my head.

Then a little after lunch my phone rang.  I picked up the phone and a friendly gentleman greeted me.  He didn’t say his name right away, so it took me a moment to figure out who it was.

But then I recognized his voice.  It was Marvin, one of the homeless men who stay at my church each Wednesday evening.  I have gotten to know Marvin and we usually chat a bit each Wednesday night about what we had been up to over the past week.   

Our phone conversation wasn’t more than a couple of minutes, but in those minutes Marvin gave me a perspective check without realizing he did so.  Marvin didn’t call for any reason in particular- he just called to say hello and wish me a blessed day.  But he said something that made me realize how much I of a “Martha” I was this last week.  He told me that he saw me on Wednesday evening, but it looked like I was “on a mission” and busy so he didn’t try to get my attention to say “hi”.

I had been too busy to stop for even one moment and say “hello” to Marvin. 

I felt ashamed and guilty that I had let all the little (and not so little) work tasks take over my thinking and doing and had become so completely consumed by these tasks that I couldn’t be bothered to do something that wasn’t on my to-do list.

I had been worried and even upset about trying to get all my work done, but in that moment Wednesday evening (and perhaps at other moments in this past week) I needed to be more like Mary.  I needed to recognize the one thing that was truly needed.  I should have taken the time to at least say “hello” to Marvin.  If Jesus had been sitting there instead of Marvin, I can’t say with confidence that I would have even noticed.  Ultimately, I failed to love God and serve God through loving and serving the least of these brothers and sisters of Jesus (Matthew 25:40).

Yes, there are tasks that need to be done.  I do need to do my work.  But the minute that doing things on my “to-do” list consumes me so much that I can’t even stop one second to say “hi” to a person who has shown me great kindness is the minute I need to find a better balance.  Figuring out how to regain a better balance and actually re-balancing is a whole other story, but at the very least I hope start to better recognize when I’m being too much of a Martha.